Browsing: Duty holders | Page 1

A company accused of failing to reassess risk controls, following "material deviations" from earlier assessments, has avoided prosecution by committing more than $1 million to safety initiatives, including a trial of autonomous inspection vehicles.

A commission has cautioned that society's "significantly raised" bar for what constitutes consent for physical interactions is "even higher" in work-related environments, in upholding the summary dismissal of a worker for inappropriately touching a colleague.

• WHS penalties increase significantly as ACT Bill passes; and
  
• HVNL amended by host jurisdiction.

• Workplace disasters often linked to ignored concerns: lawyer; and
  
• Incident notification requirements amended in Vic.

An employer has been found liable for a worker's Achilles injury and ordered to pay him damages, after it negligently failed to change the flat battery on a piece of powered mobile plant.

A company director charged over a forklift incident was recently cleared by a court of breaching his WHS due diligence duties. In this article, his lawyers explain the reasons behind the decision, and what it says about the reach of officers' safety obligations.

Glowing safety audit reports often precede major safety disasters, showing organisations need "loud" indicators to signal when audits are failing, an HSE leader says.

• Inquiry examining impact of AI on work intensity and rights;
  
• Workplace security measures targeted by WHS regulator;
  
• Haul trucks have the energy of 948km/h cars, employers warned;
  
• Safety Code remade for solar sector in Qld; and
  
• New Vic safety chief to oversee stone ban and scheme changes.

An employer's work system that required workers to step up onto a platform up to 80 times a day would have involved a breach of duty if an employee had been able to prove the system caused his injuries, a court has found in a case with a seizure and a fall.

A PCBU that was charged with fatality-related WHS breaches, before the case was dropped, appears remarkably lucky to have escaped prosecution, with a coroner identifying numerous safety problems with the machine that caused the death, and finding the killed worker was never provided with proper safety instructions.