Browsing: Jurisdiction (TAS)

A medical expert engaged by an employer's insurer failed to explain why he reversed his finding that a worker's neck injury was caused by a work incident, a superior court has found in rejecting the employer's fight against liability.

Australia's WHS ministers have agreed to amend the model WHS Regulations to prescribe control measures for psychological risks, and significantly increase safety penalties, but proposed industrial manslaughter laws were voted down at their meeting yesterday.

• Risk controls missing for plant-pedestrian interactions;
  
• New Workplace Safety portfolio established in Tas; and
  
• Workers' comp premium increases confirmed in NSW.

Safe Work Australia's latest "snapshot" of COVID-19-related workers' compensation claims shows that while a quarter of all COVID claims are for psychological issues, nearly all of the claims in one industry involve mental health.

A global employer will down tools and conduct meetings on minimising occupational cancer risks, for World Day for Safety and Health at Work today. World safety day has also prompted renewed calls for Australia-wide industrial manslaughter provisions and an accelerated response to the review of the model WHS laws.

A key role of safety professionals, managers and officers is acquiring and keeping up-to-date knowledge of health and safety issues. In this report, OHS Alert examines all the need-to-know work safety, workers' compensation and COVID-19 developments from the first three months of 2021.

• Workplace COVID controls still mandatory, employers reminded;
  
• "Respect" standards promised after SA harassment review; and
  
• Two states launch work safety awards, with COVID-control prize in one.

Australia's "only validated psychosocial risk assessment survey" has been relaunched on a free digital platform, under an initiative jointly funded by the country's workplace health and safety regulators.

Two employers have unsuccessfully attempted to avoid liability for workplace injuries by (in the first case) relying on a consultant psychiatrist's unfounded claim that a worker was a "heavy drinker", and (in the second) contending a condition arose from a non-work-related restraining order application.

• Substandard electrical work created fatal risk, individual fined;
  
• Workers' comp fraudster caught doing ride-share work;
  
• Inspection launch highlights work-related COVID duties in Vic; and
  
• New gas safety framework commences in Tas.