A major employer has been handed significant WHS penalties in two jurisdictions, including for failing to properly respond to two previous workplace fires, which led to a contractor sustaining fatal injuries in a third fire.
In a long-running WHS case, involving a forklift fatality and a seemingly incongruous category 3 charge, a superior court has found a magistrate should have recused himself from the matter to avoid ruling on particulars of the charge that he himself drafted.
Residual current devices (RCDs) should be installed in all workplaces, regardless of the construction date, while defibrillators need to be more widely available, particularly at remote sites, an inquest into an electrocution has found.
A series of geotechnical and risk assessments commissioned by a mine operator, before three workers were killed in a six-week period at the mine, appeared to be directly relevant to the circumstances of one of the fatalities and it would be "absurd" to prevent a coroner viewing them, an appeals court has ruled in a high-profile case.
A coronial inquest has found a worker's death could have been prevented by simple and inexpensive actions like proactively maintaining personal protective equipment, which, among other things, sends a clear message to workers on the importance of using PPE.
Workers should never under any circumstances be put in a position where they are the "first line of defence" against approaching vehicles, a coronial inquest into the death of a traffic controller has warned.
An experienced worker was killed after he and a supervisor came up with an alternative work plan that was "contrary to established principles of workplace risk management", and made the outcomes of that morning's safety meeting obsolete, a coronial inquest has found.
