Media statements - August 2005
Safety not an optional extra for rural equipment suppliers
Boarding house operator fined following workplace safety breaches
Safety not an optional extra for rural equipment suppliers
Queensland is joining forces with workplace health and safety authorities around Australia to crack down on the sale of hazardous rural plant and equipment.
Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations Tom Barton said Workplace Health and Safety Queensland inspectors will take part in a national audit between September and November to drive home the message that safety is not an optional extra.
"Queensland welcomes this opportunity to be part of the first ever coordinated audit of suppliers of rural equipment in Australia . It is important that rural workplaces are provided with safe equipment," Mr Barton said.
"This audit recognises that manufacturers, suppliers and importers are a key part of the safety equation and that rural equipment safety is a national concern because it is often bought and sold interstate."
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland General Manager Judy Bertram said inspections will be made of 750 businesses nationwide, including 200 in Queensland , to ensure all states are meeting standardised safety requirements.
"The audit will target manufacturers, suppliers and importers of new and second-hand rural equipment, particularly tractors, tractor attachments, grain augers and all terrain vehicle accessories," Ms Bertram said.
"It will focus on gauging the level of compliance in the industry as we know there are instances in which safe design standards are not being incorporated into some manufactured new plant, and that some second-hand plant is being supplied without appropriate safeguards."
Ms Bertram said manufacturers, suppliers and importers have a clear obligation, and it is in their commercial interest, to ensure their customers are not put at risk.
"They need to make sure that their plant and equipment is as safe as possible before it leaves their premises."
Ms Bertram said rural producers need to be aware that if they modify, build or sell plant and equipment they are subject to the same legal obligations as commercial manufacturers and suppliers.
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland will conduct free seminars throughout Queensland (Dalby, Toowoomba, Nambour, Kingaroy, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Gatton and Mackay) from 23 August to 2 September 2005 to inform businesses of their safety obligations and actions they should take to ensure they meet those obligations.
Media contact: Michael O'Meara on (07) 3225 2210
Boarding house operator fined following workplace safety breaches
Queensland-based company Rompine Pty Ltd was today fined $75,000 for breaches of the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 following the deaths of three people in a fire at the Sea Breeze Lodge at Sandgate in 2002.
The company director, Turbert Bhagwan Dutta, was also placed on a $20,000 one year good behaviour bond.
Rompine Pty Ltd and Mr Dutta pleaded guilty in Sandgate Industrial Magistrates Court to two counts each of breaching the Workplace Health and Safety Act 1995 by failing to ensure the safety of a worker and others was not affected by the way they conducted the undertaking.
Mr Dutta was charged in relation to his role as director of Rompine Pty Ltd.
The court heard that at about 11.30pm on 18 August 2002 the resident caretaker and two other residents were in their rooms when a fire started under the old Queenslander-style highset timber boarding house. They died from smoke inhalation.
Workplace Health and Safety Queensland (WHSQ) alleged that the men died as a consequence of Rompine and Dutta's failure to discharge their workplace health and safety obligations under the Act, and that the condition of the boarding house in relation to fire hazards, smoke alarms, fire fighting equipment and fire escape facilities had put a worker and others at significant risk of death or injury.
The WHSQ investigation, conducted in conjunction with the Queensland Police Service, Brisbane City Council and the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, found substantial safety deficiencies.
The court was told the company and its director had cooperated with the WHSQ investigation.
Magistrate Pam Dowse ordered the company and its director to pay investigation and court costs of $2,000. No conviction was recorded.
The prosecution was brought by WHSQ, a division of the Department of Industrial Relations.
Media contact: 3225 2484
Last updated 21 July 2009
Other languages