Browsing: Dangerous substances | Page 1

An employer is entitled to direct workers to remove their moustaches or beards to comply with safety policies and manage deadly risks, a commission has ruled in examining WHS laws.

• Emerging WHS risks targeted for world safety day;
  
• WHS clauses for stone ban clarified; and
  
• Passage of WA safety Bill ensures national consistency.

• COVID odd jobs end in health and safety conviction;
  
• Alarming glut of falls reported by regulator; and
  
• Carbon monoxide warning triggered by forklift death.

• WHS regulator to enforce anti-smoking clauses;
  
• Regulator sends exclusion-zone warning with animated recreation;
  
• New WHS Code of Practice adopted by Tas; and
  
• Body-worn cameras adopted permanently for NT inspectors.

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.

• Safety fines doubled to $10m under NSW asbestos Bill;
  
• Industrial manslaughter promised ahead of Tas election;
  
• Manslaughter jailings needed, says union after Vic fatality; and
  
• Ten WHS Codes amended for GHS 7 in SA.

An employer has pleaded guilty to 16 safety breaches and been hit with $545,000 in fines, including over fire safety failures that led to staff using a flammable liquid and cardboard instead of a fire extinguisher to put out a fire on a machine and on two workers.

The rate of work-related dermatitis has nearly doubled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a major review has identified two effective methods to prevent the "ubiquitous" skin condition.

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.

Five of the 13 entities charged over the New Zealand volcanic eruption that killed 22 tourists and workers in 2019 have been ordered to pay a total of $13 million in workplace safety fines and reparations, in a case providing a "catastrophic example" of what can happen when safety duties are ignored.