23 February 2021

A food delivery company did not know it had to report the death of one of its riders to the work safety regulator, which was told only when the union informed it days later.

HungryPanda...is still in compensation negotiations with the family of Xiaojun Chen, who died last September after colliding with a bus in Zetland.

After admitting the notification failure at a NSW parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday, HungryPanda’s Australian human resources manager, Tina Sun, said the company would have an insurance scheme in place for its riders by the end of next month.

“We have been in extensive talks with private insurance providers for some time,” she said in a statement.

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Ms Sun told the hearing HungryPanda did not know it had a legal obligation to tell SafeWork NSW about drivers’ deaths or serious injuries when Mr Chen died a day after the accident on September 29, 2020.

“We did report later because when the accident happened I myself went to the hospital and I have to say we were not quite familiar with the process but we did pay very high attention to that accident,” Ms Sun said.

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Since then, the company had worked closely with SafeWork, learned its legal obligations and improved its safety standards, she said.

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