Murrell Freight Services Pty Ltd

On 10 February 2024, a worker suffered a serious leg injury when a steel tower crane section rolled off the forklift tines as they were placing dunnage underneath, landing on the worker’s foot.

Alleged breach

Murrell Freight Services Pty Ltd contravened section 19(1) and 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011.

Summary of undertaking

Activities Murrell Freight Services Pty Ltd will undertake include:

  • Uplifting its WHS capacity and compliance by recruiting qualified personnel
  • Staff training in WHS leadership and chain of responsibility awareness
  • Upgrading its online business management system and train managers and supervisors in the system functionality
  • Fitting artificial intelligence pedestrian avoidance technology to its fleet of warehousing forklifts, including consultation and training for workers
  • Attending the 2026 Illawarra Convey event to promote safety messages
  • Organising and presenting at an industry event to share learnings from the incident and enforceable undertaking.

This undertaking has a total expenditure of $430,300.

Reasons for accepting undertaking

  • The alleged contravention does not appear to be a section 31 Reckless conduct category 1 or section 34C industrial manslaughter offence, which if it was the case, would preclude the proposed undertaking from being accepted
  • The nature of the alleged contravention and the actions taken by Murrell Freight Services Pty Ltd in response to the incident are assessed as being appropriate for consideration of an undertaking
  • The strategies proposed in the undertaking have been assessed as likely to deliver long term sustainable safety improvements in the workplace, industry and community
  • The undertaking addresses the requirements contained within the “Enforceable Undertakings – Guidelines for Proposing a WHS Undertaking”.

Date accepted:

2 April 2026

Further information

View the full Murrell Freight Services Pty Ltd undertaking (PDF, 1382.41 KB).

If you are not able to access the information in this PDF we can make alternative arrangements for you. Please contact enforceable.undertakings@safework.nsw.gov.au.

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