The Border Mail.
Written By: SALLY EVANS
11/06/2009 12:00:00 AM
MORE than $60 million was paid out for serious workplace accidents and
injuries in Albury-Wodonga in five years.
A further $33 million was claimed across the North East, including $13.7
million in Wangaratta and $7 million in the Alpine Shire.
The staggering figures have been released ahead of WorkCover NSW and
WorkSafe Victoria visits to the Border this month.
WorkSafe Victoria spokesman Michael Birt said businesses were often not
aware of the potential cost to them when a worker was injured.
“You’re not necessarily going to get prosecuted for it,” he said.
“But there’s the cost of the (insurance) premium, the cost of that person
being off work for a short term, long term or forever and the cost if they’ve
got to be replaced.’’
WorkSafe Victoria said there were 3375 cases in the North East over the past
five years where the person was off work for 10 days or more and/or had
medical costs exceeding $520.
Wodonga accounted for almost half the cases and more than $28 million in
compensation payouts.
According to WorkCover NSW, there were a total of 3825 claims for almost
$31.8 million made in Albury for the five years up to 2006-07.
WorkCover NSW chief Jon Blackwell said manual handling incidents accounted
for 31 per cent of all NSW workplace injuries during 2006-07.
The injuries involved lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, carrying, moving,
holding or restraining, and can also include stretching, bending, sustained
and awkward postures and repetitive movements.
An information session to be held by WorkCover NSW at the SS&A Club in
Albury from 9.30am today will focus on safe manual handling.
WorkSafe Victoria will hold a briefing at the Blazing Stump Hotel, Wodonga
on June 23.
Mr Birt said recent targeted campaigns in Victoria had resulted in a high
number of infringement notices.
“It used to be that we would see less than one notice issued per visit.
Now there would be three,” he said.
“There’s been a shift and we’re trying to find out what’s causing this.
Are people becoming complacent or are they trying to save money on not
investing in proper safety equipment?
“It is going to cost your business money by not providing a safe workplace.”
Mr Birt said the average fine was about $47,000, but had the potential to
be up to $1 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment