Company fined over worker's death

Photo / APN

Rae Williams had it all - a satisfying job, a new loving partner, a very happy life - but it was all lost when she was run over and killed while working in Australia.

The New Zealand woman's employer OneSteel Recycling was fined $120,000 in the Industrial Magistrate's Court in Brisbane on Friday for breaching its workplace, health and safety obligations.

A truck drove over her while she was sweeping under it at Mackay Harbour in Queensland. Paramedics rushed to the scene but she was pronounced dead on arrival at Mackay Base Hospital.

The 56-year-old mother of four's new partner, Rod Kaddatz, was devastated by the death and hopes that companies learn from the fatality.

"I find it very difficult to accept that the Health and Safety Act has been out for many years now, and a company the size of OneSteel didn't have a safe system of work in place," he said.

Kaddatz flew to Brisbane to hear the court case against OneSteel and joining him there was Williams' oldest daughter, Kirsty Sinclair, who flew over from Western Australia.

"I didn't know my father, so she was my mother, my father, my everything," Sinclair said.

"She was my best friend and we did everything together. Everywhere she lived she made friends, and she lived all over Australia."

Williams was killed on October 7 last year at OneSteel's recycling centre.

Part of the recycling process involves the use of large magnets and buckets on cranes to lift pieces of metal into bins on the back of trucks.

Bits and pieces of metal fall around the truck almost every time a load is made.

Williams was assigned the job of sweeping up pieces of metal around and under the truck before it is driven off.