Browsing: Work at heights | Page 8

A company has been charged with workplace manslaughter, attracting a maximum fine of more than $18 million, for allegedly engaging in negligent conduct that caused the death of a worker performing a task unrelated to its daily operations.

A commission full bench has affirmed an earlier ruling revoking a WHS regulator's improvement notice issued to a site's principal contractor after a fatal fall.

Simple "how to" WHS Codes of Practice will be developed under an accepted recommendation from a major inquiry into a spike in agricultural fatalities, which identified risks created by COVID-19, unsuitable imported machinery and industrial manslaughter laws.

• Employer sentenced to undertaking after scaffolding collapse; and
  
• New WHS regulator, healthy workplace service for employers announced.

A local council that failed to conduct the proper checks before authorising a company, with a dismal safety record, to operate an amusement device at a festival, has been penalised for consultation contraventions relating to an incident where 12 people, mainly children, fell from heights of up to 12 metres.

A senior judge has described the ongoing spate of injuries and deaths in the roofing industry as "carnage", adding that the vast majority of incidents could have been avoided by using simple "well-known and effective safety precepts".

A PCBU that unsuccessfully battled against its "prolix" WHS charges been fined $425,000, in relation to an incident where a confined-space worker fell into perlite powder and died from suffocation.

The start dates for a range of new WHS clauses have been postponed in Western Australia, while a Bill providing presumptive compensation to certain workers with PTSD has been reintroduced in South Australia.

A company and its sole director, who failed to take specific steps to protect workers from falling, have received significantly reduced fines, because of the director's inexperience and the company's limited capacity to pay penalties.

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount WHS fine of $600,000, after a worker suffered fatal head injuries in an incident involving an unsafely modified work box and a forklift operated by an inexperienced apprentice.