In a rare case, an employer has been prosecuted and fined for workplace health and safety breaches after high levels of the hazardous substance lead were detected in the blood of four of its workers.
An employer that failed to take steps to avoid very obvious safety risks has had its safety fine more than doubled on resentencing, over an incident demonstrating the legislative requirement to pair high level controls with proactive training and supervision.
Most Australian employers in a high-hazard industry are aware of the need to train workers on WHS issues like harassment and bullying, but many deliver this training through single, isolated sessions that are known to have little impact, a series of workshops and interviews with safety professionals has found.
An appeals court has criticised an employer's attempts to block an incapacitated worker's injury claim after his first claim was stymied by a technicality, saying it would be "perverse" to accept the employer's arguments and calling on decision makers to respect the objectives of compensation laws.
A government employer failed to have proper regard to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare system when it refused to authorise a worker's sick leave, a court has found.
A worker's "cruel and menacing" comments about a co-worker, in a private Teams chat with a third colleague, posed a "serious and imminent risk to the safety of the co-worker", a commission has ruled.