WorkSafe Victoria has confirmed it is continuing its commitment to monitoring and enforcing workplace health and safety by revealing it has handed down more than 9,000 improvement notices and 137 completed prosecutions in the latest financial year data, which is an increase of 65 per cent from the previous period.
The workplace health and safety regulator conducted almost 38,000 workplace inspections throughout the state and supported more than 90,000 injured workers via treatment or benefits.
Chair John Merritt and CEO Colin Radford said they were determined to “ensure Victoria maintains its reputation as the safest place to work in Australia and one of the safest in the world”.
“We aspire to be a world leader in return to work after a workplace injury,” Mr Merritt and Mr Radford said in the report.
The authority has focused on asbestos safety throughout the campaign, with 1115 asbestos-related visits to sites, and 95 improvement notices issued.
One business was fined for lack of fall protection, no workers wearing the required PPE while carrying out asbestos removal and no nominated asbestos removal supervisor at the workplace during the time of the inspection. The business was fined $25,000 as a result.