WORKSAFE SWOOPS

Hundreds of local businesses told to clean up act

WORKSAFE has issued almost 1000 compliance notices to dangerous Geelong region businesses that risked employees lives in the past year.

On average more than a third of the 2463 visits WorkSafe to Geelong, Surf Coast and Borough of Queenscliffe employers resulted in a compliance notice.

The new data comes after Minister for Workplace Safety Jill Hennessy launched the More Inspectors. More Inspections campaign last week, which highlights the consequences for employers who fail to protect the health and safety of their workers.

“WorkSafe inspectors are out in force, cracking down on employers who do the wrong thing — because one death in a workplace is one too many,” she said.

While WorkSafe wasn’t able to provide data on the total amount of fines issued to employers in the Geelong region, court data shows it is in excess of $257,000 in the past financial year. Among the biggest fines was the $52,500 infringement issued to Ocean Grove’s Le Maistre Builders Pty Ltd at the Geelong Magistrates Court in November.

A WorkSafe Inspector observed people working on the second level of a double storey house without appropriate fall protection in place.

Le Maistre Builders Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to four contraventions of section 21 of the OHS Act, including failing to ensure fall risks were controlled as far as reasonably practicable, failing to provide adequate supervision for employees, and high-risk construction work on incomplete scaffolding.

Renderworks Australia Pty Ltd was fined $200,000 in September after a contractor was crushed between the cage of a scissor lift and a steel beam of a veranda while undertaking rendering work at an aged care facility in Torquay.

Meanwhile, in December a leading Geelong construction firm was required to spend $100,000 on safety measures after one of its contractors was seriously injured on a Torquay work site. The subcontractor was crushed between a platform and a steel beam of a veranda and sustained injuries including a torn pancreas, crush injuries to his right kidney and duodenum, spine and rib fractures.

There have been 15 workplace deaths this year.

WorkSafe will employ up to 40 new inspectors over the next four years to build on the 48,652 health and safety visits, 151 prosecutions — resulting in more than $6.8 million of fines — and 14,550 health and safety compliance notices completed last financial year.

Under proposed new laws, employers will face fines of almost $16 million and individuals responsible for negligently causing death will face up to 20 years in jail.

The campaign began on August 25 and includes advertisements across TV, radio, print, billboards and social media.