Browsing: Authority/inspectorate (VIC) | Page 4

• Workplace exposure standard for fumes slashed today;
  
• Vic responds to fumes amendment with tips for employers; and
  
• Comcare warns of big fines, reveals manslaughter start date.

A company director has been convicted and fined for a string of "disturbing" acts of bullying against two apprentices, including at a work Christmas party. A court found his company's safety failings were solely attributable to him.

Employers have been urged to identify all powerlines at their workplaces, including around entry and exit points, after a company was convicted and fined over an electrocution. Employers have also been warned about the presence of asbestos in workplace fire doors, following exposure incidents.

An employer that required employees to access a machine by moving under it and opening heavy doors that swung down has been convicted and fined $200,000, after the doors fell and struck a worker, causing permanent brain injuries. Another employer has been fined for contraventions that included leaving keys in forklifts, facilitating unauthorised use.

• Safety fine quadrupled after expert submission on dust; and
  
• New WHS clauses and Codes being enforced in ACT.

• NSW releases WHS tips for Xmas stress, reviews more Codes;
  
• Assessment tool encouraged in NT's draft psychosocial Code; and
  
• Vic injury Bill passes LA without premium-freeze proposal.

• WHS minister reveals plan to push for engineered stone ban;
  
• Silica phase of "Clean Lungs" campaign launched; and
  
• Energy Australia Yallourn accused of more safety breaches.

A Victorian company that pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering an apprentice, while he was being supervised by the company director, has been fined $2.1 million - a penalty that is more than double the State's previous record safety fine for a single offence.

A company that was prosecuted, over a high-profile fatality, for breaching its safety duties as a supplier of plant, has unsuccessfully argued that its $400,000 penalty was excessive because it had no control over the location of workers when the incident occurred.

Workers' comp claims for "stress" and "burnout" are being axed in Victoria, with the State Government acting on its May 2023 plan to fix the "broken" compensation scheme by cutting benefits.