A small business and a government department have entered into WHS undertakings after a "volunteer" was seriously injured in a fall. The department has also committed to spending millions on a new WHS reporting system for its 31,000 employees.
A PCBU has been convicted and fined $180,000 after a visiting contractor leant on an unsecured fence in a restricted area and fell into a pit. A judge found the PCBU failed to comply with a Code of Practice requirement to ensure the fence could withstand the force of a person falling or leaning against it.
A WHS prosecutor has successfully argued that the failure of workers to abide by safety procedures should not have influenced a sentencing magistrate to impose a low penalty in a case involving a six-metre fall.
An employer's work system that required workers to step up onto a platform up to 80 times a day would have involved a breach of duty if an employee had been able to prove the system caused his injuries, a court has found in a case with a seizure and a fall.
Adhering to readily available Safe Work Australia guidance would have helped a PCBU prevent an incident where a worker fell through a penetration after mistaking its cover for spare plywood, a court has found in convicting and fining the business $450,000.
An appeals court has quashed a ruling that the WHS prosecution of a major company was invalid because of the process used to delegate the applicable regulatory powers. Meanwhile, a play centre has been charged with multiple safety breaches after a child fell seven metres.
Another employer has been fined for workplace health and safety breaches affecting children, with its failures including not maintaining a safe supervision ratio of employees to customers.
