Browsing: Legislation, regulation and caselaw | Page 1

A commission president has upheld an employer's liability for a worker's injuries that occurred after she left her workplace to turn off her car light, confirming that her role permitted her to authorise her own absence.

Two PCBUs that drafted and approved the design of a structure, which subsequently collapsed, have been convicted and fined for WHS contraventions, with a magistrate highlighting the safety value of the "humble check list".

The Federal Government has committed millions of dollars to enforcing the impending WHS ban on engineered stone at the border, and conducting a comprehensive review of the Commonwealth jurisdiction's workers' compensation laws, under a "safer workplaces" package in its 2024-25 budget.

Safe Work Australia's deemed diseases list has been amended to add two cancer and job exposure pairs, and to remove COVID-19, on the basis that the virus "has become so widespread in the community that infection in a particular occupational setting cannot be confidently assumed to have been due to that occupation".

Surveillance footage of an injured worker performing odd jobs at her husband's workplace impugned her credibility, but this did not mean her "lost" capacity could be ignored, a judge has found in green-lighting her damages claim.

Three companies and an individual face maximum fines totalling more than $10.5 million, in what could be the first finalised prosecutions under Western Australia's version of the national model WHS laws.

Australia's WHS and workers' compensation ministers have agreed to: work towards a major asbestos-removal plan targeting commercial buildings; implement WHS provisions to further crack down on silica risks; and reinstate the push for a national approach to protecting the psychological safety of first responders.

A union and an offical who successfully appealed against a ruling on a WHS requirement at a worksite have been handed higher right-of-entry fines, by a full Federal Court, than the ones they received before they appealed.

• Significant WHS reforms to come with third-phase asbestos plan;
  
• Phased commencement announced for Qld's WHS amendments;
  
• Business charged over customer's mobile-plant death; and
  
• Safety and RTW awards open in Vic.

An employer should have presented expert evidence to prove a worker was under the influence of alcohol when he attended his "dangerous" workplace after a "big night", rather than asking the Fair Work Commission to "simply assume" he had been impaired, the Commission has ruled.