Browsing: Authority/inspectorate (SA) | Page 5

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount penalty of $300,000, after its "unexplained disregard" for guarding requirements led to the amputation of five of a teenage worker's fingers. Meanwhile, a repeat offender's latest safety fines have been increased significantly, after a regulator appealed.

A WHS regulator has revealed that it has received hundreds of complaints about the conditions of workplace toilets, and highlighted the association between substandard facilities and poor safety outcomes.

• WHS laws around hazardous crane lifts explained; and
  
• Safety enforcement action captures company profits.

A court has warned against undertaking "cursory" safety inspections for height work, in finding a PCBU's WHS breaches, relating to a fatal fall, warranted a $500,000 penalty.

A PCBU is installing a GPS tracking and vehicle immobilisation system to lock out unqualified crane operators, and training supervisors on geotechnical ground conditions, under a WHS undertaking involving a crane-toppling incident.

A range of WHS amendments, including some improving harmonisation, are set to follow the root-and-branch review of SafeWork SA, but they won't include the softening of an entry rule pertaining to health and safety representatives, with the State Government emphatically rejecting a recommendation around this area.

This major OHS Alert report reviews all the need-to-know workplace health and safety and workers' comp developments from the past few months, including the passage of game-changing Respect@Work laws, numerous WHS amendments, COVID rulings, a state-first workplace manslaughter charge, and a record-smashing reckless conduct fine.

• Everyday object causes numerous workplace fires; and
  
• Unused seatbelt linked to one of three recent work deaths.

An employer that obtains a special "benefit" from an employee's otherwise routine journey from home to work isn't necessarily liable if the employee is injured in an accident along the way, a tribunal has found.

A tribunal president has warned that "intolerable" wait times for specialist medical appointments are having a major adverse impact on workers' compensation disputes and systems, and referred the matter to a government minister.