Five Victorian employers have been fined for exclusion zone breaches and other safety failures, while a man has been convicted of workers' comp fraud. In Queensland, a company has been fined just $15,000 for a guarding breach, despite being prosecuted for similar offences twice before.
The Essendon Football Club has pleaded guilty to OHS charges relating to the 2011-12 supplements scandal, while the Supreme Court has granted a former player access to AFL documents to help him decide whether to sue the club and the AFL for exposing him to health and safety risks.
A coroner has recommended that a major employer regularly review its vehicle defect-reporting procedures, after finding its failure to fix a fault, which a worker had complained about, contributed to that man's death.
In this article, OHS Alert outlines recent safety and workers' comp developments from NSW, Western Australia, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Commonwealth jurisdiction.
A worker has failed to convince a judge that her employer knew she was suffering from depression when it disciplined her for performance issues because she sobbed throughout the disciplinary meeting.
A man who received workers' compensation while playing rugby for four years is one of three Victorian workers who have recently been charged with fraud and ordered to repay more than $130,000.
In a long-running workplace bullying dispute involving insulting Facebook posts and an employee "Code of Silence", the Fair Work Commission has ordered an employer to train managers in forensic investigative techniques and arrange meetings with a safety inspector.
Victoria has been given little time to enjoy its status as the "nation's safest state" - as indicated in a new Safe Work Australia report - with five workers being killed in a "horrifying" nine-day period.
