Workplace safety incidents involving particularly concerning behaviour, or new or emerging risks, are likely to trigger the push for additional WHS orders against prosecuted PCBUs, the 23rd World Congress on Safety and Health at Work has heard.
A worker who became the sole director of a company in mysterious circumstances, and played no role in its running, has been fined $120,000 for breaching his WHS due diligence duties, after a teenage apprentice fell 12 metres.
An employer has been convicted of category-3 WHS breaches for failing to monitor a labour-hire worker's tasks at a placement, where he was injured performing work outside of the scope of his experience.
A PCBU has been fined $450,000 after a worker sustained serious injuries in an area of its site depicted as a "safe zone", 12 months after an almost identical incident occurred.
Qantas Ground Services Pty Ltd has been found guilty of engaging in unlawful discriminatory conduct against an elected health and safety representative during the emergence of COVID-19, with a judge ruling that consultation failings on the HSR's part did not invalidate his cease-work directions or help Qantas's defence.
A major employer could have identified and eliminated a "blind spot" in its WHS systems by proactively seeking to improve its processes, a judge has ruled in sentencing the company.
A PCBU that delegated its duty to enforce safety measures to a contractor, despited hearing that the circumstances at the relevant job site were a "nightmare", has been fined $300,000 over a worker's seven-metre fall.