A second PCBU has been fined over the heat stress death of a worker, with a court finding it breached its duties as the entity in control of the workplace by failing to provide suitable rest areas or shade.
A coronial inquest into three fatalities at one workplace within six weeks has warned against using non-compliant platforms and requiring personnel to determine their own work and safety methods. It also found that it is "vital and necessary" to adhere to and audit hazard controls.
Two PCBUs, including a government department, have been convicted and fined over the deaths of a child and a carer in a traffic incident, which resulted from failures to pass on and acquire crucial up-to-date safety information.
The Australian Human Rights Commission has called for company boards and executive leadership teams to proactively seek assurances that their organisations are preventing s-xual harassment, improve reporting with harassment-specific metrics, and take harassment as seriously as other safety hazards.
Tackling workplace musculoskeletal disorders is often an uphill battle, but wearable technology can help organisations accurately identify and create safer ways of performing tasks, according to a high-profile sports physiotherapist.
A PCBU that contended it had never witnessed or heard of the possibility of a sequence of events, which killed one of its workers on a National Broadband Network site, has been convicted and fined $250,000, after a judge agreed that "the likelihood of the risk occurring was low".
As a union steps up its fight against proposed WHS amendments targeting NSW workers, European researchers have called for "legal co-responsibility" provisions to discourage employment arrangements that pressure workers to take safety risks on public roads.
Workplace safety laws and safety-bonus schemes are likely to be overhauled, with an inquiry into a methane explosion, which seriously injured five workers, finding a major company's gas control measures couldn't cope with its high production levels, and should have been subjected to greater scrutiny from the regulator.
A Commonwealth agency has been acquitted of WHS charges, on appeal, relating to the hypothermia death of a contract helicopter pilot. A court found a key measure the agency was accused of failing to implement was not reasonably practicable.