The final quarter of 2023 was marked by wholesale WHS changes affecting all duty holders. This report examines the amendments, as well as changes to other laws and all the need-to-know caselaw from the period.
A local council has been fined over a lifeguard's electrical burns, in a case demonstrating that the risks and duties around overhead powerlines aren't limited to those in industries like construction and agriculture. Another employer has been fined over a WHS offence lasting 18 months.
A major organisation partly run by BHP has been fined $120,000 for undermining safety protections, and ordered to pay compensation to labour-hire personnel who were targeted after exercising their workplace rights over a dimly lit area and lightning storms.
A major employer has failed to block a safety directive, requiring it to take hundreds of vehicles out of action in certain electrical storms, by claiming the rule actually increases the risk of workers being struck by lightning.
Provisions for health and safety representatives and entry rights could be amended by a new Queensland WHS Bill, while a WHS blitz has found that every targeted business in one industry was breaching its health and safety obligations.
A PCBU previously prosecuted over a fatality, and a facilities manager who failed to manage the entrapment hazard posed by a disused stairwell, where a visitor died, have been fined for WHS contraventions in Queensland.
