Workplace safety fines soar as rogue employers are hit with more than $16m in penalties

A diving company that left a female employee stranded in a rat-infested irrigation tunnel was among the companies fined more than $16m in WorkSafe fines last year.

Rogue employers were fined $16.2 million for safety breaches by the workplace watchdog last year, including a diving company that left a worker stranded in a rat-infested tunnel.

WorkSafe completed 153 health and safety prosecutions during 2023, resulting in penalties that totalled about $10m more than in the previous year.

Construction and manufacturing were by far the most common sectors where workplace cowboys were punished, with a combined total of 90 successful prosecutions across the two industries.

The most fines were handed out in the construction and manufacturing industries in 2023.

The largest individual financial penalties, which also included convictions, were:

• A $2.9m fine for waste treatment operator Bradbury Industrial Services in relation to a 2019 warehouse fire that saw toxic plumes of smoke cover parts of Melbourne;

• A $2.1m fine for manufacturer Dennis Jones Engineering after an apprentice was put in an induced coma due to a horror metal pole incident, and;

• A $1.5m fine for Energy Australia following the 2018 death of a worker at Yallourn Power Station.

A worker died at Yallourn Power Station in 2018. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

On top of $16.2m in fines, there were seven enforceable undertakings that mean more than $1,1m will be spent to improve safety outcomes in workplaces.

WorkSafe’s executive director of health and safety, Narelle Beer, said investigators would continue to target where harm was most likely to occur.

“The safest places to work are those where employers accept that injuries and fatalities are

preventable and priority is placed on doing what they can to protect their people,” Dr Beer

said.

“WorkSafe will use every enforcement tool at its disposal to hold to account employers who

put the health and safety of their workers or others at risk.”

Dr Beer said that 17 of WorkSafe’s successful prosecutions and $6.3m in fines imposed by the courts last year related to tragic workplace deaths.

WorkSafe Inspectors investigating after the Campbellfield fire at the Bradbury Industrial Services factory.

This included fall from a height offences, which is among the leading causes of workplace deaths in Victoria, and led to 39 prosecutions and almost $2m in fines.

Employers who did not adequately train staff for dangerous jobs were routinely targeted, including diving company Underwater Inspection Services which was convicted and fined $730,000 for repeatedly putting workers at risk in 2018.

During one incident, a female diver was left stuck in an irrigation tunnel where rats were swimming in the water around her, despite triggering a communication system.

A backup diver did not know how to perform a rescue and had ill-fitting equipment, and she shimmied out of the culvert after being stranded for 15 minutes.

Dr Beer said multiple duty holders were also prosecuted for offences involving workplace

bullying and sexual harassment, including several matters involving a number of young and

vulnerable workers.

“Employers must have systems and processes in place to identify, assess and respond to

hazards and associated risks to both the physical and mental health of their workers,” she said.