Browsing: Authority/inspectorate (QLD) | Page 9

In a case providing an important reminder of the WHS duties around the interaction of paid workers and volunteers, a not-for-profit business has been fined over a forklift incident that broke a volunteer's pelvis and foot.

Legislation banning workers' compensation "claim farming" has passed Parliament, while a Bill increasing workplace protections for s-xual harassment victims and independent vehicle drivers has been introduced, and a mental health levy has been announced for large employers, across a busy few days in Queensland.

In the latest chapter of a long-running and acrimonious dispute between an employer and a union, an appeals court has rejected the former's renewed claim that the latter is not eligible to enter its premises to investigate suspected WHS contraventions.

A PCBU that was initially charged with the industrial manslaughter of a worker, whose role required him to perform manual tasks within touching distance of an unguarded conveyor, has been fined $250,000 under an alternative charge.

• WHS changes to follow Qld inquest into nine quad deaths; and
  
• Business charged with breaching safety duties to killed camper.

A company director who successfully overturned his fatality-related reckless conduct conviction and jailing has, along with his brother and two businesses, been fined over a similar WHS incident to the one that resulted in the death.

A company director who failed to ensure his organisation provided fall prevention measures to height workers has become the third entity to be fined over a five-metre fall, while a regulator has expressed frustration after yet another employer was fined for forklift-related breaches.

The chief executive officer of a Queensland company has been fined for failing, for a lengthy period of time, to exercise due diligence to ensure the company complied with its primary safety duty of care, before a worker was killed.

Another company officer has been handed a prison sentence in Queensland, this time for recklessly disregarding a worker's safety concerns in the minutes before a second worker slipped and sustained serious impalement injuries.

A court has rejected a PCBU's renewed claim that as it was merely a "consumer" of electricity, and used the services of qualified persons for electrical works, it did not have an electrical safety duty and was not responsible for a shock incident.