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• WHS Code remade with significant changes in Qld; and
  
• Qld reveals workers' comp premium rate for 2021-22.

Merging an organisation's occupational health management and corporate social responsibility frameworks can help it comply with its health and safety duties and maintain standards along supply chains, researchers say.

In an often "childlike" sham, a local council contractor was able to direct $1.6 million to his own IT company after submitting a tender for IT work with a copied OHS policy, which included clearly irrelevant references to agricultural activities like "windmill maintenance", the Victorian Ombudsman has found.

Employers have been reminded of the carcinogenicity of welding fumes and their duty to keep on top of the latest health and safety developments, with a WHS regulator releasing details of a project examining fume exposure levels and control measures.

A trauma-informed response mechanism and a "serious incident team" should be established to cover critical gaps in the ability of Commonwealth parliamentary workplaces to respond to serious incidents, a review prompted by the alleged rape of a staffer has found.

NSW's WHS regulations are being amended to mandate PPE and safety induction training for gig economy riders, but the State Government has been accused of shielding "Silicon Valley behemoths" and blaming workers for a string of fatalities.

A major employer has lost its latest bid to compel workers to undertake a new work procedure involving "incredibly" remote risks, in a case highlighting the onus on employers to show their processes can ensure safety "so far as is reasonably practicable".

An employer has been ordered to pay nearly $1.5 million in damages to a worker with white finger syndrome, for allowing him to operate machinery with dangerous vibration levels for far more hours per shift than advised by engineers and safety guidelines.

A PCBU and an officer have been convicted and fined for their inadequate safety systems, which failed to protect a worker from a falling truck load that had been packed poorly by another company. The worker sustained fatal injuries.

An employer is not liable for a worker being urinated on by an intoxicated colleague, but companies do have a safety duty to protect personnel from "unpleasant" interactions in accommodation facilities, a superior court has found.