Is it reasonable to apply the findings of a coronial inquiry into a theme park disaster to a “low-risk” administrative office environment? Well, one occupational health and safety management system (OHSMS) is much like another. Administrative and office work environments are much less likely to experience work-related traumatic deaths as there are few unguarded conveyor belts …
The Hansard of June 1, 2021, Senate Estimates Hearings provided some nice background to the May 20 meeting of the Work Health and Safety (WHS) Ministers at which a national Industrial Manslaughter law was dismissed. Again, the politics of occupational health and safety (OHS) were on clear display....
Some readers raised eyebrows on the article titled “No lessons in the Dreamworld penalty” but the point was that the occupational health and safety (OHS) due diligence and governance lessons were there months ago following the Coroner’s damning findings. Most of the media’s attention has been on the record size of the financial penalty but …
The iconic Australian theme park, Dreamworld, will never fully recover from the consequences of the deaths of four people after the Thunder River Rapids ride malfunctioned in 2016. The legal journey through the Queensland Courts finished on September 28 2020 with the handing down of a financial penalty of $3.6 million, although others could say …
The big occupational health and safety (OHS) news in Australia on 21 July 2020 was the prosecution of Dreamworld‘s parent company, Ardent Leisure, for breaches of the Work Health and Safety legislation over the deaths of four customers who were riding the Thunder River Rapids Ride four years ago. The prosecution has been expected for …
The nature of news/media reporting is that any story must be topical, but the nature of occupational health and safety (OHS) is that topicality is stretched over years of investigation or it stutters over time when a new bit of information is available. This has been the case with the aftermath of the deaths of …
Late yesterday the Queensland Minister for Industrial Relations, Grace Grace, issued a media statement that clarified the work health and safety (WHS) prosecution process that is likely to apply to Ardent Leisure, the owner of Dreamworld. Significantly she clarified the Coroner’s Findings and the misinformation of some media outlets. Ardent Leisure has issued a statement …
