Reporting a safety incident is as important as the incident itself, a commission has reaffirmed in ordering the reinstatement of a worker sacked for failing to report an allegedly unsafe driving incident. His failure to report was mitigated by the fact that his supervisor witnessed and recorded the event, the commission found.
Employers will be explicitly required to add "critical controls", as defined in international guidelines, to their safety management systems, under legislative amendments aimed at "facilitating the growth in high-reliability organisational (HRO) behaviour" in the resources sector.
A PCBU has been fined $450,000 for WHS breaches involving a worker being hit by a forklift, in a case that saw a director cleared of due diligence breaches.
An appeals court has confirmed that a step's defective non-slip strip, which was missed by safety inspections, remained in place through the negligence of two companies and caused a worker to fall, entitling him to more than $1 million in damages.
A company accused of failing to reassess risk controls, following "material deviations" from earlier assessments, has avoided prosecution by committing more than $1 million to safety initiatives, including a trial of autonomous inspection vehicles.
A commission has cautioned that society's "significantly raised" bar for what constitutes consent for physical interactions is "even higher" in work-related environments, in upholding the summary dismissal of a worker for inappropriately touching a colleague.
An employer has been found liable for a worker's Achilles injury and ordered to pay him damages, after it negligently failed to change the flat battery on a piece of powered mobile plant.
A company director charged over a forklift incident was recently cleared by a court of breaching his WHS due diligence duties. In this article, his lawyers explain the reasons behind the decision, and what it says about the reach of officers' safety obligations.
