08:53 am, Thursday 30 April, 2009

Source: The Townsville Bulletin

A man is fighting for his life in Townsville Hospital after leaping from a toppling Crane at Stuart  yesterday morning.

The 280-tonne crane fell while it was being loaded on to the back of a semi-trailer on Brookhouse Rd about 9.40am.

Work colleagues found the truck teetering on its side, which caused the crane to slide off.

Miraculously, the 51-year-old crane operator jumped clear of the crane as it began overturning but injured himself landing.

The machinery was being used during the construction of the Townsville Port Access Rd project.

Stuart Police Station officer-in-charge Acting Senior Sergeant Paul Breitkreutz said the man was lucky not to be crushed by the falling crane.

“He jumped from the crane as it rolled,” he said.

“The crane didn’t land on him.

“He’s in Townsville Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit with head injuries.”

The Gladstone man was  in a critical condition in Townsville Hospital last night.

Firefighters were called to clean up a large oil spill at the  site.

The Townsville Bulletin was denied access to the area.

Workplace Health And Safety officers attended the accident scene.

Main Roads Minister Craig Wallace said an investigation was under way into the cause of an incident.

“Safety of our work sites is of the utmost importance to my department for our employees, the contractors, and the general public,” Mr Wallace said.

“Workplace Health And Safety advisers from the department are assisting Workplace Health and Safety Queensland and authorities with the investigation into the incident.

“We are working closely with these authorities and contractors, in addition to our own investigation, to determine how this incident occurred, and what measures can be undertaken to prevent this from happening again.

“This incident will have a major impact on the family and work colleagues of this man and we will work to support them where possible.”

Staff  affected by the incident are being offered support and counselling through the department’s employee assistance service.

Another man was seriously injured after his caravan fell on him while he was Changing A Flat Tyre at Brandon yesterday.

The man, aged in his 50s, pulled over on the side of the Bruce Highway to change the tyre about 2.40pm.

It’s believe the jacks supporting the campervan  gave way, crushing the man.

He was taken to Ayr Hospital with severe chest injuries.

Last night he was  in a serious condition in hospital.

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07:40 am, Thursday 30 April, 2009

Source: Safe To Work

Worksafe WA says businesses need to carefully check the identification of anyone claiming to be a WorkSafe inspector.

According to WorkSafe WA, it discovered a man had been visiting businesses and leaving employers with the impression that he was from WorkSafe.

An employer contacted WorkSafe WA because he was confused by advise from the man. The man’s business name contained the word ‘WorkSafe’, and he informed businesses that WorkSafe required all electrical equipment to be tested and tagged, offering to perform that service at a cost per item.

WorkSafe WA says all its inspectors carry an Inspectors’ Authority Card, and this should be checked by anyone approached by a person claiming to be an inspector.

Additionally, inspectors do not offer services for payment, or issue on-the-spot fines.

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07:26 am, Thursday 30 April, 2009

Source: Geelong Advertiser

Geelong ambulance workers will today decide whether to pursue strike action for the first time in 36 years.

The ambulance union said negotiations with the State Government had broken down.

The local ballot will be held at a meeting of ambulance workers at the service’s Yarra St headquarters this afternoon.

Ambulance Employees Australia state secretary Steve McGhie said the Government was refusing to support minimum 10-hour rest breaks between shifts for ambulance workers.

“Victorian ambos face extreme workloads,” he said. “Many work more than 15 hours straight, often without meal breaks, and then need to be back working eight hours later.

“Our survey last year found many get just five hours’ sleep between shifts.”

Mr McGhie said the push was due to the 2007 findings of Coroner Peter White who found a 78-year-old cardiac patient died after he was administered the wrong drug by paramedics who wereSeriously Fatigued.

“WorkSafe Victoria says breaks between shifts of less than 10 hours are a fatigue hazard,” Mr McGhie said.

“It specifically warns against eight-hour breaks in its fatigue prevention booklet. Even the Council of Ambulance Authorities, an employer association Ambulance Victoria is a member of, recommends 12-hour rest breaks between shifts.

