Section

Data + statistics

The national fatality, claims and cost datasets read properly, with reference years named and every figure cited to its source.

Data + statistics

That $61.8 billion injury-cost figure is 13 years old. Here is what the current numbers actually say.

Safe Work Australia's cost-of-injury accounting stopped at 2012-13. The live numbers a board paper should carry instead, every one dated and sourced, and the 22 per cent of claims that drive 75 per cent of the payments.

Published 5 July 2026

Data + statistics

Body stressing is still the way Australians get hurt at work: 50,600 serious claims last year

The largest injury mechanism in every major occupation group, the four risk factors the manual tasks code actually names, and why the claims total is over half musculoskeletal. A weight limit is not one of them.

Published 5 July 2026