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.
A major work health and safety Bill has passed in Queensland, with amendments aimed at facilitating a plan that could extend industrial manslaughter provisions to bystander deaths, and ensure multiple duty holders can be charged with manslaughter after a fatality.
A PCBU has successfully paused the operation of a WHS notice by arguing such a step will not affect the safety of workers or others, and that in the absence of a stay, it could be forced to overhaul its safety management system unnecessarily.
A company director who bullied a subcontractor for four years, and abused him for raising safety concerns to do with the COVID-19 pandemic, has been convicted of workplace health and safety contraventions.
The final PCBU to be sentenced in relation to the December 2019 Whakaari volcanic eruption, which killed 22 tourists and workers, failed to relay critical risk information, which only it possessed, to its contractors, a court has found.
A local council's innovative contractor management system (CMS) has dramatically improved its safety communication and messaging processes and compliance activities, a spokesperson has revealed.
The fine imposed on an employer that failed to fully implement a mandatory safety measure, because it ran out of the required materials, has been increased more than five-fold on appeal, with a judge stressing penalties must be significant enough to dissuade others from "cutting corners".
A PCBU should have ensured the safety procedures in its paper systems were put into practice and checked and maintained, to prevent a worker being pinned between a wall and a crane load, a court has found.
A company and its director have been fined $420,000, after the latter identified serious safety issues at a site but failed to act to prevent a worker's seven-metre fall. Another PCBU has already been fined $300,000 over the fall.
A company has been found liable to pay death benefits to the dependents of an uninsured contract worker who suffered a fatal heart attack while performing "light" work at the site of one of the company's clients.