News

The Safety Series Podcast – Lifting Forklift Safety

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Safety conversations matter — especially when it comes to forklifts and industrial trucks operating in Australian workplaces.

We’re proud to launch the AFITA Safety Series, a new podcast exploring issues shaping safer operations across our industry. From compliance and industry standards to practical, on-the-ground insights, this series brings together experience, technical knowledge, and industry leadership to support operators, businesses, and safety professionals.

In our first episode, we examine the complexities of using, owning and selling aged manual handling equipment. What changes as equipment gets older? What should businesses be checking? And how do you maximise lifespan while maintaining safety and compliance?

Listen now

AFITA Social Media

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The Australian Forklift & Industrial Truck Association (AFITA) is now on Facebook and Instagram.

As the national peak body representing major suppliers of forklift trucks and associated equipment, AFITA works to strengthen safety standards, contribute to Australian industry regulations and support best practice across the materials-handling sector.

Follow us for practical safety guidance, standards updates, industry insights and resources designed to support safer workplaces across Australia.

Find us on Facebook

Find us on Instagram

Assessing Ground Conditions for Mobile Plant – An Interactive guide

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On 4 February 2026, Safe Work Australia published the Interactive guide on managing the risks associated with ground conditions. The interactive guide provides practical WHS guidance and information when assessing ground conditions for mobile plant.

Ground conditions can vary dramatically from one workplace to another and even within the one workplace. The ground can appear to be solid, but underneath there may be hazards such as soft or waterlogged soils, voids, or underground services not visible from the surface.

The guide is aimed at people who have a responsibility for mobile plant in the workplace. This includes those who operate, work with, or hire mobile plant, and employers of workers who work with mobile plant.

The guide illustrates key concepts when assessing ground conditions and is designed to help users recognise:

  • the ground conditions that may pose a risk when setting up and using mobile plant
  • how to assess and control ground risks to keep themselves and others on the site safe, and
  • when to get expert advice.

The guide has 3 easy-to-follow modules with 3 scenario-based videos, interactive and visual exercises, and supporting resources.

2025 AFITA Industry Award – Nominations Now Open

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AFITA Industry Award 

Call for Nominations for 2025 AFITA Industry Award

In 2023, the Australian Forklift and Industrial Truck Association (AFITA) created an award to honour an individual or individuals from Australian forklift industry who have made an outstanding contribution to the value, recognition or reputation of the industry.

Eligibility: To be eligible for the AFITA Industry Award, the nominee:

  • is an individual or individuals from the Australian Forklift & Industrial Truck industry;
  • has made a significant contribution to the value, recognition or reputation of the industry

 The Prize is awarded annually and presented at the AFITA Annual Dinner which will be held in 2025 in Sydney on 27 August 2025.

Nominations are to be made in the form of a submission of no more than 500 words forwarded to the AFITA Executive Officer, Sue Hart at admin@afita.com.au. For further information contact the AFITA Secretariat on 02 6290 1505.

 

The closing date for nominations for the 2025 AFITA Industry Award is 8 August 2025.

The criteria against which the award is judged and a nomination form are here.

 

Eligibility

  • Nominations may be made by any Full or Associate member of the AFITA.
  • Nominees should work principally within the forklift and industrial truck industry.
  • Awards may be granted posthumously in recognition of recent achievements.
  • A person may receive an award on more than one occasion in recognition of their particularly outstanding industry contribution or involvement in an alternative initiative.
  • Unsuccessful nominees may be nominated in future years.
  • Nominations must be apolitical and non-competitive in their nature and should not in any way bring the awards program, AFITA or the industry into disrepute.

Q&A: Operating Temperatures for Forklifts

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Question:

What procedures should be followed in electric forklifts operating in a temperature ranging from +40 to -22deg C environments.

Answer:

AS2359-9:2023 states:

4.1.2 Normal Climatic Conditions

For truck operation, the following climatic conditions apply:

  • Ambient temperature for continuous duty , +25 O C
  • Maximum ambient temperature for continuous duty , short term (up to 1h,     +40 O C
  • Lowest ambient temperature for trucks intended for use in normal indoor conditions, +5 O C
  • Lowest ambient temperature for trucks intended for use in normal outdoor conditions,  -20 O C
  • Altitude,   up to 2000 m

Where Trucks  are operating outside normal climatic conditions specific advice should be sought from the manufacturer regarding their suitability for the intended purpose and any issues that are likely to arise.  

Forklift Accident is Victoria’s First Conviction for Industrial Manslaughter

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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.

Read more

New Victoria Forklift Safety Guidebook

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On 22 May 2025 WorkSafe Victoria  released a new Forklift Safety Guidebook.

In their media release WorkSafe Victoria noted:

The newly-published guidance provides practical advice to employers on the safe use and maintenance of forklifts and highlights the need to separate forklifts from people on the ground.

WorkSafe data shows on average more than one worker every week in Victoria is seriously injured after being struck by forklifts or falling forklift loads.

The guidance outlines ways to reduce the risk by ensuring traffic management systems, such as physical barriers, exclusion zones and signage are in place.

Sadly, eight people have been killed in forklift-related workplace incidents since 2019, including three pedestrians working near forklifts. Pedestrians also accounted for 65 of the 157 accepted claims last year where the cause of injury was a forklift incident.

The guidance also encourages employers to consider retrofitting relatively low-cost safety technology such as sequential seatbelt interlocks, which prevents the forklift being started without a seatbelt in place, and proximity devices that detect pedestrians and automatically power mobile plant down to low speed.

The full media release is available here

The PDF version of the Guidebook is available directly from WorkSafe Victoria  here or from the AFITA website in the State and Territory Resources section, here.

2024 AFITA Industry Award – Nominations Now Open

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In 2023, the Australian Forklift and Industrial Truck Association (AFITA) created an award to honour an individual or individuals from Australian forklift industry who have made an outstanding contribution to the value, recognition or reputation of the industry.

Eligibility

To be eligible for the AFITA Industry Award, the nominee:

  • is an individual or individuals from the Australian Forklift & Industrial Truck industry;
  • has made a significant contribution to the value, recognition or reputation of the industry

The Prize is to be awarded annually and presented at the AFITA Annual Dinner which will be held this year in Sydney on 30 July 2024.

Nominations are to be made in the form of a submission of no more than 500 words forwarded to the AFITA Executive Officer, Sue Hart.

The closing date for nominations for the 2024 AFITA Industry Award is

15 July 2024.

Read more

Over 50 Years of of Working to Improve Forklift Safety

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AFITA (previously AITA)  has a proud tradition of supporting safety as evidenced by this  conformance plate  found recently on a 1972 Clark 2.5 Tonne  FLT referencing compliance with AITA Recommended Safety Practice 1969.

Other materials that have come to light recently include 1965 references to  AITA members advising state regulatory authorities that their machines were compliant with the Australian Industrial Truck Association Recommended Safety Practices for Powered Industrial Trucks  (in turn based on the American Standard Safety Code for Power Industrial Trucks ASA B56.1 (1959)).

So we have been in the business of promoting Forklift Safety for almost 60 years.

On another note the plate was on a machine believed to have been traded-in in the last 5 years – clearly built to last!

Thanks to Craig Williams, Engineering & Technical  Manager at Clark Equipment for the photo and the 1965 reference.

Safework NSW – Moving Plant Checklist

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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