Owners corporation fined $225,000 over fatal industrial gate collapse
09 Aug 2024•BlueSafe Team•Source: SafeWork NSW
An owners corporation has been convicted and fined $225,000, plus costs, after a faulty industrial gate fell on a worker and killed him. SafeWork NSW said it was the first conviction of its kind involving an owners corporation at an industrial strata complex.
SafeWork NSW prosecuted the owners corporation for failing to repair the gate. The conviction was under the Work Health and Safety Act NSW 2011, with a maximum penalty of $1.73 million for the offence.
The 64-year-old worker died on 12 June 2020 while trying to open the electric entry gate manually. The gate weighed 260kg and measured 8.5 metres long.
A van had struck the gate on 4 June 2020, knocking it off its tracks. The body corporate approved repairs the following day and a work order was issued, but the court found the repairs had not been treated as urgent.
The judge concluded that, “as the owner of the common property, which included the gate, it had the power as well as the obligation to make the site safe.”
The worker’s employer, Maluko Pty Ltd, was convicted and fined $375,000 in July 2023 over the same incident. It had pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to comply with its duty to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, the health and safety of its workers.
Head of SafeWork NSW Trent Curtin expressed sympathy for the worker’s family and said industrial gates could be extremely dangerous without proper maintenance.
“As this case shows, workplace safety is everybody’s responsibility.”
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