A company officer who took few steps to ensure workers could recognise and control safety risks, so they could respond safely to changes to their regular tasks, has been convicted and fined heavily over the crush death of a worker at a client site.
The coronavirus pandemic poses major health risks to frontline workers, but other less obvious serious safety issues will arise from pandemic-related job insecurity and prolonged teleworking, a leading Australian occupational and environmental physician has warned.
A major employer's safety fine has been nearly quadrupled to $110,000, with an appeals court finding its culpability was increased rather than mitigated by the misconduct of a "rogue" supervisor, who seriously injured a non-employee.
A PCBU and its director have been fined a total of $385,000, and handed training orders, after a worker was killed by an unsecured hose, with a court finding the director failed to ensure his company had the necessary resources to comply with WHS laws.
With many workers being forced to work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, employers are being warned about Australia's complacency around fire safety and smoke alarm compliance.
A woman whose working-from-home hours stretched beyond her scheduled nine-to-five work time was in the course of employment when she was killed by her partner, an appeals court has confirmed.
Managers in senior WHS roles and other statutory positions will be the only fly-in-fly-out workers permitted to enter Queensland under a new coronavirus control plan. Meanwhile, mining giants BHP and Fortescue have revealed their latest strategies for protecting personnel from the pandemic.
The step-downs provisions of Australian workers' comp schemes are touted as a return-to-work incentives, but have been marginally successful at best, and can lead to self-sabotaging decisions by injured workers, public health experts have found.
The substantive proceedings for a worker's claim that he developed dementia as a result of witnessing a traumatic fatality have been given the go-ahead, with a judge allowing him to appoint a litigation guardian.
