Canberra businesses that contravene their WHS duties will be more likely to end up in court under a "hybrid" prosecutorial model championed by a WHS regulator. They also face hefty on-the-spot WHS fines under changes commencing today.
A company has been found guilty of safety breaches and fined $400,000, over a high-profile incident where a large bucket of concrete fell from a crane and killed a man working below the suspended load. Another employer has been fined $300,000 after a worker was struck by a forklift.
This major OHS Alert report reviews all the need-to-know workplace health and safety and workers' comp developments from the past few months, including the passage of game-changing Respect@Work laws, numerous WHS amendments, COVID rulings, a state-first workplace manslaughter charge, and a record-smashing reckless conduct fine.
A major supermarket's limited spill-control system - requiring workers to look out for spills and other hazards as they went about their normal jobs - "inevitably subordinated the detection" of hazards to the performance of other duties, an appeals court has found in a grape-slip case.
Safe Work Australia has released the 24th edition of its Comparative Performance Monitoring Report, which shows safety regulators in some jurisdictions are increasingly resorting to prohibition notices to shut down unsafe work.