Victoria has announced its average workers' comp premium rate for 2021-22, set aside $550 million for injury support and prevention initiatives, and released a draft Compliance Code on the provision of safe workplace facilities, including toilets, lighting and amenities for employees without fixed worksites.
Many Australian workers believe acts of workplace violence are just "part of the job" and choose to "forget" incidents instead of reporting them, making the issue difficult to address, WorkSafe Victoria's safety boss tells OHS Alert.
A regulator has failed to recover injury payments from a workplace occupier accused of negligently causing the injury, after one of the regulator's inspectors filed a report saying the allegedly unsafe area of the site was in "adequate condition".
An employer has been fined after a random safety inspection found a worker had been provided with the wrong type of respirator for a hazardous substance, and hadn't undergone health monitoring. Another company was recently fined for failing to comply with a monitoring-related improvement notice.
In a film produced for toolbox talks and pre-shift meetings, a young worker has explained how his boss disregarded his safety concerns in the moments before they were nearly killed by a powerline. The boss was later fined for safety breaches. Some 1,500km away, regulators have issued warnings after a spate of work-related powerline incidents, including a fatality.
