Queensland health and safety reps will be forbidden from halting unsafe work, unions will be hobbled by tighter entry rules, and maximum fines for electrical safety breaches will be 650 per cent higher, under a Bill introduced to the Queensland Parliament yesterday.
A toxic safety culture not only arises from inadequate processes and procedures, but when workers are cynical and "game-playing" surrounds the reporting of injuries, according to risk expert Robert Long.
Employers that rely heavily on contractors are being reminded of the expanded duty of care under the model WHS Act, after a study found most of Australia's biggest real estate and property companies include little or no safety information in company reports.
Company officers are required by the due diligence provisions of the model WHS Act to collect both "positive" and "negative" safety indicators, according to an occupational health, safety and security lawyer.
A Western Australian employer has lost its indemnity claim against a vehicle manufacturer and been ordered to pay an injured worker $800,000 in damages, after the District Court found a broken service door on a truck was its responsibility.
In a scathing judgment of the NSW Police Force's approach to OHS, the employer has been fined a total of $350,000 for its ninth conviction under workplace health and safety laws since 2002.
An ACT company director was reluctant to tell older workers how to use ramps to lift heavy objects because he thought he "would not have been well liked" if he did so, the Supreme Court has found in ordering the company to pay an injured worker $1.4 million in damages.
The employer of a worker who was killed while performing an amended task has been acquitted of safety breaches, while the principal contractor at the site - where four other workers were severely injured - has escaped one of its OHS charges.
Unions in New Zealand are calling for the introduction of corporate manslaughter laws, after all 12 safety charges laid against Pike River Coal's Australian CEO - relating to the November 2010 mine disaster that killed 29 workers - were withdrawn.
