Employers are now expected to take greater ownership of the WHS challenges posed by global supply chain pressures and changing technologies - an expectation that will be enforced by regulators under Australia's new 10-year WHS strategy, which identifies six key emerging issues.
Employers in the highly hazardous mining sector could be compelled to adopt better leading indicators of safety performance, subjected to more unannounced regulatory inspections, and targeted by new laws aimed at protecting workers who raise safety concerns, under recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry.
Three employers have been fined a total of nearly $1.5 million over an explosion and a structural collapse, including one company that failed to ensure customers transported dangerous goods in a safe manner, and a business that failed to properly instruct personnel on an unfamiliar work procedure.
A principal contractor has been convicted and fined over an incident where two workers were injured in a fall from an excavator bucket - an event that has already attracted a high-level WHS penalty and elicited an industry-wide warning from a judge.
A judge has referred one of his WHS rulings to a government minister, to highlight the prevalence of deaths and serious injuries from height work, and possibly inform legislative change.
Labour providers cannot rely on other companies to ensure the health and safety of their workers, a judge has stressed in fining a PCBU over two incidents (including a fatality) that occurred just weeks apart.
A crane supplier that was fined for safety breaches at a site, where one of its workers was killed, has failed to convince a superior court it had little control over the relevant activities. But the court ordered a retrial, finding a key matter was overlooked by all parties.
The prosecutions of a PCBU and an officer have sent a reminder to other duty holders that they must proactively guard against acts of carelessness or inattentiveness, including by specialist contractors.
Two companies, including one that failed to implement a mandatory rescue plan for excavation work, have been fined a total of $720,000, plus $35,000 in costs, in relation to the drowning of a worker in a trench.