A new Code of Practice will help duty holders protect the mental health of fly-in-fly-out workers in the resources and construction sectors, but can be applied to other industries, the draft document says. Meanwhile, a regulator has launched a proactive inspection program for scaffolding across Western Australia.
A coronial inquest into a worker's death has pointed to the differing expectations of safety regulators, and the fact that one's policy on "generational" change could be exposing the current generation of workers to "risks that legally should not exist".
A PCBU that failed to engage a competent person to modify equipment has been fined $200,000, after a manager was killed in an explosion, while a company that failed to implement a safety policy for lone workers has been ordered to compensate a killed worker's family.
The Fair Work Commission has highlighted the importance of employers adhering to appropriate Australian Standards for drug testing, in upholding a company's dismissal of a worker who tested positive for cannabis.
A supervisor who failed to provide safe access to a workplace has been charged with a category 2 breach of the WHS Act, after a FIFO worker drowned, while two companies have been charged over an incident involving inherited safety procedures and head injuries.
A repeat offender's work health and safety fine has been more than doubled on appeal, with a superior court finding the consequences of its breaches could have been catastrophic.
A worker "caught up in a series of unfortunate events", like being accused of conspiring with her husband to bomb an Australian consulate and threatened by police in Zimbabwe, has been awarded workers' compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder.
