A range of WHS amendments, including some improving harmonisation, are set to follow the root-and-branch review of SafeWork SA, but they won't include the softening of an entry rule pertaining to health and safety representatives, with the State Government emphatically rejecting a recommendation around this area.
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.
An employer that obtains a special "benefit" from an employee's otherwise routine journey from home to work isn't necessarily liable if the employee is injured in an accident along the way, a tribunal has found.
A tribunal president has warned that "intolerable" wait times for specialist medical appointments are having a major adverse impact on workers' compensation disputes and systems, and referred the matter to a government minister.
A PCBU has been fined $134,000, and it two directors $33,000 each, for failing to "comply with their basic obligations", after a young worker was pinned under 1.2 tonnes of steel sheets when parts of a structure collapsed.
A PCBU failed to take straightforward measures that would have protected a worker from being attacked by a client known to be violent, a tribunal has found in convicting the duty holder.
A worker's noise-induced hearing loss resulted from duties requiring her to regularly leave her laboratory and walk past noisy equipment, a tribunal has found.
