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Stiff new penalties for negligent employers
Victorian bosses who allow dangerous or fatal workplace health and safety breaches will face tougher penalties from now on.
Victoria's new Occupational Health and Safety Act came into force with the start of the new financial year, bringing hefty increases in possible fines and jail terms for bosses and companies convicted under its provisions.
Melbourne lawyer Paul Ronfeldt said directors and managers now had additional legal obligations and increased individual responsibility amid changes that allow them to be found personally liable for an offence.
"The Victorian WorkCover Authority will be much more likely to prosecute individual company officers whose companies have been charged with occupational health and safety offences," Mr Ronfeldt said.
"Until now, the law allowed such prosecutions in only very limited circumstances where an individual's wilful neglect caused an offence which the company had been found to have committed."
Company officers could be fined $184,050, up from $51,125, if a court found they failed to take reasonable care and the offence was attributable to them, or be sentenced to up to five years jail if their conduct recklessly endangered a person at a workplace.
Before today, only repeat offenders could be given five-year maximum terms.
WorkSafe, employers and unions jointly called for commitment to "a new era" of workplace safety in Victoria.
WorkSafe executive director John Merritt said the new act made health and safety requirements clearer and should be a catalyst for change.
More than 32,000 people made claims for workplace injuries in the 2003-04 financial year at a cost to the employer-funded workplace injury insurance system of more than $1.2 billion.
Eleven people have died in workplace accidents in Victoria so far this year, compared to 18 at the same time last year.
Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry spokesman David Gregory said the changes would support the progress in improved workplace health and safety made in recent years.
Australian Industry Group's Victorian director Tim Piper said improved occupational safety made good business sense.
Under the new laws, authorised and trained union representatives will also be able to walk onto the worksite if they reasonably suspect a breach of the Act.
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