Inadequate guarding and lack of roll-over protection contribute to more than a third of work-related fatalities associated with unsafe plant or equipment design, a new Safe Work Australia report has found.
An employer that failed to assign a spotter for a hazardous task has been convicted of OHS breaches, with the NSW District Court yesterday rejecting its claim that a worker's injury wasn't foreseeable because a similar incident had never occurred.
An employer has been fined a total of $225,000 in two separate judgments - involving NSW's old and new safety legislation - for failing to ensure two employees working near conveyor belts could reach an emergency stop switch.
An employer that failed to include a risk-response process in a machine's standard operating procedure has been fined nearly $50,000, after a worker was dragged into the machine and suffered severe leg fractures.
A worker whose back injury resulted from repetitive manual tasks has been denied damages, after the Queensland District Court found there was no evidence that any wrongful act or omission by her employer contributed to her condition.
Victorian employers have been fined nearly $500,000 after an excavator operator was killed in a landslide, and other incidents, while a man has been fined for obstructing safety inspectors.
BHP Billiton is tackling the risks associated with carcinogenic diesel exhaust by redesigning equipment in consultation with manufacturers, and introducing a combination of high and lower order controls, according to its 2014 sustainability report.
Workers' comp Bill clarifies cross-border conundrum in ACT; Employer breached terms of high-risk licence exemptions; and Alerts issued after high-risk work incidents.
