Hume City Council was sentenced without conviction and ordered to pay a fine of $10,000 plus costs of $2,714 following an incident at its Sunbury waste transfer station.
Council pleaded guilty at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on Thursday 14 March to one charge that it failed to ensure people were not exposed to health or safety risks following an injury to a worker at its Riddell Rd public tip.
According to Worksafe, which took action against the council and its contractor Cornfoot Bros Earthmoving, a transfer station worker was hit by a loader on 22 November 2021 and suffered serious leg injuries.
While the site is owned by Hume City Council, it had entered into a contract with Cornfoot Bros Earthmoving for the management and control of the site. Hume Council was deemed by Worksafe to be the occupier of the land, as it was the holder of the EPA Licence, and remained responsible for managing capital works.
In court, Hume Council accepted it failed to install:
- An interlocked gate at the top of the stairs connecting the upper level and the lower level of the Transfer Station to prevent pedestrians from walking onto the lower level while the loader was being operated
- Flashing beacons inside the work area on the lower level of the Transfer Station to alert pedestrians that the loader was being operated there; and/or
- A boom gate at the vehicle entry side of the lower level of the Transfer Station to prevent the loader from accessing that area while pedestrians were in that area
Hume’s offending was not alleged to have been a cause of the injuries sustained by the worker.
In a separate action by Worksafe in relation to the same incident, Cornfoot Bros Earthmoving (CBE) also pleaded guilty at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on Thursday 14 March to one charge under the Occupational Health and Safety Act that it failed to ensure the workplace was safe and without risks to health. It was sentenced, without conviction, to pay a fine of $25,000 plus costs of $2,714.
CBE accepted its failure to:
- Install a reversing camera on the loader to reduce blind spots at the rear of the loader
- Install an active or passive proximity warning system on the loader to alert the operator about any pedestrians in proximity of the loader while it was being operated
- Require the operator of the loader and the workers who were sorting through waste on the lower level of the transfer station to use two-way radios to communicate with each other, so that the loader was not operated until all pedestrians had left the lower level; or
- Implement a traffic management plan that defined safe zones, pedestrian exclusion zones, mobile plant exclusion zones, and marked pedestrian walkways
In sentencing Hume City Council, the Court considered the following:
- Hume’s offending was non-causative
- Parity with the sentence imposed on CBE (considering differing factors including victim impact and departure from the duty owed)
- The sentencing regime is risk based, not outcome based
- The duty of the employer extends to take into account and guard against mistakes and inadvertence of regular people
In March, Hume City Council kept its Riddell Rd transfer station open while staff cleaned up illegally dumped asbestos.
