On 19 November 2024, the Magistrates Court of Queensland at Richlands convicted a defendant of failures to comply with workplace health and safety legislation. The offending involved two separate incidents at a workplace where the defendant manufactured food.

The first offence concerned a failure by the defendant to ensure that:

1. If a belt was removed from a conveyor on a lasagne production line that;

a. Guarding prevented access to moving parts of the machine; or

b. The machine was de-energised and isolated.

2. A procedure for the task of cleaning the machine was developed; and

3. Workers were trained, supervised and subjected to periodic compliance audits regarding the procedure for the task of cleaning the machine.

The defendant’s failure to do those things exposed an individual to a risk of death. The risk materialised on 4 June 2022 when a worker, who was attempting to clean the machine, was strangled to death after becoming trapped in an exposed moving part of the machine.

The second offence concerned a failure by the defendant to ensure that:

1. Workers did not move or touch moving parts of a mixer while it was operating;

2. A procedure for the task of using the mixer was developed; and

3. Workers were trained, supervised and subjected to periodic compliance audits regarding the procedure for the task of using the mixer.

The defendant’s failure to do those things exposed an individual to a risk of serious injury. The risk materialised on 13 June 2022 when a worker’s hand was injured by a moving part of a mixer, after the worker attempted to move the mixer while it operated.

Magistrate Shearer considered that the objective seriousness of the offending was high because the defendant demonstrated a lack of forethought in regard to its health and safety obligations concerning the operation of plant at the relevant workplace. The first incident involved a death of a worker that was foreseeable and preventable had the defendant applied itself to its health and safety obligations. The second incident also involved a foreseeable and preventable injury to a worker notwithstanding that the worker had placed his hand in the mixer.

His Honour considered that the purpose of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) (the Act) was well-known by businesses and the community generally, and that the purpose of the Act and general deterrence was served by the imposition of fines and the making of an adverse publicity order which would communicate general deterrence specifically to other food manufacturing businesses which operate similar sorts of machinery which carry similar risks.

His Honour was not satisfied that the recording of a conviction would carry a measurable negative material impact upon the defendant, but did consider that the circumstances of the matter, namely the purchase of the defendant by different owners after the incidents had occurred, in conjunction with significant post-offence steps taken by the defendant to improve its approach to health and safety, the defendant’s early plea of guilty and its charitable efforts in its favor, were such that His Honour did not record a conviction.

The Magistrates Court of Queensland at Richlands imposed the following penalty:

• The defendant was fined $230,000 for the first offence.
• The defendant was fined $40,000 for the second offence.

The defendant was ordered to publish in the February 2025 edition of the Food and Beverage Industry News magazine the details of the offending, the consequences of the offending and the penalties imposed by the court (as detailed in the annexure to the specific order made by the court).

OWHSP contact: enquiries@owhsp.qld.gov.au