> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.whsbrief.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Seven Days on a Rooftop: What an $8,000 Fine Says About Officer Due Diligence - URL: https://www.whsbrief.com/seven-days-on-a-rooftop-what-an-8-000-fine-says-about-officer-due-diligence/ - Published: 2026-10-08T22:30:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T22:29:59.000Z - Description: A sole director was convicted after wind blew his company's scaffold off a Sydney rooftop, because he had no system requiring inspections or passing on safety information. - Author: WHS Brief - Tags: blog On 29 September 2022, high winds blew a mobile scaffold off a level 9 rooftop in Clarence Street, Sydney. It had been installed seven days earlier. It fell about six storeys onto a neighbouring glass roof above an art gallery and cafe. In SafeWork NSW v Secura Scaffold Services Pty Ltd; SafeWork NSW v Hu, the company was fined $40,000 and its sole director, Nan Hu, was fined $8,000 for failing to exercise due diligence as an officer. His application to avoid a conviction was refused. Eight thousand dollars is not a large number. I still think this is the most important sentence in this week's courts section, because of what the court said the officer actually failed to do. ### What the Officer Got Wrong The failure was not that Mr Hu was absent from the rooftop or that he personally should have checked the wind loading. The court found his failure was not having systems in place that required inspections of the scaffold and passed safety information on to the people who needed it. That is the heart of officer due diligence under section 27 of the WHS Act. Officers are not expected to do the safety work themselves. They are expected to make sure the business has the systems to do it and to verify those systems are being used. For a small business with a sole director, this lands hard. There is often nobody else between the director and the work. If the director doesn't build the system, no one does. ### Ask Yourself as an Officer - Can you describe the system in your business that would catch a hazard like a scaffold left exposed to wind? Who runs it and how often? - If an inspection is required, is it written into a schedule or does it rely on someone remembering? - When safety information comes in, such as a weather warning, a manufacturer notice or a regulator alert, how does it reach the people on site? - Do you receive any regular evidence that your safety systems are working? Or do you only hear about safety when something goes wrong? - If you were asked in court what you personally did to verify your systems, what would you say? ### Deterrence Is the Point The Secura decision sits alongside another sentence handed down a week later. In SafeWork NSW v Matilda Walking Floors, a mobile elevating work platform tipped off the back of a walking floor truck trailer at Badgerys Creek on 3 August 2023\. A 64-year-old worker was ejected and suffered a traumatic brain injury. There was no risk assessment, no safe system of work and no training for using an EWP inside trailers. The court started at $250,000 and reduced it for the plea and the company's capacity to pay. It also stressed general deterrence, because EWPs are so widely used. That word "deterrence" explains both outcomes. Courts are sending a message to every business using the same equipment and to every director running a small company. The size of the fine matters less than the conviction, the public judgment and the precedent that a sole director can't hide behind the company. ### One Thing to Do This Week If you are a director, write down the three highest risks in your business. Next to each one, write the name of the system that controls it and the last date you saw evidence that system was working. Any blank space on that page is where your due diligence currently stops. If your business had a scaffold on a rooftop this week, what would have told you before the wind did that it needed checking?