Scissor Lifts

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (14:56): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Treasurer and Minister for Industrial Relations a question about scissor lifts.

Leave granted.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO: As my parliamentary colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks has pointed out previously, scissor lifts have been responsible for over 12 deaths and countless serious injuries, including the tragic deaths of Mr Jorge Castillo-Riffo in 2014 and Mr Steve Wyatt in 2016 while operating scissor lifts on the new RAH site. On 1 November 2018, the South Australian Coroner, Mark Johns, handed down his findings from the inquest into Mr Castillo-Riffo's tragic and preventable death.

Mr Johns made six recommendations, two of which are critical and urgent for the use of scissor lifts on construction sites and other workplaces. The first of these two recommendations, which is recommendation 38.3, is that there is a need for standardisation of the controls of scissor lifts. At present, a forward motion of the joystick of one scissor lift may lower the platform and on another scissor lift on the same work site the forward movement of the joystick may raise it. The risks identified present an obvious and unacceptable risk of death and injury to workers.

We understand SafeWork SA has spent six months since the Coroner's recommendation conducting an audit of these potential death traps due to non-standardised controls. Your response to the Hon. Tammy Franks about this audit shows an alarming lack of action by SafeWork SA to do anything to address the recommendations. Even more disturbing is that, since January 2019, there have been over 50 improvement and prohibition notices issued to businesses using this equipment and more serious safety incidents reported but still no action on the actual recommendation 38.3 that addresses the issue identified by the Coroner.

The second of these two recommendations, recommendation 38.4, is that, until the implementation of scissor lift controls configuration is standardised statewide, scissor lifts should not be operated unless there is a person on the ground operating as a spotter at all times. SafeWork SA has done nothing about implementing this life-saving measure that could be put in place immediately, yet your office has kept them busy policing trivial pursuits of supermarkets over floor space breaches. My questions to the Treasurer are:

1. What has the government done to ensure all the recommendations made by the Coroner into Mr Castillo-Riffo's death have been implemented as a matter of urgency?

2. What has the government done in particular about directing SafeWork SA, the relevant regulator, to ensure that Coroner's recommendation 38.4 is immediately and urgently implemented, that is, that a scissor lift should not be operated unless there is a person on the ground operating as a spotter at all times?

3. Can the Treasurer assure the council that there are no scissor lifts operating in the state without a spotter?

4. Apart from a SafeWork SA audit of scissor lifts due this month, what has the government done in terms of actually acting on the Coroner's recommendation 38.3 that attention be given at state and national levels to standardising scissor lift controls?

5. Why is the government allowing these systematic failures that we know cause entirely preventable deaths (just as they did again in 2016, with the death of Mr Steve Wyatt at the same site) to continue?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:00): I thank the honourable member for his question. Whilst as minister and as a member of the government we always give utmost respect to the informed views of the Coroner and, similarly, the ICAC commissioner, who has looked to SafeWork SA as well, but on other issues, consistent with the position of other governments around Australia my personal view in relation to these issues, whilst we give great respect to their recommendations, is that we do not automatically say that each and every one of their recommendations we accept and will be implemented. That is the simple answer to the honourable member's question.

The Hon. Mr Pangallo may well adopt the position that everything a Coroner ever recommends has to be accepted by the government of the day without question, and he is perfectly entitled to have that particular position. But, with great respect to the Coroner, as one of the Hon. Mr Pangallo's colleagues indicated, he has been there for quite some time and is certainly, I am sure, well informed on a whole variety of issues, but I am sure even he would not claim to be an expert on everything.

If I can speak broadly but in relation to this particular issue, it is impossible for any person, as intelligent as a Coroner might be, to be an expert and therefore to a make a judgement on every issue, which ultimately is both practical and also is right in terms of its implementation and the consequences of such implementation.

