Employers in Victoria and South Australia have been fined a total of $420,000 for safety breaches, after one worker was fatally crushed by a falling steel beam, and another sustained serious arm injuries on a machine involved in an earlier breach.
Employers must not assume that a work method used for decades without incident is safe, the NSW IRC has ruled in fining three entities $116,000 over a fatality.
Draft stevedoring Code and wharf fatality report released; Asbestos guide released as national exposure register opens; and FWC expecting 3500 anti-bullying applications per year.
The NBN and home insulation safety scandals highlight the risks of relying on contractors to do the right thing on OHS, and a systemic failure to consider safety in public policy design, according to Norton Rose Fulbright partner Michael Tooma.
Nearly 20 major Australian employers have joined forces to develop a strategy aimed at reducing the country's high work-related road toll - and improving their bottom lines - by making the road transport system "more forgiving of human error".
ACT funds new safety inspectors as Qld locks in "competitive" premiums; Coalition confirms commitment to FWC bullying plan; and Warnings issued after outdoor workers killed in South Australia and Victoria.
Safe Work Australia members have agreed - for the second time in three months - to release the draft model Codes of Practice on the prevention of workplace bullying and stevedoring risks. The statutory agency has also finalised its cash-in-transit Code, and published a new notifiable fatalities report.
Federal Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten will introduce a Bill today to establish an asbestos register for workers and others who believe they could have been exposed to the material, while WorkCover NSW is investigating the death of a worker at an NBN rollout site.
