Murray MP Helen Dalton owns shares in Wumbulgal Agriculture Pty Ltd. Photo: Helen Dalton MP/Facebook.
A company that is part-owned by the independent Member for Murray, Helen Dalton, has been fined more than half a million dollars after one of its workers died in a quad bike accident.
According to a recently published decision from the NSW Industrial Court, Wumbulgal Agriculture Pty Ltd pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a health and safety duty to its workers and was fined $555,000.
The family-owned agriculture business was also ordered to pay SafeWork NSW’s legal costs of $55,000.
In NSW Parliament’s Register of Disclosures for 2024-2025, Ms Dalton stated she was a farmer for Wumbulgal Agriculture and also owned shares in the company.
In the Industrial Court, Justice Ingmar Taylor said an employee was riding on a quad bike while mustering sheep on the company’s property at Yenda, which is near the NSW town of Griffith, on 3 February 2023, when he struck a mound and was thrown to the ground.
He was not wearing a helmet and sustained a fatal head injury. The quad bike did not have a rollover protection device, which is designed to protect a rider from being crushed.
Justice Ingmar said the company had applied for, and received, monetary rebates under the NSW Government’s quad bike safety program three times.
“Given the offender’s participation in the quad bike safety program, I find that the offender not only should have known, but did know about the risks of operating quad bikes and the steps available to minimise those risks; in particular, to have operators wear helmets and to fit quad bikes with OPDs [operator protective devices],” she said.
She said the risk was well known to the company.
“The means by which it could be addressed were neither complex nor onerous, namely mandating the use of helmets when riding quad bikes and installing rollover protection,” Justice Taylor said.
“The offender was not merely aware of the risks. It had actively engaged with a program directed at reducing those risks and received financial assistance for that purpose.”
Justice Taylor accepted that the company did not have “an altogether cavalier attitude towards safety”. It no longer used quad bikes and required workers to use helmets when riding motorcycles and horses.
SafeWork Commissioner Janet Schorer urged businesses to ensure they have safe systems of work in place to keep their workers safe when out on the field.
“Quad bikes and side-by-side vehicles are one of the biggest risks on NSW farms and using them unsafely could have deadly consequences that impact entire workplaces, communities and families,” she said.
“Risk control measures for working with moving plant and fixed machinery are well known.
“Having an awareness and assessment of the risks, along with implementation of safe systems of work, is key to reducing the number of incidents related to moving plant.”
Region has attempted to contact Ms Dalton regarding the decision.
A SafeWork NSW spokesperson noted Wumbulgal Agriculture has the right to appeal against its sentence.
Original Article published by Albert McKnight on Region Canberra.