“For an entire year we’ve negotiated in good faith for proper breaks and fair wages. We have got nowhere.

“Paramedics don’t want to take industrial action but it seems they’ve been left with no other way to fix this dangerous situation.”

Premier John Brumby said rest breaks were one of 175 items on the union’s negotiating list.

“We admire the work our paramedics do, but we can’t negotiate around 175 matters,” he said.

“We’ve got to have some clear priorities.”

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07:22 am, Wednesday 29 April, 2009

Source: The Australian

A man lying in the middle of a Queensland highway has died in hospital.

Police said the 29-year-old man died on Wednesday (8th) after he was found lying on the Capricorn Highway, Emerald, midway between Brisbane and Townsville, about 3.50pm (AEST) the same day.

Investigators believe the man had suffered a workplace injury, Sustained In A Fall at a rural property in Emerald earlier that day, before getting into his car.

It is believed he drove to the highway before collapsing on the roadway.

Workplace Health And Safety officers are investigating and police will prepare a report for the coroner.

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07:22 am, Wednesday 29 April, 2009

Source: ABC News

More than 2,000 people rallied in Brisbane to call for an end to Industrial laws that they say are killing workers.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) says more than 20 Queenslanders died inWorkplace Accidents over the past year.

Lawrence Samson says he is grieving for his brother Christopher Gear, who died when he fell from a Gold Coast high-rise last year.

“This year’s a bit more special because I lost a really, really good friend in Christopher,” he said.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow has called for the Australian Building and Construction Commission to be scrapped.

She says it limits union access to Building Sites, affecting safety.

“Those coercive powers should not exist in any democracy,” she said.

Ms Burrow says work-related deaths in Australia each year are several times higher than the national road toll.

“It always strikes me as totally discriminatory that we do not have the same national, state, local toll for those who die as a result of work on the site, on the job or as a result of injury or disease,” she said.

The Queensland Government has committed to reducing the workplace death toll by 20 per cent in three years.

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05:37 am, Tuesday 28 April, 2009

Workplace Safety standards must be maintained, and improved, in tough economic times or Victoria could face a return to the horrors of dozens of preventable workplace deaths each year.

Marking International Workers Memorial Day today (28th) WorkSafe’s Executive Director, John Merritt said improvements made over the past decade could be under threat.

“Since last year’s memorial day – 21 traumatic work-related deaths have been reported to WorkSafe. Eleven of them have been since 1 January and of these, six have been in regional areas.

“The community needs to take ownership of this issue, not accept second best for their employees, themselves or their workmates.

“No matter how many workplaces WorkSafe visits, no matter how many prosecutions we launch or how much support we provide to business, ultimately the responsibility for safety is in every workplace.

“If you need a reason to begin making safety improvements, Workers Memorial Day is it.

“Across the state, traumatic death rates have dropped from a high of 45 in 1998-99 to a low of 16 in 2007-08 (financial years).

“Apart from the fatalities, hundreds of people each year face life-threatening or permanent injuries while tens of thousands suffer lesser problems which limit their productivity and enjoyment of life.”

Around 60% of all injuries reported to WorkSafe are a result of poor Manual Handling, Slips Tripsand falls.

“Together, it has an enormous impact on individuals, families, businesses and the entire community.”

Mr Merritt said deaths and injuries could be prevented, because they could be predicted.

“The causes are known, but it takes people to make a clear decision to act and ensure the work is planned and done safely.

“If you’re seeking a short-term benefit by reducing safety activity in tough times, taking shortcuts or allowing them to be taken, you need to remember that lives and commercial viability are at stake.

“Last week a man suffered serious burns while Welding a fuel tank and a Mobile Crane tipped on to its side at Port Melbourne.

While the men in both cases were hurt, these incidents show that there’s not much difference between the incident that kills and the one you live to talk about.

