ACT Industrial Court finds two workplace injury incidents were easily avoidable, imposing $750,000 fines
The ACT Industrial Court has imposed fines of more than $750,000 after two separate workplace incidents that caused serious injuries. In both cases, the magistrate declared the incidents could have been easily avoided.
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00:00Transport Canberra will be fined $375,000 after a maintenance worker was crushed by
00:09the wheel of a bus he was working on in 2022.
00:12He was trying to grease a hard-to-reach part of the bus's steering mechanism and was squashed
00:17by the wheel into the chassis, resulting in fractured ribs and two partially collapsed
00:22lungs.
00:23He told the court the incident had changed him forever.
00:27The court heard there was no proper safety procedure for the work he was doing.
00:31This case is significant because it's the first time the ACT government has been prosecuted
00:37under new health and safety laws introduced in 2011.
00:41Magistrate James Lawton said this case could have easily been avoided with very simple
00:46steps.
00:47And that's similar to another judgement he handed down today where a young worker was
00:51crushed by a rack that was holding hundreds of kilograms of cable drums which pushed
00:57him onto a winding machine.
00:59He suffered skull fractures and dental injuries which still need treatment two and a half
01:04years later.
01:05Today the court heard the rack was incorrectly installed and hadn't been bolted to the ground
01:10and that the site manager in charge knew this, that factor making the incident more serious.
01:17The company Metal Manufactures which trades as TLE Electrical in Belconnen was fined $375,000.
01:26The site manager was also fined $7,500.
01:31The court ruled that in both cases the guilty parties will have to pay the legal fees of
01:36WorkSafe ACT.