A grieving father … and workers’ comp

AS politicians clamber over each other to offer support for an independent inquiry into the Beaconsfield mine, a Tasmanian father watches on with despair.

Guy Hudson lost his 16 year-old son Matthew in an industrial accident nearly two years ago and is far from happy with the outcome of Matthew’s Coronial Inquiry.

“An independent inquiry is the best way to find the truth but the legislation in place to hold individuals to account is lacking so what you can do with the findings is limited.

“An inquiry has to be totally removed from Government, because at Beaconsfield, like all workplaces, you have one arm of the Government, Workplace Standards Authority, saying that the workplace was safe and then the Coroner’s Office has to investigate the same workplace when it turns out it wasn’t.”

Mr Hudson’s dismay is compounded by the fact he lives only fifteen minutes away from the Beaconsfield mine.

Tasmania has no legislation directly covering industrial manslaughter caused by employer negligence.

The ACT has covering legislation in addition to NSW, which passed the Occupational Health and Safety Act (Amendment Workplace Deaths) last year.

The issue was a political hot potato during the last Tasmanian election with Premier Paul Lennon refusing to commit to the draft recommendations of the Law Reform Institute, a legal think-tank jointly funded by the Government and the University of Tasmania, which called for its introduction.

Rolled over

Matthew Hudson was killed when the forklift he was operating rolled over. He wasn’t licensed and had only been working on the site for three weeks.

The company was fined $25,000 for failing to supply a safe work environment; the Hudson’s plan to appeal the decision.

“If I kill someone because I drive my car while drunk then I can expect to be prosecuted.

“If I do something at work that directly leads to someone’s death the rules are different, and that’s just not right.

“The only difference between Matthew’s death and Larry Knight’s is the media.

“Every industrial death is tragic but I ask you how many workers’ funerals have Paul Lennon and Brian Green, the Deputy Premier, been to?

“Now I hear that there will be an extraordinary workers’ compensation payment awarded to the Knight family from the Government.

“The irony here is that Todd and Brant wouldn’t be able to take the mine to court because they aren’t 30 per cent impaired, how stupid is that?”

Under the Workers’ Rehabilitation and Compensation Act (Tas) an employee has had to suffer an impairment of greater than 30 per cent in order to be able to initiate a common law action against the employer.

He then hung up

Crikey contacted Matt Rodgers from the Premier’s office to ask if the Government planned to introduce legislation for industrial manslaughter and also fast-track a promised review of workers’ compensation laws.

“I usually don’t deal with Crikey but I will look into it.’’

He then hung up.

Mr Hudson alleges that Workplace Safe, the State regulatory body, visited his son’s worksite only weeks before the accident.

“They, the company, were told then not to let unlicensed people operate the forklifts, but they continued to anyway.

“It’s because of things like that, an independent inquiry into a workplace death is the best way to go.”

Bill Shorten from the AWU, who has been the public face of the Beaconsfield rescue, declined to outline the union’s position on industrial manslaughter laws when questioned yesterday.

“I am happy to answer that question at a later stage, at this stage we are not going to politicise it.

“In the interim we are committed to a fair-dinkum inquiry to make sense of the lessons.”

Shorten called for a Royal Commission style investigation where witnesses could be cross-examined to test evidence with a QC or Judge overseeing proceedings.

“In a Coronial Inquiry it’s possible for a company to bring senior legal representation to the table, this maybe the case here.

“In the union’s experience no work place tragedy has ever been resolved in a meaningful way unless an independent inquiry is held.

“For the 166th time in the last 10 years, miners, their families and communities have had to gather to honour the memory of a dead miner.”

Shorten concluded saying it was no longer acceptable for someone not to return home from work because of an industrial accident.

Earlier: Tasmania’s appalling Workers Compensation Scheme is an issue Tasmanian Times has published critically on. Here is an earlier examination by lawyer Brian Hilliard: Labor and workers’ comp