Coronial Report

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Industrial Relations on the topic of the government response to the Coroner's recommendations on the inquest of Mr Castillo-Riffo.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: The minister has today tabled a ministerial statement with the government's response to the Coroner's recommendations, starting that statement with, 'In the interest of transparency and accountability'. As we know, the inquest into the death of Mr Castillo-Riffo, who was killed while performing patching work from an elevating work platform (or EWP) at the Royal Adelaide Hospital's construction site in November 2014 has been the subject of much debate in this place and in the community.

One of the recommendations was that a spotter be present wherever elevated work platforms are used. In the government's response to the Coroner's recommendations, they have rejected this recommendation, stating:

…stakeholders have expressed the view that the mandatory use of a spotter in each and every situation is inflexible and has the potential to create other problems…

The minister goes on to say that:

…the PCBU and/or EWP operator may perceive that the risk to safety should be managed by the spotter rather than by proper planning and machine selection;

2. The requirement for a spotter to be present at all times could lead to workers using means other than EWPs, such as a ladder or scaffolding, to access higher areas in circumstances where an EWP would be safer and more suitable for the task;

3. The mandatory use of spotters may divert resources from other, more effective measures to mitigate risks and improve work health and safety; and

4. In situations where a spotter will be exposed to serious risks to their own safety in order to perform that role, the use of a spotter may be inappropriate.

My question to the minister is: who are these stakeholders?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for her question. There were quite a number of stakeholders who raised some of those issues. The member has referred to a number of issues raised. I recall there were clearly people involved in the building industry—their representative organisations but also some individual stakeholders as well—raised the issues. I think there was reference to the fact that—and I will need to check the exact record, Mr President—at the height of the NRAH construction, something like 200 to 300 additional spotters would have been required at various points, in terms of the peak activity on that particular site.

At the other end of the spectrum, there was a range of people who represented individual supermarkets who indicated that they used elevated work platforms within their supermarket—not in terms of construction activity, but just in terms of normal activity within their supermarket, or their storehouse or room at the back of the supermarket. They indicated, from their viewpoint, they believed this was an impractical suggestion in relation to, whenever an elevated work platform was being used, they would have to have a spotter for their, in essence, retail use within those particular premises. So there was a range of individual stakeholders who raised some of those issues to which the member has referred.

For the benefit of members who obviously haven't had the chance to read what is quite a long and comprehensive reply to the Coroner from myself on behalf of the government, what we do highlight in relation to that particular issue is that there are existing provisions under the Work Health and Safety Act, and existing regulations and existing Australian code standards, Australian standard 1418.10 and Australian standard 2550.10, which are approved codes of practice under section 274 of the Work Health and Safety Act.

Those particular existing codes of practice and existing guidelines in terms of safe work health and safety practice say as follows. Section 5.14 of Australian standard 2550.10 concerns assistance from ground support personnel—or spotters, if you want to call them that—and relevantly provides as follows:

Prior to operation, a system of communication shall be established between people working on the platform and nominated support personnel.

Arrangements shall be made for rescue in the following events:

(a) failure of the elevating mechanism;

(b) disabling injury or sickness of the operator;

(c) the mobile elevating work platform coming into contact with the overhead powerlines; and

(d) the operator being suspended in a safety harness after being expelled from the mobile elevating work platform.

And,

Ground personnel shall be trained in the use of emergency retrieval systems.

The PCBU should refer to this Australian standard and the other Australian standard to determine whether they are compliant with their duties under the Work Health and Safety Act. Again outlining their requirements under the existing law without any additional requirements, it is for duty holders to determine what is reasonably practicable to ensure health and safety of workers in the particular circumstances. This includes taking into account and weighing up all relevant matters, including those in section 18 of the existing Work Health and Safety Act, which are:

(a) the likelihood of the hazard or the risk concerned occurring; and

(b) the degree of harm that might result from the hazard or the risk; and

(c) what the person concerned knows, or ought reasonably to know, about—

(i) the hazard or the risk; and

(ii) ways of eliminating or minimising the risk; and

(d) the availability and suitability of ways to eliminate or minimise the risk; and

(e) after assessing the extent of the risk and the available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, the cost associated with available ways of eliminating or minimising the risk, including whether the cost is grossly disproportionate to the risk.

That is within the existing section 18 of the Work Health and Safety Act, supported, I think, on my recollection, by all parties when it was introduced. It is meant to be national template legislation; there are some variations in the states. I will stand corrected—I will check the record—but I am pretty sure this particular provision is a standard template for all the template legislation and work health and safety laws.

Whilst the member has referred to some aspects of my response, for the sake of transparency and accountability, I place on the record the rest of it, which indicates that under the existing act, under the existing regulations and under the existing codes of practice there are requirements in relation to safe work practices for elevating work platforms. There are references to the use of—the member and the Coroner has used the phrase 'spotters', but the standard refers to 'ground support personnel' in terms of communication between someone on the ground and someone who is operating the elevated work platform.

Together with the audit, which I think my response indicates—I think the honourable member or one other honourable member has asked this question—which concluded on 30 June, SafeWork SA will soon be releasing the results of that audit report publicly and it will be distributed to workplaces and industry groups, together with an information sheet that addresses the key issues identified by the audit.

That sheet will be provided to all persons and organisations on SafeWork SA's emailing list, which comprises some 12,000 contacts, and it is intended that inspectors will continue to distribute the information sheet annually to workers and PCBUs on the basis of trying to provide ongoing education about the existing requirements in terms of the work health and safety of workers who might be using elevated work platforms, but equally requirements on businesses and others who use elevated work platforms in their workplace.

In conclusion, the point that some of the stakeholders would make is that under the existing laws someone who is operating an elevated work platform in a retail supermarket in the suburbs of Adelaide on an ongoing basis will probably have different requirements in terms of work health and safety and the use of a spotter or ground support personnel, as opposed to someone on quite a complex construction worksite, where clearly there may well be in those circumstances greater capacity or greater likelihood of injury to workers on that particular worksite.