Browsing: Work at heights | Page 8

• 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.

A senior judge has described the ongoing spate of injuries and deaths in the roofing industry as "carnage", adding that the vast majority of incidents could have been avoided by using simple "well-known and effective safety precepts".

A PCBU that unsuccessfully battled against its "prolix" WHS charges been fined $425,000, in relation to an incident where a confined-space worker fell into perlite powder and died from suffocation.

The start dates for a range of new WHS clauses have been postponed in Western Australia, while a Bill providing presumptive compensation to certain workers with PTSD has been reintroduced in South Australia.

A company and its sole director, who failed to take specific steps to protect workers from falling, have received significantly reduced fines, because of the director's inexperience and the company's limited capacity to pay penalties.

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount WHS fine of $600,000, after a worker suffered fatal head injuries in an incident involving an unsafely modified work box and a forklift operated by an inexperienced apprentice.

The mother of a young worker impaled on a steel rod has been awarded more than $200,000 for post-traumatic stress linked to the incident, while her son has been awarded $520,000, and two negligent companies have been ordered to foot most of the bill.

A WHS prosecutor has been given the green light to pursue a business that was charged with recklessly causing a patron's death, but is now in liquidation, with a court finding the case isn't blocked by corporations laws.

A PCBU and its director have failed to overturn their WHS recklessness penalties of $500,000 and suspended jail time, with a superior court highlighting the director's failure to exercise due diligence and his high moral culpability.