A union and one of its officials have been handed fines totalling nearly $37,000, after a court found the latter made a frustrated comment that constituted a threat to the future career of a workplace health and safety manager.
All work processes where workers might be exposed to respirable silica will be considered high risk and subjected to tougher WHS regulations unless risk assessments prove otherwise, under one of a string of changes agreed by Australia's WHS ministers.
An appeals court has quashed a ruling that the WHS prosecution of a major company was invalid because of the process used to delegate the applicable regulatory powers. Meanwhile, a play centre has been charged with multiple safety breaches after a child fell seven metres.
An injured worker has lost his claim that under his rehabilitation plan, he should have been provided with subscriptions to health monitoring mobile phone apps, and language training software.
A full Federal Court has granted Comcare another chance to dispute liability for a worker's 45-year-old injury, agreeing that critical medical evidence showing his condition might have been "normal" by the mid-1980s was overlooked by a decision maker.
An appeals court has upheld the acquittals of two PCBUs charged over the hypothermia death of a helicopter pilot, confirming that the "cascading" series of WHS measures they allegedly failed to adopt were not reasonably practicable.
A worker who claims she suffers from pain arising from an accepted work-related repetitive strain injury (RSI) sustained four decades ago has been denied compensation for ongoing medical treatment.
The powers of elected health and safety representatives and protections against safety discrimination in the offshore sector have been stepped up and aligned with those in WHS laws, in a Bill introduced some six years after a parliamentary inquiry warned the changes were needed to combat a "culture of fear and reprisal".