A workplace front door tells you more than whether the site looks tidy. Access control, line marking, barriers and visible deterioration can be early signals of how consistently risk controls are being maintained and verified.

A normal medical does not make an unsafe job safe. Understand chemical health monitoring, hearing tests, lead and asbestos requirements across Australia, including jurisdiction differences and practical workplace examples.

Urban Mining’s VIC prosecution shows why progress on guarding is not the same as controlling the risk. A practical look at verified corrective-action closure.

“It is not against the law to injure people.” It sounded absurd when I first heard it at inspector school. Then I understood the point: WHS and OHS legislation generally regulates duties, risks and breaches, not simply injury outcomes.

A $90,000 asbestos prosecution shows why identifying ACM is only the start. From a supermarket cleaner’s room to Defence facilities covered in asbestos warning stickers, the real test is whether hazard information changes the work before somebody drills, cuts or demolishes the material.

Chemical Solutions was fined after failing to fully comply with an improvement notice by its due date. The bigger question for leaders is how a statutory regulatory action can remain overdue without triggering ownership, verification and escalation.

A man was fatally struck by metal debris ejected from a tractor-mounted slasher while standing approximately five metres away. The contractor knew the risk and had documented a 30 metre exclusion zone, but the work continued.

A 20-year-old engineering student suffered serious spinal injuries after unstable ground gave way beneath her at the edge of a three-metre excavation. The excavation was already showing signs of failure, yet work continued without battering, fencing or effective edge protection.

Australian football likes to describe itself as a family. Families do not ask a person with a history of concussion to accept legal responsibility for future brain trauma so everyone else can keep the show moving. That is the allegation now consuming Geelong Football Club. According to ABC reporting, defender Jake Kolodjashnij entered a secret agreement with the club in 2024 under which he effectively assumed legal responsibility for future brain trauma, in an apparent attemp

A robot did not suddenly become confused, develop intent or decide that a worker was a box. It performed the movement its control system allowed it to perform while a person remained inside its hazardous operating envelope. On 10 Jan 26, a worker entered part of an automated packaging line at Multisteps’ Narangba factory in Queensland to inspect a sensor. The machine had reportedly stopped twice within approximately ten minutes and was known to malfunction regularly. While th

The 2023 Gold Coast helicopter collision killed four people. The ATSB's final report shows how separate changes to pads, aircraft, traffic flow and operating arrangements combined to create a new conflict point.

On 27 Jan 21, marine salvage worker Max Haywood was fatally struck by the collapsing mast of a submerged steel yacht during a crane operation at Rozelle, New South Wales. The lift involved an uncertain load, an unsuitable lifting point, overloaded equipment and an operator who did not hold the required crane licence. The incident was not caused by an obscure technical defect or an unforeseeable change in conditions. It developed from a work method that replaced engineering, v

A $200,000 reminder that traffic management must physically control the risk On 17 Dec 25, D’Orsogna Limited was convicted and fined $200,000 after a reversing forklift struck a worker and pinned her legs to the ground at its Mickleham warehouse in Victoria. The prosecution is another reminder that instructions, eye contact, painted lines and high-visibility clothing do not physically prevent mobile plant from colliding with a person. The incident occurred in April 2023 while

A worker entered a demolition site with two feet and left without the toes and part of the forefoot of his left foot. The risk had been identified, the controls had been documented and the business had a Safe Work Method Statement (SWMS), but the controls described in that document were not operating when they were needed. Photo by Frederick Shaw on Unsplash On 02 Jul 26, the South Australian Employment Court convicted A. Haros Demolition Pty Ltd of a Category 2 offence under

Two Queensland prosecutions released in Jul 26 provide useful lessons about how organisations manage work outside their normal operations and how they respond when an existing control system has already failed. One involved an apprentice losing an eye during an unfamiliar ancillary task, while the other involved a dozer operator spending approximately eight hours trapped upside down beneath a coal stockpile. The industries, work and legislation were different, but the underly

On 02 Dec 99, at approximately 0822h, an interurban passenger train collided with the rear of the Indian Pacific on the main western line east of Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales. Seven people were killed and 51 passengers required hospitalisation. The damage to both trains was extensive, the disruption to the rail network was significant, and the consequences extended well beyond the rolling stock, the timetable and the incident location. Glenbrook remains on

On 19 Sep 25, Kellogg (Aust.) Pty Ltd was convicted in the Industrial Court of New South Wales and fined $510,000 after two workers fell approximately four metres from an elevated work platform at its Banksmeadow manufacturing site. SafeWork NSW reported the prosecution publicly on 23 Sep 25, confirming that the incident occurred on 03 Mar 23 when a truck reversed into a loading dock and struck the EWP with both workers inside. Image generated for visual effect. The two injur

On 11 Nov 22, a formworker fell nearly 3.85 metres from a bridge abutment at a construction site in Huntley, New South Wales, while stripping formwork. The worker was positioned on the top of the southern abutment, using an extension ladder to attach wire chains between a 26-tonne excavator and form soldiers, and was not wearing a harness because the steel available for anchoring was on the opposite side of the abutment. Image generate for visual effect. The incident resulted

A worker is dead, a company has been fined $472,500, and another Australian prosecution has landed squarely on the same recurring issue seen across heavy industry for decades, hazardous plant interacting with inadequate systems of work. This time it involved a green waste grinder in New South Wales. The underlying failures were neither novel nor technically complex. That is what makes these incidents so frustrating from a safety perspective. According to SafeWork NSW, Northwe

I'll never forget the footage of a fire inside an aged care facility, in an area where some of the highest care was required. Fortunately, everyone got out, but it was too close for comfort. I was involved, in my former role as an inspector, in responding to an aged care facility fire in Victoria. I will not identify the facility, the organisations involved or the individuals connected to the matter, because the lesson is broader than one incident and the people involved are