On 24 January 2022, the defendant company was sentenced in the Beenleigh Magistrates Court for breaching section 335(1) of the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011 (‘the Regulation’), having failed to ensure a hazardous chemical was correctly labelled as soon as practicable after importing the chemical. Magistrate Kilner convicted and fined the defendant $6,000. No conviction was recorded.

The defendant undertook a business of importing products including calcium oxide, commonly known as quicklime powder, to be supplied to the mining industry. The quicklime powder was delivered to the premises of a warehousing and transport company for storage and distribution. While initially delivered in iso-tanks, from around August 2018 the quicklime powder was delivered in nylon bags. As a result, the contents of the nylon bags often spilled onto the ground, requiring workers of the warehousing company to clean it.

On 14 August 2019, a worker of the warehousing company was injured while handling the quicklime powder. It was subsequently revealed that the nylon bags were not correctly labelled as required for hazardous chemicals.

In sentencing, Magistrate Kilner took into account the maximum penalty of the offence, the defendant’s early guilty plea and the defendant’s lack of prior convictions. The Court noted that this matter came to the attention of Workplace Health and Safety Queensland after a worker was injured. However, it was accepted that the offence was limited to the failure to appropriately label the bags of hazardous chemicals.

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