“Your worst nightmare is not that a WorkSafe inspector might knock on your door. It’s dealing with a serious incident, the family of deceased or injured workers and everything that comes with it.”

WorkSafe provides a range of services to help Victorian employers and workers.

They include a free, three-hour visit to small and medium business by an independent health and safety consultant. Details are available from WorkSafe or major employer groups.

WorkSafe can also help businesses and workers deal with potential safety issues through the telephone advisory service (1800 136 089) or via the internet at Www.Worksafe.Vic.Gov.Au.

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07:37 am, Monday 27 April, 2009

Source: Courier Mail

A circus clown hit out last night after Health And Safety officials banned him from wearing his giant comedy shoes because he fell off a tightrope.

After he broke his foot in the tumble, Valerik Kashkin was told his wacky size 18s could invalidate the circus’s insurance policy.

He said: “If I don’t wear the big boots the impact might be lost on the audience. The shoes are a very important part of my costume.”

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07:23 am, Monday 27 April, 2009

Source: Courier Mail

Students and staff at a Queensland school may have been exposed to Asbestos fibres during a lunchtime airconditioning installation by a contractor.

A dust cloud was created as workers cut fibro wall sheeting in a classroom metres from a play area at the Undurba State School, in Murrumba Downs, north of Brisbane, witnesses said.

The work was done during the school lunchbreak on April 7, two days before Easter holidays.

The Year 3 double-sized classroom remains off-limits while decontamination work continues.

Resources, including computers, have been dumped, while new carpet was laid in the classroom last week.

Air testing was carried out at the school on Friday by an expert in asbestos management. Teachers have refused to re-enter the room until results of the testing are received.

Parents of pupils relocated after the incident were advised by letter that day of what had occurred.

The letter said the airconditioning installation work in the classroom had been stopped after “staff observed incorrect procedures being used”.

“It was confirmed wall sheeting in the classroom contained asbestos,” the letter said.

But parents of other students at the school say they only learned of the asbestos scare through the school newsletter distributed last week.

Queensland Teachers Union president Steve Ryan believes the incident breached Workplace Health And Safety regulations, and has written to Education Queensland on the matter.

A spokesperson for Workplace, Health and Safety said that it was investigating.

An Education Queensland spokeswoman declined to answer questions from The Sunday Mailabout the proximity of children to the classroom at the time of the incident.

She said the school’s principal, Mark Hunter, had followed appropriate processes to ensure the safety of students and staff.

She confirmed that prior to the job starting, Mr Hunter had given the contractor the necessary register identifying locations of presumed asbestos in the building. Mr Hunter declined to be interviewed.

The Sunday Mail was unable to confirm the name of the contractor to seek comment.

Older-style fibro wall sheeting can contain up to 15 per cent of asbestos fibre, which has been linked by health experts to a number of illnesses including lung cancer.

Flinders University medical expert Professor Douglas Henderson said the risk of contracting a disease after brief exposure to dust would be low, particularly if it was the less harmful white asbestos used in some buildings built after 1983.

That has done little to calm nervous parents at Undurba primary school.

Carol Gardiner’s son, Dylan, 7, was among the students relocated from the affected classroom.

“I would like an explanation and assurance there was no asbestos contamination,” she said.

Ena Harper, whose child’s classroom is opposite the building involved, said she wanted to know the results of last week’s air tests before she sent her daughter back.

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07:46 am, Friday 24 April, 2009

Source: Adelaide Now

The mother of a first-year apprentice toolmaker who died in an Industrial accident in 2004 has told an Adelaide court of her anguish at losing her only child.

Her grief was compounded by the devastating five-year legal battle that has ensued since his death.

This morning, Andrea Madeley delivered an impassioned victim impact statement to the South Australian Industrial Relations Court, during a hearing into the shocking Workplace Incidentwhich left her 18-year-old son, Danny, with fatal injuries.

In June, 2004, Mr Madeley was working for Edwardstown-based Diemould Tooling Services as an apprentice toolmaker.

