Queensland employers are facing further investigations and potential prosecutions after the state government announced $4.7 million in additional funding for the enforcement of safety and industrial issues.
Premier Peter Beattie says the money will fund more investigations and prosecutions by Department of Industrial Relations inspectors over the next four years.
The Attorney-General's department is currently working on draft legislation on industrial manslaughter to present to Parliament later this year.
Beattie says growing public expectation of improved workplace safety led to the funding.
"Companies and individuals have been fined $2.3 million in the last two years for breaches of workplace health and safety legislation," he says.
"The number of prosecutions initiated by the Department of Industrial Relations doubled last financial year.
"Importantly, 98% of the 142 prosecutions brought before the courts were successful."
More than half of the funding ($2.6 million) will go to investigating employers' compliance with other industrial legislation, including proper payment of wages.
Industrial Relations Minister Gordon Nuttall says more than $6.3 million in unpaid wages was recovered by government inspectors in the last financial year.
"Disappointingly, the majority of those workers who had been unpaid were young people and women workers," Nuttall says.
The funding comes on top of employing an additional 16 safety inspectors and establishing a new investigations and prosecutions unit within the department.
The announcement has already come under fire from Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Vince Lester. To read that story, click
here.