Employers will be forced to make quickfire decisions on right-of-entry disputes, under recent amendments to the Queensland WHS Act, according to workplace health and safety lawyers.
A major employer has failed, on appeal, to reduce an injured worker's weekly benefits to nil during its annual shutdown on the basis that she would not have been paid had she not been injured.
> WHS Amendment Bill bypasses health privacy laws in NSW; > WHS regulators issue warnings after lion attack, other incidents; > Qld announces workers' comp premium rate for 2020-21; and > Labour-hire licensing scheme narrowed in SA.
A worker who was injured by a five-second recreational activity on a work trip has been blocked from pursuing her case in an appeals court, in a decision examining the interaction of injury and industrial relations laws.
A Queensland PCBU that failed to address the obvious risks posed by mobile plant as its business grew has become the first Australian entity to be convicted of industrial manslaughter. Its two young directors, who lied about the cause of a worker's death, were handed suspended prison sentences for reckless conduct spanning nearly 17 months.
A coronial inquest has found a major workplace's "grossly deficient" record keeping was the main cause of a worker's asphyxiation death, and referred the actions "or inactions" of the manager allegedly responsible for updating the relevant records to a safety regulator for further investigation.
> PCBU enters $770k EU after crane failure on 51st floor; > WHS fees waived under NSW's COVID-19 stimulus package; > Fatality and other incident alerts issued in five jurisdictions; and > New ACT WHS Commissioner appointed.
In this latest edition of our long-running quarterly update series, OHS Alert reviews all the key WHS news from the first three months of 2020, including everything you need to know on the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings on Dreamworld's dismal safety systems, caselaw from all jurisdictions, and legislative changes.
