Browsing: Authority/inspectorate (NSW) | Page 7

A PCBU has successfully fought off allegations that it used false or misleading information to obtain an authorisation for a high-risk job and to disguise who was really performing the work.

With National Safe Work Month starting this week, employers are being urged to host SafeTea chats, focus on issues like mental health and workloads, and provide safer workplaces for women. Employers have also been warned to properly maintain their defibrillators.

The NSW Government has introduced WHS amendments tripling the maximum penalties for category-1 breaches, clarifying that officers can be prosecuted for recklessness, introducing "prohibited asbestos notices" with hefty non-compliance fines, and giving police certain enforcement powers under WHS laws.

A large employer has been found guilty of WHS offences, after a court rejected its claims that a worker was struck by falling 700kg objects because she deliberately breached a work practice passed on through a buddy system.

• Company charged with endangering customers, after fatality;
  
• Inspectors issue hundreds of WHS notices in three-day blitz; and
  
• WHS resources for new audiometric duties in NSW released.

• WHS tool for extreme weather launched, applies to city PCBUs;
  
• Seven more safety Codes under review in NSW;
  
• WHS Codes made and varied in NT, new safety laws delayed; and
  
• Roll-away alert issued in SA.

A large company that allowed an untrained and unlicensed worker to operate a forklift daily, and committed multiple breaches of its own safety systems, has been convicted and fined $300,000 after a man suffered traumatic injuries.

A PCBU has been convicted and fined for WHS breaches that involved a worker's decision to operate mobile plant that wasn't fitted with FOPS - falling object protective structures.

• Individual fined nearly $50k over five-metre fall; and
  
• More death benefits pursued for gig families.

A PCBU has been handed a pre-discount fine of $600,000 for its "wholly inadequate" safety systems, which involved directing two inexperienced workers to perform a high-risk chemicals task, and left them with serious burns from an explosion.