During a shift on Saturday, June 5, the teenager suffered fatal injuries when his dust coat became caught in the unguarded spinning shaft of one of the company’s boring machines. He died the next day in the Flinders Medical Centre.

In court today, Diemould Tooling Services pleaded guilty to one count of breaching section 19 of the Occupational Health & Safety Welfare Act (1986).

The plea came after years of legal wrangling over legal technicalities relating to the incident, which Diemould unsuccessfully appealed to the High Court.

‘”I’ve thought about this moment so many times – and we are finally, after almost five years – here. I sit here and try to put my thoughts into something audible but I am struggling. I feel so worn down now. I don’t know how to start, or where,” Mrs Madeley told the court.

“Danny made motherhood easy. I can’t even recall a time growing up when he got into trouble. It used to blow my mind how resourceful he could be. I just knew he would make a brilliant engineer some day.

“I had been calling Diemould for some seven or eight years. (Later) a position was created for Danny. This was, I thought, a time where I could finally stop worrying about his future – he was on his way now… paving his own destiny.

“If it wasn’t for the last few weeks before his death, I may still have been floating in that comfort. But I was beginning to sense something just wasn’t right at work.

“The things we talked about weren’t so much about safety … but more so about the demands put on him – his fear of making mistakes and letting people down.

“(When I got the call about the accident) I couldn’t draw a breath of air, let alone speak. After throwing the phone down and crawling around the house, trying to find the door, I realised I didn’t even know whether Daniel was alive anymore.

“But, from where I sit, all that seems like a sick and twisted overture to a long nightmare.

“There are no warm and fuzzy dreams left… no future to get excited about – just nightmares with varying degrees of horror and more broken sleep than I care to think about. I feel like a prisoner in my own body.

“There have been many unanswered questions eating away at me for almost half a decade now.

“I need to ask Daniel’s employer these questions now. We’re talking about a machine capable of tearing a human being apart – please tell me what the hell you were thinking having Daniel operating that thing alone in the factory in the middle of the night?

“It will be my life’s work to hound the conscience of shoddy operations – companies that believe the bottom line is more important than the lives of their workers and their loved ones. That is the promise I made to Danny. I aim to keep it.”

Karim Soetratma, prosecuting on behalf of SafeWork SA, said Mr Madeley’s death was the result of gross negligence on the part of Diemould.

Industrial Magistrate Michael Ardlie must now decide on the financial liability of Diemould. He has reserved his decision.

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07:27 am, Friday 24 April, 2009

WorkSafe Victoria is hosting an interactive forum next Thursday 30 April aimed at helping employers in Melbourne’s western suburbs better understand how they can safely return mature-aged workers back to work after injury or illness.

The session is part of WorkSafe’s efforts to Improve Victoria’s Return To Work Performance.

From July 2003 to June 2008, the regions of Hobsons Bay and Wyndham reported a combined total of over 26,000 claims, costing more than $425 million in treatment, rehabilitation and compensation costs.

The session will provide local employers and Return to Work Coordinators with information about ways in which they can safely return older workers to the workforce, including strategies that can help reduce the risks of injury and improve the timeframes for rehabilitation and return to work.

A panel involving the Australian Rehabilitation Provider Association member, Janine Langley, and WorkSafe, will ensure employers in the area have an opportunity to have their questions answered.

According to WorkSafe Executive Director, Mr Len Boehm, “One of the major challenges facing all employers – whether large or small – is how to respond to the impacts on their business of an ageing population.

“Helping an injured worker get back to work not only assists in the early recovery and rehabilitation of the worker, it reduces productivity losses and minimises the impact on an employer’s workplace injury insurance costs.

“Helping injured workers return to work in a safe and sustainable way can be a complex process and older workers need as much support as any other worker.“

The event will be held at 2.00pm at Werribee Racing Club in Werribee.

For further information about future WorkSafe return to work network events visitWww.Worksafe.Vic.Gov.Au/Rtwnetworks or email Rtw_networks@Worksafe.Vic.Gov.Au.

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