Tag: Corporate Governance
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The anatomy of systemic failure—The Dreamworld coronial inquest and the illusions of 30-year passivity
For thirty years, the Ardent Leisure boardroom operated under a classic corporate safety illusion. The park possessed extensive collections of signed pre-start checklists, maintained a library of standard operating procedures, and routinely satisfied traditional regulatory insurance checks. Yet, the Queensland Coronial Inquest into the catastrophic Thunder River Rapids Ride disaster, which tragically claimed four lives,…
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The illusion of compliance metrics—The $3.6 Million Dreamworld judgment
For thirty years, the Ardent Leisure boardroom operated under a classic corporate safety illusion. The park possessed extensive collections of signed pre-start checklists, maintained a library of standard operating procedures, and routinely satisfied traditional regulatory insurance checks. Yet, in the third quarter of 2020, the Queensland Magistrates Court handed down an unprecedented, record-breaking $3.6 million…
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The criminalisation of corporate neglect: The arrival of Victorian workplace manslaughter
For decades, the standard corporate approach to workplace health and safety was managed as an insurable, financial risk metric. If an operational failure led to a worker’s death, the corporate entity faced civil or regulatory fines, which were often managed as a variable cost of doing business. Executive directors and officers were largely insulated from…
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The Fallacy of Cumulative General Policies
In late 2014, the Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) delivered a critical unfair dismissal appellate ruling that reinforced the strength of strict corporate drug and alcohol frameworks. The commission overturned a previous lower ruling and upheld the summary dismissal of a senior employee who had tested positive for illicit substances following a…
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Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: The Reaching Power of Section 155 Information Notices
One of the most powerful administrative mechanisms embedded within the model Work Health and Safety (WHS) Act is the regulator’s power to compel the production of documents, objects, and information under Section 155. For several years, multi-state employers and corporate boards attempted to resist these notices by employing traditional jurisdictional strategies, arguing that state-based safety…
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Primark Safety Considerations
One of the things that first hits you when shopping on Oxford Street in England is the volume of shoppers. Turnover on Oxford Street, with more than 300 shops on its 1.5 mile length was up 6.2% in the first half of the year and is expected to break 5 billion by the New Years…