Browsing: Work at heights | Page 7

An employer that was effectively forced, by a judge's erroneous ruling on a fatality, to plead guilty to breaching regulations for high-risk work, has been fined $420,000 after a retrial, saving it $430,000 in penalties.

A judge has rebuked a PCBU for claiming a WHS regulator should have done more to educate operators like it in an emerging sector, finding the PCBU "clearly" failed to keep abreast of its safety duties, and fining it $180,000 over a four-metre fall.

An employer has been fined $360,000 after a worker fell nine metres from a roof and sustained severe injuries, in a case that compelled the sentencing judge to repeat his warning about an industry's workplace health and safety "carnage".

One of three PCBUs charged over a double fall - an incident that has already attracted $800,000 in fines - has escaped a reckless conduct conviction, in a ruling on its duty to labourers it referred to another company.

• PCBU risks higher WHS fine with court challenge; and
  
• PTSD and cancer amendments take effect in WA.

A company has been charged with workplace manslaughter, attracting a maximum fine of more than $18 million, for allegedly engaging in negligent conduct that caused the death of a worker performing a task unrelated to its daily operations.

A commission full bench has affirmed an earlier ruling revoking a WHS regulator's improvement notice issued to a site's principal contractor after a fatal fall.

Simple "how to" WHS Codes of Practice will be developed under an accepted recommendation from a major inquiry into a spike in agricultural fatalities, which identified risks created by COVID-19, unsuitable imported machinery and industrial manslaughter laws.

• Employer sentenced to undertaking after scaffolding collapse; and
  
• New WHS regulator, healthy workplace service for employers announced.

A local council that failed to conduct the proper checks before authorising a company, with a dismal safety record, to operate an amusement device at a festival, has been penalised for consultation contraventions relating to an incident where 12 people, mainly children, fell from heights of up to 12 metres.