A construction company has been convicted and fined $650,000 for a worker's death at a multi-level apartment complex in Melbourne.
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Concorp Group Pty Ltd, in liquidation, was found guilty by a jury in the Victorian County Court on Friday over failing to maintain a safe working environment and to provide instruction, WorkSafe said on Wednesday.
The judge imposed a $325,000 fine for each charge.
The 54-year-old man was working on a wooden platform inside an open shaft on the fourth floor of the Carlton building when it overturned and he fell 12 metres to the ground in February 2016.
He died at the Elizabeth Street site.
Other labourers had built the platform two days earlier and it had been boarded up on the orders of a supervisor who raised concerns about a lack of fall protection.
But no other employees were warned about the platform before the plywood blocking its entrance was removed and the man entered the shaft to do drilling.
An independent engineer later found the likelihood of a fall occurring was almost inevitable.
"This death could have easily been avoided if other workers had been warned about the unsafe platform, or if the company had made readily available and cheap modifications to reduce the risk of a fall," WorkSafe health and safety executive director Julie Nielsen said.
Australian Associated Press