A major organisation partly run by BHP has been fined $120,000 for undermining safety protections, and ordered to pay compensation to labour-hire personnel who were targeted after exercising their workplace rights over a dimly lit area and lightning storms.
A major government employer has been fined $600,000 over a train fatality and injuries that occurred in circumstances where drivers had a restricted view, and that triggered mandatory reviews of safety systems for a high-risk procedure.
A major employer has failed to block a safety directive, requiring it to take hundreds of vehicles out of action in certain electrical storms, by claiming the rule actually increases the risk of workers being struck by lightning.
A senior company executive has been found guilty of recklessness and faces jail, in the latest case involving the deaths of four police officers in a road incident caused by a drug-affected truck driver.
Employers have been urged to identify all powerlines at their workplaces, including around entry and exit points, after a company was convicted and fined over an electrocution. Employers have also been warned about the presence of asbestos in workplace fire doors, following exposure incidents.
An employer that required employees to access a machine by moving under it and opening heavy doors that swung down has been convicted and fined $200,000, after the doors fell and struck a worker, causing permanent brain injuries. Another employer has been fined for contraventions that included leaving keys in forklifts, facilitating unauthorised use.
A PCBU previously prosecuted over a fatality, and a facilities manager who failed to manage the entrapment hazard posed by a disused stairwell, where a visitor died, have been fined for WHS contraventions in Queensland.
Successfully implementing safety technologies like artificial intelligence surveillance requires employers to overcome the mistrust of workers who believe it will be misused by managers, Australia Post's safety and wellbeing general manager says of his organisation's experience.
Importers, manufacturers, logistics service providers and many others types of companies, as well as their officers, have a duty to ensure containers are transported safely on Australian roads and to prevent rollover incidents, the risk of which is increasing with the surge in consumer-driven freight activity, a senior transport lawyer says.
