Questacon burns: a $140,000 fine, and a safety data sheet that said keep the sanitiser away from sparks

What happened, and what the court decided

On 23 July 2022 a nine-year-old visitor to Questacon, the National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra, applied alcohol-based hand sanitiser from one of the centre’s dispensing stations and then touched a plasma globe in Gallery 3. The reasons for decision record that After touching the globe, the child’s right hand caught fire. The child tried to shake the fire off and wiped that hand with the other, and both hands ignited. The injuries were second degree burns to the wrists, hands and fingers and a blister to the right forearm.

Comcare investigated and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions prosecuted. Comcare’s release of 24 September 2026 says the department pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court to a single charge, admitting it exposed visitors to a risk of death or serious injury. The penalty is a $140,000 fine and a conviction.

The duty in question is the one that protects people who are not workers. The reasons describe it as a duty to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of other persons, including visitors to Questacon, are not put at risk from work carried out as part of the conduct of its business or undertaking, and the work included running the plasma globes and providing the sanitiser stations.

Defendant

Commonwealth of Australia (as represented by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources)

Court

ACT Magistrates Court, [2026] ACTMC 23

Offence

Category 2, section 32, Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Cth)

Duty

Section 19(2): the health and safety of other persons, including visitors

Breach charged

20 February to 23 July 2022

Plea

Guilty; 20 per cent discount

Fine

$140,000 ($175,000 before the discount)

Decided

24 September 2026, four years and two months after the fire

Five months of warnings, in the court’s own dates

Comcare’s chief executive, Colin Radford, said in the release: This was not an isolated event. The child’s injuries marked the sixth safety incident in five months involving the globes. The reasons supply the dates. Questacon risk-assessed the globes five times between August 2021 and June 2022, and the court found those assessments show that at least as early as 2 February 2022, Questacon was aware of the risk associated with touching the plasma globes after applying alcohol-based hand sanitiser.

1. 2 Feb 2022 First globe installed. Risk assessment lists fire from sparks and hand sanitiser as a hazard; its controls are visitor interactions to be monitored and assessing where the sanitiser sits.
2. 3 Feb 2022 Questacon’s own test produces a spark from the globe with a metal object and hand sanitiser. Logged as a near miss.
3. 8 Feb 2022 Second risk assessment names fire from applying alcohol-based sanitiser and then touching the globe.
4. 15 Feb 2022 Students form a chain at a globe and zap another student. No reported injury, but static discharge at the globe is shown.
5. 20 Feb 2022 A visitor who applied a large amount of sanitiser gel gets a shock and a pin prick at the globe. The charged breach period starts.
6. 12 Jun 2022 A spark jumps from a parent’s hand to a child’s head: a tiny burn, first aid.
7. 15 Jun 2022 A parent touching the globe and a child’s hand shocks the child: first aid.
8. 21 Jun 2022 Second globe installed. Its risk assessment repeats the same hazard, controls and rating, though foam had replaced gel by then.
9. 9 Jul 2022 A visitor with their own alcohol-based sanitiser burns a finger on a globe: first aid.
10. 23 Jul 2022 The child’s hands catch fire. The charged breach period ends.

The court did not treat the run of shocks as a warning of fire as such. The Commonwealth argued that none of the six incident reports made between February and July 2022 involved sanitiser igniting, and the magistrate accepted that the incidents did not suggest that the specified risk was likely to occur. But the reasons go on to say that a range of information, including the 15 February report of static discharge and the sanitiser’s safety data sheet, should have made clear to it that it should have pursued alternative control measures to those which it adopted. The lesson in the incident log was the mechanism, not the count.

What the sanitiser’s own data sheet said

The switch from gel to foam was the centre of Questacon’s response. It rested on an in-house test in which the foam would not ignite, and the Commonwealth accepts that the testing was relatively unscientific. Expert evidence for the prosecution, which the Commonwealth did not challenge, said the foam was no safer. The magistrate’s finding:

the foaming hand sanitiser was no safer than the gel hand sanitiser and using it instead of the gel hand sanitiser did not reduce the potential risk that had been identified

The information was on the product’s own paperwork. The reasons say the foam’s safety data sheet was available to Questacon on a chemical database, and that it described the product as a flammable liquid and vapour, to be kept away from heat and sparks.

The foam’s safety data sheet

• flammable liquid and vapour
• keep away from heat and sparks
• use only non-sparking tools
• precautionary measures should be taken against static discharge

Questacon’s own records by 15 February 2022

• 3 Feb: a spark from the globe with a metal object and hand sanitiser
• 15 Feb: static discharge at the globe, a student zapped through a chain
• Its risk assessments name fire from sanitiser at the globe

The Commonwealth accepted that Questacon should have consulted the SDS, which should have guided it to the alternative control measures specified in the charge, such as the use of non-alcohol-based hand sanitiser. Questacon had also moved the dispensing station further from the globe. The magistrate estimated from CCTV that the station the child used was about 10 metres away, and found no evidence of how much moving the stations reduced the risk of fire.

