An employer is entitled to direct workers to remove their moustaches or beards to comply with safety policies and manage deadly risks, a commission has ruled in examining WHS laws.
An employer has been convicted and fined after a worker's leg was crushed by moving equipment with an alarm he couldn't hear over other noise and through his hearing protection. The employer had assessed such an incident as "almost certain" to occur, but didn't take any steps to prevent it.
Two organisations have been charged with exposing non-workers to health and safety risks, after an inquest found their "failures and shortcomings" contributed to a boy's death, and slammed one of them for attempting to deflect blame by claiming others led it "into a state of ignorance" on the relevant safety risks.
A second duty holder has been fined over the death of an 80-year-old workplace visitor in a disused stairwell that posed an obvious risk of falling or entrapment, while a business has been fined over a fatality that followed its failure to identify the qualifications and competencies required for high-risk tasks.
An upstream duty holder has been prosecuted and fined for providing plant with a manual that was missing safety instructions for inspection and cleaning tasks. Another duty holder has been fined for failing to provide a demarcated safety zone for delivery drivers, which led to a double amputation.