Cleanaway is a major ASX-listed waste-management business that operates landfills, transfer stations and collection fleets across Australia, handling everything from household rubbish to industrial waste. Its operations run around the clock and rely heavily on heavy vehicles and machinery, which makes safety critical and exposes the business to serious risk when systems fail or corners are cut.
In the latest incident, a worker at a regional Melbourne landfill died after being hit by a customer’s truck in an area away from the active tipping face, triggering investigations by both the company and regulators. This is the second death in roughly six months and brings the total number of worker fatalities at the company’s sites to nine over about three and a half years, including previous incidents at facilities in Sydney, regional Victoria and South Australia. The rising toll, along with a broader lift in serious and reportable injuries, has already led the board to trim executive bonuses by about 30% in the last financial year, cutting the chief executive’s package by roughly $500,000 to around $4.2 million, while governance advisory groups warn of weakening safety performance and inadequate accountability.
These safety concerns now extend into boardroom and market dynamics, with the company’s annual meeting delivering a first “strike” on pay as more than 40% of shareholders vote against the remuneration report, which opens the door to a possible future board spill if a second strike occurs. In response, Cleanaway has doubled the weighting of safety in its short-term incentive scheme to about 20% and set zero fatalities as a basic hurdle, but with two deaths already recorded this year that condition appears out of reach, which raises questions over how incentives will actually drive change. Investors appear wary too, with the share price slipping to around $2.58 after the latest incident and the broader outlook now a test of whether tighter safety focus, stronger oversight and financial penalties can genuinely shift culture in a high-risk industry, or whether more structural change is needed to protect workers and restore confidence.
