An employer ignored its own alternative "rehabilitative" paths to termination for alcohol and drug breaches, which, if applied, would "very likely" have prevented a worker's death, a coronial inquiry has found.
A worker could be jailed for up to five years, after being charged with recklessly endangering a colleague who was killed by a toppling forklift load. Meanwhile, a safety regulator has issued a special warning to "pranksters", after five workers sustained burns in a gas explosion.
A workplace supervisor who was initially charged with four counts of manslaughter, in relation to the deaths of four police officers in a road crash, could now be jailed for up to five years for a reckless breach of safety laws, with an appeals court reversing a decision to stay the recklessness case.
A PCBU breached its WHS duties by failing to alert an industrial complex's owners corporation or strata manager to the dangers posed by a damaged gate, which ultimately fell and killed a worker, a court has found in convicting and fining the PCBU $375,000.
A PCBU that responded to a WHS regulator's notice by implementing safety devices, but later removed them, has been fined $100,000 over an amputation incident. The same regulator has issued an alert after a similar incident that killed a worker.
