SafeWork NSW | The Danebritt Group Pty Ltd has been convicted and fined $90,000 in the Industrial Court of NSW as a result of a prosecution by SafeWork NSW.

The proceedings arose from an incident on 24 November 2022, when two workers were placed at risk while stocking a newly installed sunglasses display cabinet that was only partially affixed to a wall.

The Danebritt Group Pty Ltd plead guilty to an offence pursuant to section 33 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) for failing to comply with its health and safety duty to persons other than workers under section 19(2) of the Act.

The Danebritt Group Pty Ltd has the right to appeal against its sentence.

WorkSafe Victoria | WorkSafe has charged a worker with allegedly obtaining more than half a million dollars in fraudulent workers compensation payments.

The 54-year-old Ararat woman faces a total of 20 charges, including eight charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception under section 82(1) of the Crimes Act and four charges under section 585(1) of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act for providing false or misleading information.

WorkSafe alleges that between December 2019 and December 2024, the worker received WorkCover payments into their bank and superannuation accounts totalling $527,197 after failing to declare that they were working during this period.

The worker faces an additional eight charges for providing false or misleading declarations in breach of section 585(3)(d) of the WIRC Act.

It’s alleged that between December 2022 and October 2024 the worker submitted certificates of capacity that falsely declared that she had not worked.

Government of Western Australia | A Welshpool drill services company has been fined $897,500 (and ordered to pay almost $6,500 in costs) over the death of a worker in 2023.

Airdrill Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace and was fined in Perth Magistrates Court.

The company provides services relating to drill rigs, including design, manufacture, and commissioning of new rigs and the maintenance, servicing and refurbishment of existing drill rigs.

The use of overhead cranes is a common part of the Airdrill operation, but the company did not have any documented risk assessment or safe systems of work for the use of overhead cranes at the workplace. There was no procedure in place to ensure that complicated lifts were properly planned and supervised.

In February 2023, an Airdrill employee suffered fatal crush injuries when he attempted to move a skid mounted mud pump (skid assembly) on a trailer that had been placed on trestles.

The weight of the skid assembly and its centre of gravity were not known or assessed at any time prior to the incident and the skid assembly was placed on the trestles in an improvised configuration that meant it was inherently unstable and prone to tipping.

The worker was assigned to work on the skid assembly after it had been lifted onto the trestles. At the time the incident occurred he was standing on the skid assembly and operating the overhead crane using a handheld crane control pendant when the trailer unexpectedly tipped sideways, trapping him between the chain from the overhead crane and a handrail on the skid assembly.

The worker was a licensed dogger and would have had some knowledge of how to connect loads to cranes, however Airdrill did not provide verification of competency or training and did not require the worker to complete a risk assessment and lift plan before doing the job.

SafeWork NSW | JBS Australia Pty Ltd has been convicted and fined $330,000 in the District Court of NSW as a result of a prosecution by SafeWork NSW.

The proceedings arose following a workplace incident on 14 July 2022, when a worker was injured after being struck by a forklift in a chilled storage area for processed meat.

The worker suffered severe injuries to his left leg as a result of the collision.

JBS Australia plead guilty to an offence pursuant to section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) for failing to comply with its health and safety duty to workers under section 19(1) of the Act.

JBS Australia Pty Ltd has the right to appeal against its sentence.

Government of Western Australia | A spray painting and sandblasting company has been dealt the biggest ever fine under Western Australia’s workplace safety and health laws over the death of a 16-year-old worker in 2023.

RPC Surface Treatment Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to ensure the health and safety of a worker and was issued a global fine in the Perth Magistrates Court.

In June 2023, a labourer who assisted with spray painting and sandblasting was killed when a steel beam weighing approximately 425kg suspended from an overhead monorail system fell on his chest.

The steel beam was attached to the monorail at each end by S-hooks (fabricated steel hooks in an s-shape) connected to chain slings. The beam had been primed and coated and was left suspended to dry in the main spray booth.

Early on the morning of 15 June 2023, the labourer and three other workers were instructed to move the beams to another area where they were to be collected later in the day.

When the labourer was pushing the beam by hand, the S-hooks deformed and straightened out under the load and the beam fell onto him, causing fatal injuries.

