A right-of-entry dispute surrounding the Australian Taxation Office's new rules for permit holders has confirmed that occupational health and safety requirements "can condition the exercise of entry rights".
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.
A union and one of its officials have been handed fines totalling nearly $37,000, after a court found the latter made a frustrated comment that constituted a threat to the future career of a workplace health and safety manager.
A major work health and safety Bill has passed in Queensland, with amendments aimed at facilitating a plan that could extend industrial manslaughter provisions to bystander deaths, and ensure multiple duty holders can be charged with manslaughter after a fatality.
Two company managers' needless insistence that a union official clarify the particulars of his WHS entry permit was a "gossamer-thin" justification for delaying his safety inspection, a court has found in a scathing ruling reiterating the practical purpose of permits.
A full Federal Court has partially overturned a ruling made against a union and an official accused of refusing to comply with a worksite's WHS requirements, finding the site's rules only required the official to be "accompanied" rather than "escorted".
Provisions for health and safety representatives and entry rights could be amended by a new Queensland WHS Bill, while a WHS blitz has found that every targeted business in one industry was breaching its health and safety obligations.
A union official who was physically aggressive towards a site manager, while inspecting suspected safety breaches, has been fined and handed a "partial" personal payment order.
A union investigating suspected violence- and workload-related WHS contraventions failed to comply with requirements of the WHS Act and Regulation when it sought employee records while exercising its entry rights, a commissioner has found.
PCBUs could be handed WHS fines of up to $100,000 in civil penalty cases launched by affected parties like workers, deceased workers' families and unions, under proposed reforms that have reached the consultation phase in South Australia.