A major employer has been handed a pre-discount WHS penalty of $900,000, after a worker and a customer were engulfed in flames. The relevant Elgas Ltd safety instructions for personnel were inadequate because they were "scattered" throughout dozens of documents, a court found.
Six gig economy companies have been issued safety notices after a Sydney blitz revealed widespread non-compliance with WHS laws, with breaches including the absence of hi-vis gear and explicit health and safety instructions.
A PCBU that supplied harnesses for height work, but unlawfully relied on a subcontractor to provide safety instructions and supervision to workers, has been convicted and fined after the subcontractor "tragically" failed to use the harnesses, resulting in a fatal fall.
The national policy on enforcing WHS laws during the COVID-19 pandemic has been revised to define vaccinations as a "high order risk control measure". It also reminds employers of their duty to keep abreast of public health orders. Meanwhile, Western Australia has a new workplace health and safety minister.
An appeals court has rejected an employer's claim that it wasn't negligent in failing to instruct workers on a safe system of work or obvious risks because it would have been patronising to do so, given the workers' high level of experience.
Employers have been urged to boost their safety standards by maintaining a sense of "chronic unease", after a company and two individuals were convicted and fined over a young worker's death attributed to a workplace culture of complacency.
A principal contractor has become the second PCBU to be convicted over a powerlines explosion, with a court finding it failed to re-assess risks after conditions changed at the incident site.
