Category: News

On 19 February 2024, LH Holding Management Pty Ltd, trading as Universal Stone and Marble, was sentenced in the Victorian Supreme Court  after pleading guilty to a single charge of engaging in negligent conduct that constituted a breach of a duty owed to another person and caused their death.

The company was convicted and fined $1.3 million.

LH Holding Management’s sole director Laith Hanna, 46, was also convicted and placed on a two-year Community Corrections Order to complete 200 hours of unpaid community work and a course in forklift operation after pleading guilty to a single charge under section 144(1) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act for being an officer of a company that committed workplace manslaughter, a contravention solely attributable to his failure to take reasonable care.

The company and Hanna were also ordered to pay $120,000 in compensation to the worker’s family for pain and suffering.

In October 2021, a 25-year-old sub-contractor died after a forklift being operated by Hanna with a raised load on a sloping driveway tipped over and landed on top of him.

Continue reading “Forklift Accident is Victoria’s First Conviction for Industrial Manslaughter”

SafeWork NSW have produced a Self-Assesment Checklist : Safety around Moving Plant

The use of powered mobile plant (including forklifts)  in the workplace is a major cause of serious injuries and even fatalities in NSW workplaces. SafeWork NSW has identifed the three main reasons why workers are killed and seriously injured in mobile plant incidents and these are:

1. Being hit or crushed by mobile plant.
2. Being hit or crushed by a load that the mobile plant is moving.
3. Being crushed in a mobile plant tip over.

If you are a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU), a self-employed person or a controller of a workplace with mobile plant, this self-assessment tool is designed to provide guidance for what you can do to
improve safety around mobile plant and put in place measures to control the associated risks in your workplace to be compliant with safety legislation.

This tool relates to powered mobile plant operation, high risk work licensing, pedestrian separation, load handling, seatbelts and general mobile plant safety and maintenance.

A copy of the checklist can be downloaded from the SafeWork NSW website or here

Following our news item of March 2022 regarding “rebirthing” of  flood damaged Forklift Trucks

In early December 2023 AFITA wrote to the Insurance Council of Australia and the Hon Tony Burke MP, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations expressing concern regarding the potential for flood damaged forklifts to be “rebirthed” following write-off and asking for the removal of name plates prior to the sale of written off machines to ensure they are only used for parts.

Continue reading “Flood Damaged Forklifts – Again”

In April 2018 what is now the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the  Environment and Water (DCCEEW) commenced an evaluation for a national approach to manage emissions from non-road diesel engines.

The Issue

• Australia currently has no regulations to control noxious emissions from non-road diesel engines.
• Total particulate emissions from non-road diesel engines are significantly larger than total particulate emissions from all on-road motor vehicles in Australia (petrol, diesel and LPG), even though the number of non-road diesel engines is only about 3% of the number of on-road engines.
• They emit particulate matter (mainly fine particles, PM_2.5), oxides of nitrogen, volatile organic compounds and a range of air toxics which are harmful to human health.
• Current international best practice standards emission standards for diesel engines  are US Tier 4f

Continue reading “Evaluation & Regulation of Non-Road Diesel Engine Emissions”