I take the first of the recommendations. The issue, so I am advised, is that these elevated work platforms, or scissor lifts, are manufactured by any number of manufacturers all around the world. I am not sure whether there is an Australian manufacturer, but certainly the overwhelming majority, I have been informed, are imported to Australia. It is therefore easy for a Coroner in a regional government like South Australia, one part of a national government, to give an opinion that every manufacturer around the world should standardise their work practices in terms of how they actually manufacture their equipment, and then indicate that they are going to require the government of the day to implement them. That is not the way government operates. The Coroner provides advice, he has an opinion; ultimately, the government needs to make a judgement in terms of what, if anything, might be implemented in relation to his recommendations.

SafeWork SA—I think I need to check the record in response to the earlier question—I am happy to indicate has taken up the issue at the national level. I think an organisation represents manufacturers of elevated work platforms or the importation of such into Australia. I think they have been consulted in relation to how achievable the recommendations of the Coroner might be.

There are clearly very significant issues. If what was to be implemented is that whichever particular work platform—that is, whichever particular design is to be the one—was ultimately approved, which would obviously favour that particular manufacturer, then if the intent of the Coroner's recommendation is that all other current work platforms on dozens, if not hundreds, of work sites in South Australia would be banned from use until they are actually replaced, then clearly the implications of that would be very significant in terms of both the construction industry and the home building industry, which is already obviously suffering some issues at the moment, if automatically a government was, if it had the power—you would need to see whether you had the power—to actually ban the use of anything other than a particular manufacturer's brand in South Australia.

The government of the day would then, of course, have to answer the question as to why it chose either the handle moving forward or the handle moving backward, if I can characterise the two options—as to why it chose a particular one of those options as being the one to be accepted. My recollection of the Coroner is that the Coroner did not actually argue which one was the one necessarily; it was just that they ought to be standardised, and it ought to be the one particular model so that everyone could be familiar with it.

So, as I said, in that particular case it is quite easy for the Coroner in South Australia to make a recommendation and for the honourable member to be critical of SafeWork SA because they have not immediately implemented the recommendation. I would invite the member and indeed other members to think through logically what the consequences would be and how that actually might be implemented, even if the government chose to seek to implement it, and what the consequences would be if one just accepted the Coroner's recommendation in relation to these issues.

In the alternative, and what the audits are doing at the moment in terms of safe work health safety practices and the consensus opinion in industry and even amongst those who work on them is that there needs to be an insistence on much better training of operators in terms of whatever machine it is they happen to be using on a particular work site. I think a number of the major companies have recognised the need, based on the Coroner's recommendations and others, that there has to be much greater emphasis in terms of the training of the operators of these particular elevated work platforms so that they are familiar with whether the handle moves forwards or backwards or sideways or whatever it might happen to be, and they are more familiar and better trained in relation to the usage of them.

I am mindful of the time and your request to get more crossbencher questions—if I could speak very briefly to the second issue, and I am happy to have a further discussion with the Hon. Mr Pangallo. But in relation, again, to the issue of spotters, there is very strong support from some in the community for that recommendation of the Coroner; there is very strong opposition from a number of stakeholders, in particular the MBA and a number of others representing the construction industry in this state, saying the natural consequences of that particular recommendation in their view would be very significant in terms of the cost of construction in South Australia, in terms of—

The Hon. R.P. Wortley: The cost of other lives.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: Well, their view is—all I am saying is there is a variety of different views. Their view is that there would be very significant implications in relation to those. It may well be, in the alternative again, a proposition where you have identified risk situations where spotters clearly are used, and some of the construction companies advise they are already doing that in terms of using spotters and better training of operators.

Can I conclude by saying: whether or not we agree with the recommendations of the Coroner, I can assure the honourable member, whether he wishes to accept it or not, that the government has no wish at all to see workplace injuries or deaths in South Australia, and we will do whatever it is that we can, sensibly, to reduce the risks of workplace injury and deaths. In particular, not just in the area of elevated work platforms but on a range of other issues that, for example, the ICAC commissioner has identified but also other issues such as silicosis where the government has been taking a proactive response.