A PCBU that unsuccessfully attempted to enter a WHS undertaking, to avoid prosecution over a worker's severe foot injuries, has been convicted and fined $300,000, with a judge finding its attempt to install and commission a machine in an ad hoc manner was "inviting trouble".
A pharmaceutical company that sourced ethanol in bulk to produce hand sanitiser for the COVID-19 pandemic, and disregarded its workers' storage-related safety concerns, has been fined nearly $300,000 after its premises caught fire and the chemical polluted a nearby pond.
In only the third case of its kind in NSW, a PCBU has pleaded guilty to recklessly breaching the State's WHS laws, in relation to the death of a teenage worker in a scaffolding disaster - an incident that led to new safety standards and calls for tougher enforcement.
A PCBU has been fined a total of $600,000 over two incidents resulting in the electric-shock death of one worker, and the hospitalisation of two who fell four metres, with a judge slamming its "hands off" approach to safety.
A WHS specialist sacked while on paid personal leave has had her unfair dismissal case thrown out by the Fair Work Commission, which rejected her claim that WHS laws blocked her from sending documents from her laptop to her employer in the absence of a return-to-work plan.