Your Duty of Care: Lessons from the Goodstart Early Learning Case

Court proceedings noted that there were rigorous policies and procedures around bus transport at the time. Training had also been undertaken by the manager in charge and minibus driver. So the question is not whether rules existed — it is whether the rules were sufficient and whether they were actually followed.

The incident suggests the risk assessment in place may not have required a person to:

• Sit at the rear of the vehicle to monitor passengers in care.
• Take photographic evidence as an audit measure of every minibus trip.
• Sweep the vehicle on return to ensure no one was left behind.

Or it may mean that the training, periodic assessments, and audits of those processes were inadequate.

The language used afterwards — words like 'bewildering' and 'strengthening' — reflects a recognition that gaps existed, a life was lost, and new tasks were introduced to ensure this does not happen again. But the fact remains: the safety system in place did not work.

Under the HVNL, every party in the chain holds a duty to ensure safety so far as is reasonably practicable. The HVNL establishes a principle of shared responsibility and a primary duty of care that applies across the supply chain.

Waiting to see what happens with a pending prosecution, or shifting responsibility onto others in your organisation, can prove detrimental if an incident occurs and someone loses their life.

Key questions for supply-chain professionals

• Do you honestly understand the gaps in your entire supply chain?
• If not, what is it worth to find out before a regulator or auditor does?
• Are your controls operational and verifiable, or just documented?

Significant incidents raise community awareness, attract regulatory and police involvement, and can result in criminal charges — all of which can have a lasting impact on a business's ability to trade.

For a deeper understanding of how shared responsibility works in practice, see About Chain of Responsibility and Chain of Responsibilities: What Australian HVNL Duty Holders Need to Understand.

Corporate derivative liability arises where an executive knew, or ought reasonably to have known, of the conduct constituting an offence — or that there was a substantial risk that the offence would be committed.

The HVNL places a specific duty on executives of legal entities to exercise due diligence to ensure the business complies with its safety obligations. This means knowing whether the safety system is actually working, not just whether one exists on paper.

For operators and executives in transport, this case is a reminder that policies and training alone are not a defence. The controls must be operational, verifiable, and audited — and the evidence must exist to prove it.

Learn more about executive obligations in Chain of Responsibility Training for Executives and Managers: A Practical Guide for Australian Transport Operators.

MAEZ helps Australian transport businesses and owner-operators identify and remove risks before they are exposed by regulators, auditors, or incidents. We turn Chain of Responsibility, HVNL, WHS, transport safety, and chartered risk obligations into practical training, advisory, audit, and implementation pathways.

Three steps

• Find — Identify what is exposed before an auditor or regulator does. CoR consulting delivers a practical risk review of your controls, evidence, and SMS.
• Fix — Build Safety Management System controls around how the transport business actually runs.
• Prove — Use structured evidence — training records, driver diary checks, maintenance logs, audits, corrective actions — to demonstrate that controls are working.

Chain of Responsibility training helps managers, executives, drivers, and consignors understand their specific duties. Where software is the right next step, CoRGuard supports the evidence workflow — records, reminders, diaries, audits, and document control.

If you want a practical review of the controls, evidence, training, and SMS gaps that matter most to your business, contact MAEZ.