The three fixes, and what the court said each would have cost

The Commonwealth pleaded guilty on the basis that it failed to take one or more of three control measures. The reasons weigh each one, and two of them, signage and direct supervision, the court said would have been easy to implement at little cost to the Commonwealth.

1. 1. Supervise the exhibit Arrange the globes so they could only be used under supervision by trained Questacon workers. The court: the extra cost would have been financially feasible for the Commonwealth. Questacon’s February risk assessment had already named monitoring.
2. 2. Change the sanitiser Replace alcohol-based sanitiser with a non-alcohol one, or provide portable soap and water stations. The court: the switch would have involved minimal inconvenience and cost in terms of the mechanical tasks, but there were likely to have been practical difficulties because alcohol-based sanitisers were recommended for public spaces at the time.
3. 3. Warn the public Warn visitors against using flammable substances, including alcohol-based sanitiser, before or when touching the globes. The court: signage could have been installed at negligible cost.

On the COVID-19 point, the Commonwealth argued that public health requirements put a flammable product in the gallery. The magistrate found that The Commonwealth was unable to identify any ‘public health requirement’ that called for the use of a flammable product in the gallery. The court did accept that alcohol-based sanitiser was then generally regarded as appropriate, and treated that as a reasonable explanation for why Questacon chose an alcohol-based solution, while still finding that the data sheet should have sent it to other controls.

The charge started with seven measures and ended with three

When Comcare announced the charge on 7 August 2024, it alleged the department could have eliminated or minimised risks through measures including four, the first of them removing the plasma globes once the fire risk was discovered. The reasons say the Commonwealth first sought to resolve the matter on the basis that it enter into enforceable undertakings and then, when that proposal was rejected, to negotiate the particulars of the charge down from one containing an alleged seven control measures to three. On the globes, they say following negotiations, the form of the charge that the Commonwealth pleaded guilty to did not contain that particular.

Comcare, 7 August 2024: measures “including”

• Removing the plasma globes after discovering the fire risk
• Limiting use and operation of the globes to trained Questacon workers
• Non-alcohol sanitiser or portable soap and water stations
• Warning visitors about spark ignition and the risk of fire

Admitted, 2026: one or more of three

• Globes arranged for supervised use by trained Questacon workers only
• Non-alcohol sanitiser or portable soap and water stations
• Warning the public against flammable substances, including alcohol-based sanitiser, before or when touching the globes

The magistrate did not decide whether removing the globes was reasonably practicable for Questacon, and said a public purpose might bear on that question. The reasons add, as an example, that it might have been reasonably practicable for a for-profit company to have removed the plasma globes from its exhibition, because the only consequences for it might have been a reduction in its revenue. Evidence for the Commonwealth listed removing the plasma globes among Questacon’s responses since the fire.

The penalty, and why the Commonwealth got no first-offender leniency

The magistrate called it a serious example of a Category 2 WHS offence, which approaches the mid-range of the spectrum for that offence, set the fine at $175,000 and took 20 per cent off for the plea. The plea came two years after the charge, which is not an early plea. The reasons also correct the way the case had been described: the department is an agency of the Commonwealth, not a legal entity which is separate from it, so the defendant is the Commonwealth. That mattered, because the Commonwealth has earlier WHS convictions and therefore is not entitled to the leniency that might be afforded to an unrecorded defendant. The court did weigh Questacon’s own clean record and its commitment to safety, which left specific deterrence a limited role.

• Fine imposed: $140,000
• Before the plea discount: $175,000
• Maximum at the time of the offence: $1.5 million
• Maximum for a body corporate from 1 July 2026: $2.47 million

The Category 2 maximum has risen since. Comcare’s penalty notice puts it at Category 2: $2.47 million (up from $2.32 million) for a body corporate, effective from 1 July 2026, after annual indexation. That is the ceiling for offending now, not the one this case was sentenced under.

Our read

This is our view, built on the reasons and releases above. What makes this case worth a business owner’s ten minutes is that nothing in it is exotic. A risk assessment named the right control, monitoring the exhibit, and it was not done. A product was swapped on the strength of an in-house test, when the product’s own data sheet said flammable, keep away from sparks, and take precautions against static. The cheapest control on the list, a sign, the court put at negligible cost. None of those failures needs a science museum to happen.

So if you run a shop, gym, clinic, school, salon or venue with sanitiser near anything that sparks, heats or carries a static charge, three things are worth doing now: read the data sheet for the sanitiser you actually buy, not the one you assume you buy; check that every control your risk assessment names is actually happening on the floor; and read a near miss for what it tells you about the mechanism, not only as one more line in the count. The court said the sentence should remind all entities conducting a business or undertaking, both private and public, of their obligation to protect workers and others. Visitors are the “others”.

One more thing is worth noticing. The fire was in July 2022 and the sentence in September 2026, and the reasons attribute almost two years of that to the Commonwealth’s attempt at an enforceable undertaking and its negotiation of the charge down from seven measures to three. Comcare’s release calls the defendant a department; the court says it is the Commonwealth, and that the difference cost it leniency. Read the judgment, not only the release.