Browsing: Jurisdiction (NSW) | Page 166

A deceased worker's estate has been awarded $480,000 in death benefits, after a commission rejected his employer's claim that his use of illegal drugs contributed to the vehicle incident that killed him.

A NSW employer and its director have been ordered to pay more than $110,000 in fines and costs for illegally dumping asbestos and other waste, while another employer has been ordered to pay nearly $90,000 for exposing workers in a neighbouring industrial estate to harmful fumes. In Western Australia, an employer has been fined for allowing work to be performed with unsafe tools.

The NSW workers' compensation scheme is being overhauled to provide safe employers with premium discounts of up to 20 per cent, restore a number of worker benefits that were scrapped in 2012, speed up the dust diseases claim process, and replace WorkCover with three separate agencies.

In a long-running workers' comp dispute, the NSW Court of Appeal has stressed that not every activity an employer encourages a worker to undertake is work-related, and upheld an employer's appeal.

The authors of a $1.3 million study on quad bike stability have rejected "active riding" as a reliable rollover-prevention strategy, and found that no tested quads achieved better than three out of five stars under a proposed safety-rating system. Meanwhile, the Queensland Coroner has completed phase two of an inquest into nine quad bike fatalities.

A worker has successfully sued his brother's company for nearly $650,000 in damages for a back injury he sustained after the company failed to provide him with adequate mechanical assistance for manual tasks.

NSW has updated seven of its mirror WHS Codes of Practice to reflect changes that Safe Work Australia made to the model versions of the documents earlier this year.

• Harmonisation of explosives laws examined in SWA paper;
  
• Qld releases new safety guides and scaffold warning;
  
• WA releases draft isolation guide and safety alerts; and
  
• NSW tweaks rules on explosion-protected plant.

• FIFO rosters and motelling targeted at ALP conference;
  
• FIFO drug and alcohol helpline launched in WA; and
  
• Workers' comp tool for employers launched in NSW.

The parents of a worker who died in a car accident while driving from work to university have lost their appeal for death benefits, while a manager who sustained a psychological injury after being transferred has also been denied compensation on appeal.