The workers at RPC routinely selected lifting devices by a process of trial and error, and they were not required to determine the weight of the load prior to suspending it.

The weight was estimated via a visual inspection and whether it had been unloaded by hand or with a forklift, and the S-hooks did not have a known working load limit or rated capacity.

In March 2021, WorkSafe inspectors had issued a Prohibition Notice to RPC prohibiting the activity of working underneath suspended loads.

While this notice did not relate to the monorail or S-hooks directly, it did direct RPC to the same risk, namely being crushed by falling objects while working under suspended loads.

SafeWork SA | South Australia’s Department for Education has been fined $225,000 after a student was seriously injured in a fall from a broken swing in a school playground.

The Department for Education pleaded guilty and was sentenced in the South Australian Employment Court after a SafeWork SA prosecution.

The incident occurred on 25 August 2021, when a 16-year-old student was using a playground swing at Port Augusta Special School.

One of the swing’s severely worn supporting bolts broke, throwing the student to the ground, resulting in significant head injuries.

The SafeWork SA investigation found that the swing failed because one of the two shackle bolts that supported the swing’s chains had worn down over years of use so that only 5% of its cross-section remained.

Testing confirmed there was no manufacturing defect in the worn shackle.

The court found that damage to the shackle likely occurred gradually over multiple annual inspection periods after a brass bush failed. The failed bush and worn bolt were readily identifiable on inspection.

The school’s playground equipment was installed in 2012. None of the playground equipment was ever given a comprehensive annual inspection in the eight years prior to the offence. Nor did any of the quarterly inspections include the load bearing moving parts of the swings.

The applicable Australian Standard allows a maximum three-month period between inspections of the shackles and bearings. The Australian Standard was never correctly applied or followed by the Department for Education in the eight years prior to the offence.

The school’s playground equipment was immediately fenced off after the incident and later decommissioned. A new playground was installed at a cost of about $290,000.

Prior to the incident, the Department for Infrastructure and Transport had written to the Department for Education, outlining the Australian Standard’s recommended minimum quarterly inspection of moving parts of playground equipment.

The Department for Education was charged with one count of breaching its primary safety duty contrary to section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (SA).

A conviction was recorded, and the Department for Education was fined $225,000 following a reduction by 10% for its guilty plea.

The Department for Education was also ordered to pay a contribution to SafeWork SA’s legal costs of $2,310, and a Victim of Crime Levy of $437.

Government of Western Australia | A transport and logistics company has been fined $625,000 (and ordered to pay more than $8,000 in costs) over the serious injury of a worker in 2021.

Toll Transport Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace and, by that failure, causing serious harm to the worker, and was fined in Perth Magistrates Court.

In January 2021, the injured worker was employed as a forklift driver at Toll Transport’s premises at Perth Airport. Having returned from work after a shoulder injury, he was on light duties.

The area in which he was working included loading docks and freight bays where freight was delivered and sorted before being loaded onto road trains and transported to mine sites.

Some freight bays were marked with a sticker on the concrete floor that corresponded with an identical sticker placed on the freight.

On the morning of the incident, the injured worker was tasked with changing the stickers on the floor of the freight bays.

He was bending over changing a sticker when he was struck from behind by a reversing forklift, one of the three forklifts operating in the area that morning.

He suffered serious injuries to both legs, including fractures and crush injuries and the degloving of part of one leg, and has required five surgeries since the incident.

Government of Western Australia | A Jindalee building surveyor has been fined $5,000 for failing to ensure the proper management and supervision of building surveying work at sites in Balga and Wanneroo.

The Building Services Board found Chad Robert Harvey, trading as Core Building Surveyors, had shown a “concerning lack of understanding” of the duties and responsibilities of a registered building surveyor.

The Board imposed the fine at its meeting after considering the findings of a Building and Energy investigation.

At the Balga site, where a new two-storey group dwelling was planned, Mr. Harvey issued a certificate of design compliance (CDC), which is a declaration that a building will comply with applicable building standards if it is constructed in accordance with the plans and specifications.

