Date accepted: 29 November 2021

Incident: The undertaking relates to four incidents that occurred between 15 August 2017 to 27 April 2018 during a construction project that covered a 41km road bypass route to the north of Toowoomba.

• Incident 1 involved a mobile concrete pump rollover
• Incident 2 involved the risk of falls and non-operational egress/access
• Incident 3 involved falls risks and risk of injury from uncapped vertical steel reinforcing bar
• Incident 4 involved a crane incident – falling objects

Alleged breach:  

PCBU had a health and safety duty under section 19(1) and 20 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (WHS Act) and failed to comply with those duties contrary to section 32 of the WHS Act.

Summary of undertaking:   

The following are key commitments given: 

• Conduct due diligence workshops for all senior managers, including the managing director.
• Conduct research relating to mobile plant with the overall goal to improve the effectiveness of safety management for heavy vehicle movements and lifting operations on construction sites.
• Design and develop a mobile plant safety management system for use in the construction industry and making the system available to construction industry participants through construction industry bodies (e.g., the Australian Constructors Association).
• Commissioning Professor Richard Johnstone from the School of Law at the Queensland University of Technology to complete an academic paper on legal and policy issues involved in the use of ‘pure risk’ prosecutions under the WHS Act.
• Funding an external consultant to assist Landcare Australia (Landcare) in developing and recommending improvements to Landcare’s online WHS training resources used to support their community volunteer groups.
• Funding to Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA) to assist with a workplace suicide prevention project.
• Donating $50,000 to Hope Assistance Local Tradies (HALT) to assist with its current work, and in particular, targeted towards funding a Project Worker to be available to tradies and apprentices in a new community not yet covered by HALT for up to one year.

Total Minimum Expenditure: $520,624

Regulator Publication: Click here