A spate of recent fatal incidents involving uncontrolled industrial safety gates has highlighted the importance of ensuring industrial gates are properly designed, installed and maintained. Work health and safety (WHS) prosecutions relating to failures of industrial gates have seen designers of the gates, companies with control of the premises, strata managers, and maintenance companies all prosecuted.
Need to know
- Industrial gates have been linked to multiple fatalities and serious injuries across Australia.
- WorkSafe and SafeWork authorities are actively inspecting industrial gates across high-risk industries.
- Duty holders, including owners, occupiers, contractors, and strata managers, share overlapping safety obligations.
Industrial gates: a common but underestimated risk
Industrial gates are a common feature at many Australian workplaces. They generally act as a barrier to control the movement of vehicles, people and mobile plant into or within an industrial space.
Between 2017 and 2025, SafeWork NSW received notification of at least 17 incidents involving industrial gates, two of which resulted in fatalities. It has warned businesses that inspectors will be checking industrial gates in the construction, agricultural, transport, and warehousing industries.1 WorkSafe Queensland also recorded two incidents in 2023 that resulted from end-stop failures, where the end stop did not prevent the gate from travelling past the upright support, causing it to fall.2
Work health and safety prosecutions against companies following industrial gate failures demonstrate that safety duties are overlapping, and that safety is a proactive responsibility for anyone with a duty.
Ineffective gate stopper results in $180,000 penalty
In July 2025, 465 Leichhardt Pty Ltd (the Company) was convicted of breaching its primary duty as a person with management and control of a workplace in exposing persons to a risk of death or serious injury in contravention of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) (WHS Act) and fined $180,000 after an industrial gate fell on a family walking past the redevelopment site.3 The Company had arranged for the installation of the gate across the driveway entrance to the site in late June 2022 through a specialist contractor. The gate measured 2.4 metres high and 5 metres wide with an approximate weight of 200 kilograms.
Unbeknownst to the Company, the specialist contractor had failed to install an end stop on the gate to prevent the gate from travelling past its resting place. Rather, a small piece of angled iron had been welded to the top of the gate and was intended to prevent the gate from overrunning the track.
In September 2022, a few months after the gate was installed, a scaffolding worker parked his utility truck across the footpath in front of the gate and, upon seeing a mother and her three children walking along the footpath, decided to open the gate and move his truck inside the site. Unfortunately, when the worker opened the gate, it overran its resting place and became unsupported. The gate fell on the mother and her three children, who remained trapped beneath the gate until passers-by lifted it off them. The mother sustained fractures to her left tibia and fibula, which required internal fixation surgery. Post-incident, she experienced ongoing anxiety when walking past the redevelopment site. All three children sustained bruising; one child also sustained a minor head injury, while another suffered a laceration to their lip. The outcome could have been far worse.
The specialist contractor is also being separately prosecuted.
Multiple duty holders of an industrial complex prosecuted
In July 2024, the owners’ corporation of an industrial complex and the strata agent of the complex were separately convicted for breaching their duties as persons with management and control of a workplace in exposing persons to a risk of death or serious injury in contravention of the WHS Act.4 The charges arose after an employee of a tenant of the site was fatally crushed while attempting to manually open the industrial gate on the site. The gate, which measured approximately 8.5 metres long and 2 metres high, overran its intended resting place as a result of the gate stopper being ineffective and fell on top of the worker.
It was later discovered that the industrial gate had been damaged some days prior when a van collided with the gate, which had rendered the gate’s electric opening and closing mechanism inoperable and displaced the stopper. While NSW Emergency Services had attended the site after the collision to secure the gate, it had not been tagged out, repaired, or made safe. Further, while the occupants of the industrial complex had undertaken makeshift repairs to the gate, the stopper on the gate remained displaced.
The owners’ corporation was fined $300,000, reduced by 25% to $225,000 to reflect its early guilty plea. In sentencing the owners’ corporation, the court found that the “Owners had its own independent safety duty under the WHS Act. As the owner of the common property, which included the gate, it had the power as well as the obligation to make the site safe.” The strata agent was separately fined $200,000, reduced by 25% to $150,000 to reflect its early guilty plea. Further, the deceased worker’s employer was also prosecuted and fined $500,000, reduced by 25% to $375,000 to reflect its guilty plea.
Specialist gate repair business convicted in relation to gate fatality
In December 2024, a specialist gate repair company in Victoria was charged with, and pleaded guilty to a breach of its duty as an employer under s 23 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) after a truck driver was fatally crushed by a falling gate that was in the process of being repaired.5
An employee of the specialist gate repair company had removed the drive motor from the large industrial gate at a Dandenong depot. A consequence of removing the motor was that, if the gate was operated manually, it could run beyond its support posts and fall. The specialist company had verbally advised the company operating at the depot to lock the gate closed and to put a chain around it so that it could not fall. This did not occur.6 Two days after the motor was removed, a truck driver leaving the depot attempted to manually close the gate when it fell on him. The driver suffered fatal injuries.
The Court found that it was reasonably practicable for the specialist gate repair company to provide and maintain a system of work that required its employees to lock out and tag out gates so they could not be manually opened during the repair process. The company was convicted and fined $350,000, reduced from $450,000 to reflect its guilty plea.
In view of the safety risks associated with industrial gates, it is incumbent on all duty holders at industrial complexes to ensure that their workplace does not expose their workers and others to health and safety risks. We outline below our top five considerations in relation to industrial gates.
Five key considerations for businesses:
- Duties under work health and safety legislation are overlapping and not transferable. Businesses cannot take a “set and forget” attitude towards WHS. A consultative approach between duty holders is key in mitigating risks associated with industrial gates.
- Regularly inspect industrial gates to ensure they are in proper working condition. Report damaged gates as soon as possible and address safety issues immediately.
- Undertake a risk assessment in relation to industrial gates on site and implement control measures as required to minimise the risk. Review control measures regularly and revise any control measures where required based on any changes to the risk exposure.
- Implement a regular maintenance schedule for industrial gates to ensure wear and tear is identified and rectified.
- Ensure contractors engaged to install, maintain or repair industrial gates are suitably qualified and competent.
Get in touch
Industrial gates may seem simple, but their failure can have devastating consequences. Recent prosecutions make clear that all parties, from owners to contractors, have a proactive duty to ensure these systems are safe.
Please get in touch with our Workplace & Safety team if you would like to know more.
1SafeWork NSW, ‘Industrial gate safety’ (Campaign) https://www.safework.nsw.gov.au/advice-and-resources/campaigns/industrial-gate-safety.
2WorkSafe Queensland, ‘Worker fatally injured by gate’ (Alert) <https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/news-and-events/alerts/incident-alerts/2024/worker-fatally-injured-by-gate>.
3SafeWork NSW v 465 Leichhardt Pty Ltd [2025] NSWIC 5 (2 July 2025).
4SafeWork NSW v Chris Darby Strata Pty Ltd [2024] NSWDC 360; SafeWork NSW v Owners – Strata Plan No. 93899 [2024] NSWDC 277.
5DPP v Gate Automation Systems Pty Ltd [2024] VCC 2085 (19 December 2024).
6WorkSafe Victoria, ‘Company fined $350,000 after fatal gate crush’ (News) <https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/news/2024-12/company-fined-350000-after-fatal-gate-crush>.