The Board found Mr. Harvey’s CDC had failed to show compliance of the Balga building in areas such as storm water drainage, stair and balustrade construction, floor levels, construction of the steel frame, wall cladding, and fire safety.

These omissions created potential hazards related to fire, falls, health, and amenity due to structural, waterproofing, and drainage issues.

At the Wanneroo site, the Board found Mr. Harvey failed to provide supporting documentation or evidence of suitability for a change of use of a commercial unit.

He also should have issued a CDC but instead provided a certificate of building compliance (CBC) that did not show how the building complied with the applicable building standards in many areas.

The Board found Mr. Harvey had fallen short of the standards expected under WA’s Code of Conduct for Building Surveyors, which Building and Energy published in 2022 to guide registered building surveyors about their legal and public interest obligations.

Government of Western Australia | G8 Education Limited has been penalised for inadequate supervision and failure to protect a child from a hazard likely to cause injury.

The approved provider, which operates the service Great Beginnings Cloverdale, was ordered to pay a total penalty of $65,000 for contravening sections 165(1) and 167(1) of the Education and Care Services National Law (WA) Act 2012 for the offences of inadequate supervision of a child and failing to ensure that every reasonable precaution was taken to protect children from harm and from any hazard likely to cause injury.

A Department of Communities (Communities) investigation found that two children, aged one year seven months and two years four months old, exited the toddler room as an educator held the door open to speak to a parent. One child proceeded to wander into the car park, while the other remained in the area.

Fortunately, a parent noticed the child was alone in the car park and returned the child to the toddlers’ room. It was at this point that the educators realised that the two children had exited the service.

G8 Education Limited was also ordered to pay $2,000 towards the Department of Communities’ legal costs.

Government of Western Australia | An underground mining contractor has been fined $540,000, and ordered to pay $8,414 in costs, after an October 2022 rock fall in a ventilation shaft at the Hamlet Underground Gold Mine near Kambalda, which killed a driller and injured a probationary offsider.

RUC Mining Contractors Pty Ltd pleaded guilty in the Kalgoorlie Magistrates Court to two counts of the same offence, exposing a worker to a risk of death, injury, or harm to health, contrary to sections 19(1) and 32(1) of the Work Health and Safety Act 2020.

This offence does not indicate that the breach caused the fatal incident. However, it highlights a failure in relation to risk management.

Magistrate William Yoo imposed on RUC Mining Contractors, which Gold Fields Australia Pty Ltd engaged to conduct raise bore-drilling work at the Hamlet Underground Gold Mine, part of its St Ives Gold Mine, a single fine of $540,000 for the two counts.

In October 2022, an RUC Mining Contractors-employed driller and probationary offsider were engaged in disassembling a reamer by unbolting and removing wings attached to the reamer’s centre box at the base of a ventilation shaft, which had been drilled using an underground mining technique known as raise boring.

Reamers must be disassembled and removed from the holes they create. At the time of the fatal incident, the disassembly method that RUC Mining Contractors employed involved pulling the reamer’s head to the side of the raise, rotating the reamer’s head to position its worked-on parts beneath supported ground and behind protective curtains.

As the reamer was not centred in the hole, RUC Mining Contractors staff were experiencing difficulties hanging the curtains, made from rubber conveyor belt material, and draping them over the reamer’s head. To enable the centring of the reamer in the hole, an RUC Mining Contractors employee booked a jumbo operator to install a torque plate on the ventilation shaft’s right-hand wall. However, in the meantime, disassembly work continued.

During that period, the RUC Mining Contractors area manager visited the mine and observed that the protective curtains were not properly installed. Also, the area manager instructed the driller to climb off the reamer as the driller was working too close to the curtains directly beneath the hole and, consequently, beneath unsupported ground.

The fatal incident occurred about an hour after the RUC Mining Contractors area manager left the ventilation shaft. The driller was standing on top of the reamer’s head, undoing bolts on its top. The probationary offsider was standing on the ground close to the reamer’s edge, feeding the driller the air hose for the rattle gun they were using. The driller was standing under unsupported ground. A rock fall happened, striking the driller and causing the probationary offsider to fall to the ground. The driller died instantly. The probationary offsider suffered minor physical injuries and a psychological injury.

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