Guilty on all counts

A top bank executive pocketing $4.5 million a year is bleating 
about workers being compensated for successful health and safety 
prosecutions. Commonwealth Bank CEO David Murray launched a 
blistering attack on NSW's OH&S regime, describing proposed jail 
sentences for killer bosses as "absolutely abominable".

He described the existing system that allows successful 
prosecutors to recoup costs as "corrupt". Union research reveals 
over the last 20 years the money paid to all unions combined in 
NSW for successful OH&S actions amounted to less than Murray's 
salary for one year.

Under state law, unions have been able to charge employers with 
health and safety offences since the 1940s. In recent years, the 
Finance Sector Union has launched a number of successful actions 
against banks.

Last year the ANZ pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety 
of workers after an armed robbery at its Brookvale branch. The 
court heard the company had ignored repeated warnings about the 
risks posed to staff and customers. 

Murray's Commonwealth Bank recently pleaded guilty to an OH&S 
offence and faces at least three other counts.

The NSW Government agreed to make employers criminally liable for 
deaths at their workplaces when it could be proved they were 
personally culpable. The proposed law change came in response to 
widespread agitation over the building industry deaths of 
teenagers Dean McGoldrick and Joel Exner.