An "administrative" worker who was required to undertake repetitive bending work for a "long duration" - without adequate rest breaks or appropriate equipment - has been awarded more than $1.3 million in damages, after a court found her host employer negligently caused her lower back pain and secondary psychological injury.
A company manager has been fined $60,000 for neglect, in the last of a series of safety cases involving a teenager's death, a high-level corporate penalty and a former Olympic boxer who was recently jailed for more than a decade in New Zealand.
The start dates for a range of new WHS clauses have been postponed in Western Australia, while a Bill providing presumptive compensation to certain workers with PTSD has been reintroduced in South Australia.
Three employers have been fined a total of nearly $1.5 million over an explosion and a structural collapse, including one company that failed to ensure customers transported dangerous goods in a safe manner, and a business that failed to properly instruct personnel on an unfamiliar work procedure.
A crane supplier that was fined for safety breaches at a site, where one of its workers was killed, has failed to convince a superior court it had little control over the relevant activities. But the court ordered a retrial, finding a key matter was overlooked by all parties.
Two companies, including one that failed to implement a mandatory rescue plan for excavation work, have been fined a total of $720,000, plus $35,000 in costs, in relation to the drowning of a worker in a trench.
