An employer could be fined millions of dollars, after being charged with nine workplace health and safety breaches that preceded a COVID-19 outbreak and 45 deaths. Meanwhile, a major defence contractor has been charged over a fatality, and a mining company has been fined over a death in an out-of-control vehicle.
An engineering company and its director have been fined a total of $460,000 after the death of a worker crushed by a one-tonne pipe, due to safety failings known to the director.
A company's managing director regularly attended the workplace where a full-arm amputation occurred and had the requisite level of control to implement safety improvements at the site, a court has found in fining the man $70,000.
The mining industry has been described as harbouring "a culture of cover-up", in the "'Enough Is Enough': S-xual harassment against women in the FIFO mining industry" report. The parliamentary inquiry report makes 79 findings and 24 recommendations for addressing the "horrendous violence and abuse women are subjected to while going about their work".
An employer breached safety laws in failing to ensure a plan to install edge protection around a newly created void was completed before workers were permitted to enter the area, a court has found in fining the company over a fall.
Employers have been reminded of the stringent safety laws that apply to electrical equipment, after a company was fined for allowing such equipment to be tested by unlicensed staff.
A judge has revealed her reasons for imposing a high-level penalty on an employer when she re-sentenced it after quashing its gross negligence conviction. She rejected the company's claim it had believed certain labour-hire workers provided to its site were well trained and fully inducted in safety issues.
An employer that overturned its gross negligence conviction, relating to a labour-hire worker's full-arm amputation in an unguarded pinch point of a machine, has been fined $230,000 under amended charges.
A company's safe system for managing space and work clashes between different trades on a major project has helped block a $770,000 injury damages bid, made by a "keen" worker who took it upon himself to remove materials installed by other contractors.
