00:00Industrial manslaughter occurs when a business recklessly or negligently
00:04fails to ensure the safety of its workers or consumers and that negligence
00:09then leads to death. Legal tests differ across jurisdictions but at its core a
00:14company commits industrial manslaughter when a death is found to have been
00:17caused by the company breaching its duty of care under their workplace health
00:22and safety requirement. Industrial manslaughter is now criminalized in
00:26every jurisdiction but there are many differences across states and territories
00:30in the way that industrial manslaughter cases are heard and punished. Across each
00:35state and territory individuals could face anything from 20 years to life in
00:40prison while corporations could be hit with between 10 million to 20 million
00:44dollars in fines. Tasmania was the last to criminalize industrial manslaughter
00:50bringing its laws into force in late 2024. New South Wales was also slow to
00:56criminalize industrial manslaughter with a bill before Parliament in June
01:002024. By contrast ACT was the first jurisdiction to criminalize industrial
01:05manslaughter making an offence in 2004. Industrial manslaughter laws were
01:11introduced to South Australia in 2023 and brought into force a year later. In
01:17Queensland industrial manslaughter has been an offence since 2017. It was the
01:22first jurisdiction to record a conviction against both a body
01:25corporate and an individual. In 2020 a recycling company was fined three
01:30million dollars and its directors were sentenced to 10 months suspended
01:34imprisonment sentence. It was found that the death of a worker was caused by an
01:39unlicensed forklift driver and the company was found to have no
01:42appropriate traffic management safety systems in place at the time of the
01:46accident. Then in a separate case in 2022 an individual was sentenced to five
01:52years in prison after it was found that he had negligently caused the death of a
01:57worker who was crashed by a generator that fell from a moving forklift. The
02:02heaviest penalties for individuals including potentially life imprisonment
02:06were introduced into the Northern Territory in 2020. Since then NT WorkSafe
02:12has successfully prosecuted two industrial manslaughter cases. In August
02:172024 a construction company was found guilty of two counts of failing to
02:22comply with health and safety duties after death of a 50 year old on its
02:25construction site. The second successful case in the Northern Territory was
02:29brought against Craig Williams who was trading as Rainbow Beach Constructions
02:34in 2023. One of Mr. Williams workers died after falling over three metres through
02:40an unguarded void while moving cabinets. In Victoria the crime is known as
02:45workplace manslaughter and has been a punishable offence since 2020. In
02:51February 2024 Victoria recorded its first workplace manslaughter conviction
02:56when the director of a company was driving a loaded forklift which tipped
03:00and killed a 25 year old subcontractor. The company was fined 1.3 million dollars
03:06and the sole director was ordered to complete a two-year 200 hour community
03:10corrections order. Advocates for these laws including unions have welcomed the
03:22introduction of industrial manslaughter laws across the country but the lack of
03:26uniformity in the way it's recorded and punished remains a concern. But it'll put
03:31the emphasis on the companies to continue to ensure that provide safe
03:34places of work and safe systems. You know and as workers go to work they should be
03:38guaranteed that they're not going to be put into a position that is unsafe
03:42you know that everyone's going to be held to account and as we said you know
03:46workers go to work to work not to die.
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