A nationwide packaging company has been fined a quarter of a million dollars after one of their workers lost fingers in unguarded machinery.
The worker's fingers were caught in machinery between two rollers, and two of their finger tips later had to be amputated.
WorkSafe said in a statement this morning that the company had been prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act after an investigation and fined $250,000, with the worker paid reparation of $32,500.
WorkSafe said that the company had been warned many times before about unsafe machinery, and that prosecution was the next step.
Chief inspector specialist interventions Hayden Mander said the company should have been aware of the risks involved.
"This company has not learned from its previous failings. If you've been subject to 10 notices for health and safety failings since 2014, you've got to know you're not doing something right," he said.
"The right response to this alarming record should have been a company-wide review of its machine guarding - instead a worker has been left with life changing injuries.
"It is dispiriting for the health and safety regulator to have to ask: How many times do you need to be told things are not right before you actually put them right? We answered that question by prosecuting Alto Packaging."
Alto Packaging has 20 sites across the country.
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