Record penalty for devastating truck crash

On 28 May 2026, Cleanaway Operations Pty Ltd (Cleanaway) was fined a record $1.1 million for two counts of failing to comply with a health and safety duty, contrary to section 32 of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth) (WHS Act). The penalty comes 10 years after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth) commenced proceedings against the waste management company and 12 years after a fatal crash in South Australia which led to the investigation into Cleanaway’s non-compliance with the WHS Act.

On 18 August 2014, a vacuum truck being driven by a Cleanaway worker collided with vehicles at an intersection of the South Eastern Freeway in Adelaide. The collision caused the death of two motorists and serious injuries to an occupant of another car and the driver of the truck.

On 17 August 2016, Cleanaway was charged with failing their duty of care to staff and other road users contrary to s 32 of the WHS Act. It was alleged that Cleanaway failed to comply with its duties by failing to prevent the driver of the vacuum truck from driving without supervision, until his competence to drive a vacuum truck with a manual synchromesh transmission, down the South Eastern Freeway had been assessed. 

On 19 April 2022, Cleanaway was convicted following a trial in the Magistrates Court. 

Cleanaway appealed against the convictions to a single judge of the South Australian Supreme Court. On 26 May 2022, the appeal in respect of to two charges was dismissed. 

The appeal in relation to six counts was allowed. The Court found that those six counts were charging Cleanaway for the same conduct as the two counts on which the convictions were upheld. Cleanaway therefore had a legal defence to those counts known as a ‘plea in bar’. 

A subsequent appeal by Cleanaway to the South Australian Court of Appeal was dismissed on 2 October 2025. 

Cleanaway applied for, but were not granted, Special Leave to Appeal to the High Court of Australia. In refusing the application the High Court said there was “no reason to doubt the correctness of the decision of the Court of Appeal”. 

Cleanaway was sentenced on 28 May 2026. In sentencing, the former Chief Justice, the Honourable Auxiliary Justice Kourakis said Cleanaway, by allowing an inexperienced driver to cover the route, negotiating a steep decent without adequate training and then contesting the charges, “showed a lack of insight by Cleanaway and a superficial understanding of its obligations.” 

Auxiliary Justice Kourakis also observed that Cleanaway had greatly departed from their health and safety duties and had failed “to acknowledge the critical failures which exposed so many to the risk of serious injury or death”. 

The single penalty of $1.1 million was imposed in relation to both charges. Auxiliary Justice Kourakis said “the single penalty reflects the culpability of both counts in that the breach exposed both Cleanaway’s workers and the general public to the risk of serious injury or death”. 

Of the ten years between the commencement of the charges and sentence, the former Chief Justice observed:

[Cleanaway] relied [at sentence] on the time which had elapsed between the offending and its sentence. Much of that time was the result of Cleanaway’s unmeritorious denial of its culpability. It is difficult to imagine that a corporation like Cleanaway was much burdened by the lapse of time. Certainly, it pales into insignificance in comparison to the anguish the delay has caused the victims of its offending.