Browsing: Contractors | Page 9

A judge has lamented that the height safety message from numerous WHS prosecutions is not getting through to duty holders, in handing a PCBU a pre-discount fine of $825,000 over an incident in which workers were directed to ride in an excavator bucket, before falling four metres.

• WHS discussions urged ahead of COVID changes; and
  
• Safety Bill amends new direct-employment provisions in Qld.

A judge has highlighted the concurrent WHS duties of PCBUs in fining a company for multiple contraventions, after a 700-kilogram load fell from a tower crane onto a poorly barricaded footpath and struck a worker, causing serious lifelong injuries.

An individual operating as a PCBU, who was found guilty of multiple WHS contraventions relating to a crane and powerlines incident that seriously injured two workers, has been fined just $15,000, despite facing a maximum total penalty of $600,000.

• Road death attracts plant-supply charge and fine; and
  
• Exposure limit for coal dust halved under model WHS laws.

A PCBU fined $170,000 for endangering "other persons", by allowing an unqualified labour-hire worker to perform high-risk cranage work, has lost its appeal against its conviction, with a bench rejecting is claim the task was outside the scope of its undertaking.

A WHS Code for accommodation facilities, and a regulatory unit with expertise in workplace harassment and assault, have been promised in response to a Western Australian inquiry, but the State Government has highlighted the "legal complexities" of creating a register of known offending workers.

A PCBU that "dismissed" warnings concerning the proximity of powerlines at a worksite has been fined $600,000, and ordered to fund a safety education video, after becoming the second entity to be convicted over a labourer's electric-shock death.

A union and three of its officers have been fined a total of nearly $500,000 for unlawful industrial action at a site, which included persisting with a stop-work meeting after safety concerns, to do with lighting on a stairway, were dismissed by a safety regulator.

Worksites will be required to remove offensive materials like sexist graffiti, and provide proper amenities for female workers, under a trial of an Australian-first "Culture Standard" in an industry notorious for high mental illness rates and physical injuries.