A company director who failed to ensure his organisation provided fall prevention measures to height workers has become the third entity to be fined over a five-metre fall, while a regulator has expressed frustration after yet another employer was fined for forklift-related breaches.
The chief executive officer of a Queensland company has been fined for failing, for a lengthy period of time, to exercise due diligence to ensure the company complied with its primary safety duty of care, before a worker was killed.
A commission has thrown out a worker's out-of-time challenge of her employer's refusal to exempt her from a COVID-19 vaccination directive. She claimed she couldn't have a vaccine because of her religious beliefs against abortion and other issues.
Another company officer has been handed a prison sentence in Queensland, this time for recklessly disregarding a worker's safety concerns in the minutes before a second worker slipped and sustained serious impalement injuries.
A court has rejected a PCBU's renewed claim that as it was merely a "consumer" of electricity, and used the services of qualified persons for electrical works, it did not have an electrical safety duty and was not responsible for a shock incident.
A business owner will spend at least 18 months in jail - a record under Australian workplace health and safety laws - after being found guilty of the industrial manslaughter of his friend, in a case highlighting the broad meaning of "worker".
A company and its director have been fined a total of $126,000, after their electrical safety contraventions were referred to a WHS prosecutor. Another company was recently fined for similar breaches, after an apprentice was nearly killed.
A WHS Code of Practice and regulations for elevated work platforms could be amended in Queensland, and the changes applied nationally, under recommendations from a coronial inquest into a renowned photographer's death.