Queensland avocado company fined over worker's death

27 November 2018
Canberra Times


A far north Queensland avocado company has been fined $200,000 for the electrocution of an overseas worker on a Tolga farm in 2016.

Golden Triangle was fined $200,000 in the Cairns Magistrate Court on Friday, with no conviction recorded.


The overseas worker died while trimming avocado trees.   

The Chilean 457 visa worker aged in his late 20s, died when his pruning tool clashed with 22,000 volt powerlines.   

Cairns Magistrate Kevin Priestly said workers had been given verbal reminders about the powerlines prior to the incident, but this was deemed inadequate, and more suitable safety measures should have been in place.


Mr Priestly said simple steps should have been taken to prevent the death, given the potentially catastrophic risks.   

These steps could have included planting the trees well away from the three-metre powerline exclusion zone.

During sentencing, the company’s early guilty plea, its great safety record and the community’s support was taken into account.

Head of Queensland’s Electrical Safety Office Victoria Thomson said rural property owners need to be aware of where powerlines are located.

“It’s imperative that workers and their equipment stay well out of powerline exclusion zones – at least three metres in all directions – and they always work away and not towards powerlines,” Ms Thomson said.

“You must make sure everyone on your property knows where powerlines are, and that equipment operators and workers are suitably trained and competent to work around powerlines in a way that is electrically safe.”

The Electrical Safety Office said the best way to control the risk of contacting powerlines is to avoid working near them, relocate live electric lines away from work area or de-energising them while work is being done.

'Golden Triangle'... is it foreign owned, or is the owner a blonde lady?