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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-30 Daily Xml
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Scissor Lifts

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:17): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Treasurer on the subject of the safety of scissor lifts in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS: In recent years, elevated work platforms, colloquially known as scissor lifts, have been linked to two fatalities, several critical incidents and a number of near miss incidents in our state. That is why just one of the two deaths at the new RAH worksite that were related to a scissor lift was the subject of a Coroner's inquest. The Coroner, in November last year, brought down his findings on the death of Jorge Castillo-Riffo. In that, the Coroner was quite scathing of SafeWork SA, noting that:

SafeWork SA effectively abandoned the field for SAPOL to pursue the investigation for…six weeks within a week of the incident occurring. That is unsatisfactory.

He further noted that he was not impressed by the SafeWork SA investigation as a whole, and the Coroner further stated in his findings:

I am dismayed that SafeWork SA would effectively wipe its hands of any responsibility to assist in…establishing the cause and circumstances of the death of a worker at a fatal industrial accident.

At that time, a week later in this place, in this council, I asked the Treasurer a question as to what was his response to that Coroner's report and the recommendations, particularly that a spotter be implemented immediately for all scissor lift operations in this state, or at least on government projects, and the Treasurer responded that he would take it under consideration, consult and then make a response. This council is still waiting for such a response; it is now almost May.

I note that SafeWork SA is now, as of January this year, undertaking an audit where they go into workplaces and ask them how scissor lifts are being operated and, indeed, ensuring that operators are properly trained, have proven competency and are familiar with the specific scissor lift issues: they are conducting pre-start checks; they are reporting and addressing issues with equipment and filling in a daily logbook; they are considering using a spotter to eliminate risks; they are ensuring that their staff are trained in an emergency descent process and emergency response; they are ensuring that there is unimpeded access to emergency descent controls; they are considering eliminating or at least implementing engineering controls to reduce the risk of a crush injury and setting up exclusion zones, if required.

My question to the Treasurer is: if the Coroner was so scathing of this agency to ensure the investigation of an industrial death related to a scissor lift, why is he entrusting them to do a six-month navel-gazing exercise without taking up the Coroner's recommendation to immediately implement spotters for scissor lifts in this state?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:20): I thank the honourable member for her question. I think I have indicated this before: I agree with many of the criticisms of regulatory authorities, if I can broadly describe ICAC in terms of its evaluation of SafeWork SA and the Coroner in terms of various reports the Coroner has brought down, of the operations of SafeWork SA under the former Labor government. It is clearly damning in terms of the way the former Labor government managed regulatory arrangements in relation to SafeWork SA, and the evaluation that ICAC has done, which is publicly available, and quite a number of recommendations in various Coroner's reports that have been made are damning in relation to the operations of SafeWork SA under the former Labor government.

I would very much hope that under a Liberal government the performance of SafeWork SA, both under the new management of SafeWork SA in terms of its leadership but also the fact that there is now a reformist Liberal government there rather than a lazy Labor government—and I can assure the honourable member and all other honourable members that worker safety is important in terms of the Marshall Liberal government's approach to the recommendations that have been given, not just by the Coroner but by the ICAC evaluation as well.

Nevertheless, the views of the ICAC commissioner and the Coroner in relation to the operations of SafeWork SA have been now consulted on in terms of a whole range of other stakeholders. In relation to the specific recommendation—I don't propose to delay question time by going through all of the recommendations and criticisms that relate to the operations of SafeWork SA, because that will take much longer than the time available in question time, but in relation to the specific question of spotters there is very significant opposition from significant stakeholders in relation to the potential impact of that particular recommendation of the Coroner.

The government is respectful of the recommendations the Coroner has made, but certainly from my viewpoint, as with the ICAC commissioner, whilst always respectful of the recommendations that these people bring to the government, I don't adopt the position that each and every one of them has to be implemented as recommended by either the ICAC commissioner or indeed the Coroner. The government should respectfully consider them, should consult on them and then ultimately make a decision, and should at some stage the government decide it is not going to implement either an ICAC commissioner recommendation or a Coroner's recommendation it should be prepared to explain publicly the reasons why it might not implement them.

So in relation to spotters, in terms of the consultation we have received, there has been very significant concern raised about the practicality, the cost impact, but in particular the practicality on some of our very large industrial worksites in terms of how the actual recommendation might be able to be implemented by builders, even the very best of builders who have 100 per cent the interests of worker safety at the forefront of their minds—how in practice that particular recommendation might be implemented.

I am respectful of those views that have been put without necessarily agreeing with them at this stage. As the responsible minister, I am considering further the differing views that I have received in relation to the position of spotters, and in the not-too-distant future I will indicate my position on behalf of the government.

What I will say is that, unlike under the former Labor government, SafeWork SA, as the member has just outlined, has been very active in terms of the audit that is now being conducted at worksites—that wasn't being conducted under the former Labor government. I would be concerned if the honourable member was dismissive of the value of workplace audits. That is the responsibility of the SafeWork agency. If that agency doesn't do those sorts of audits, whether or not you do have spotters or you don't, even if you implement spotters as the Coroner has recommended, I don't believe that that would mean that SafeWork SA shouldn't be conducting the sorts of audits that are being implemented under current management and under this particular government.

I don't see them as being mutually exclusive options in terms of worker safety. If the honourable member is dismissive of SafeWork SA's role in undertaking audits, I respectfully disagree with that position in terms of her view. I think in terms of worker safety a regulatory authority, such as SafeWork SA, undertaking comprehensive audits of workplace safety in relation to elevated work platforms is a sensible course of action and one I strongly endorse.

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