Safework SA executive director Martyn Campbell admits failures of past investigations, pledges reform
The state’s workplace safety boss has vowed to lead a strict new regime that ends dangerous practices, after a disturbing series of botched investigations into fatalities.
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The state’s workplace safety boss has vowed to lead a strict new regime that ends dangerous practices, after a disturbing series of botched investigations into fatalities.
SafeWork SA executive director Martyn Campbell told The Advertiser he felt anger, humiliation and embarrassment over blunders that led to him apologising to grieving families. Mr Campbell, 49, admitted that SafeWork SA had been a “toothless tiger” in the past.
Declaring enough is enough, he said he was no longer a public “punching bag” and his $37 million agency now means business when investigating work-related negligence.
After overhauling its investigative and executive ranks, Mr Campbell is negotiating with Treasurer Rob Lucas to fund reforms including body cameras, more inspectors and new training.
Speaking publicly for the first time since an anti-corruption inquiry found a catalogue of failures within SafeWork SA, Mr Campbell admitted his challenge was greater than he had thought.
“If you can’t effectively investigate, the chances of prosecution are really slim,” he said.
“As a regulator, if you can’t prosecute then you have no teeth. And then you have to ask yourself, how relevant are you … if you can’t hold people accountable?
“Were we a bit of a toothless tiger? I think we were, definitely. Because if we weren’t, we would be prosecuting people and we would be succeeding. And we weren’t.”
Independent Commissioner against Corruption Bruce Lander QC, this year investigated SafeWork SA’s operations. Making 39 recommendations, Mr Lander warned of a toxic culture that had “catastrophic consequences for workers”. His public inquiry came after multiple flawed investigations, including the showride death of Adelene Leong, 8, in 2014.
Other botched SafeWork SA inquiries included the Royal Adelaide Hospital construction death of Jorge Castillo-Riffo, 54, and murdered Outback nurse Gayle Woodford, 56, whose death was wrongly assessed as not work-related.
Mr Campbell, who took the job in August last year, said having to apologise to grieving families was “hugely” difficult, “embarrassing” and “pretty humiliating”.
“It is humbling because you can sympathise and you can empathise with them as people who have lost loved ones, and you are trying to give them some answers that really aren’t the right answers to give them,” he said.
“They want to hear that people are going to be prosecuted and held accountable. But I’m giving them a reason why we failed to do that. I was honest with them and I told them what the failings were. I didn’t make it a palatable message.”
He admits being left shocked at the failings. “Every emotion — anger, hatred, astonishment — it all goes through your head. And I had some of those emotions reading the files … understanding where we had gone wrong and thinking ‘how on earth could that happen?’ It was basic, basic, evidential mistakes.”
The final straw came when a prosecution collapsed over Adelene’s death, prompting him to call in ICAC. “Something had to change significantly,” he said.
A Queensland firm, Safe is Safe Pty Ltd, and its engineer director, Hamish Munro, 59, were charged over the fatal AirMaxx 360 ride accident.
But during a “heart-sinking moment” on the eve of the Industrial Court trial, a government lawyer rang Mr Campbell to say new information had “come to light and it has just … killed your case”.
The inspector is under investigation after an review of their evidence and no further details can be published for legal reasons. Charges were dropped against the engineer, but Mr Campbell said: “Had we done the sort of investigation that we are doing now, then I have no doubt we would be holding people accountable (with) a high probability of a conviction.”
“The controls that we require on those rides are far and beyond anywhere else in this country. Yet someone died here.” He is now “pretty comfortable” with the agency’s current work, starting with a successful prosecution of SA Police over a worker’s freezer death.
A catalogue of failures...
The eight year-old girl was hurled more than 10m from the AirMaxx 360 ride at the Royal Adelaide Show while on holiday on September 14, 2014. But SafeWork SA’s prosecution of a Queensland-based safety engineer Hamish Munro, 59, collapsed after authorities uncovered investigative blunders. An inspector is still being investigated. The ride’s negligent owner, C, J & Sons Amusements Pty Ltd, and co-director Jenny-Lee Sullivan, 43, were last year fined $157,500 but ordered to just pay a $420 levy each.
The widely loved and respected Outback nurse, 56, was murdered on March 23, 2016 while working in South Australia’s remote APY community of Fregon, 1270km north west of Adelaide. The mother of two was abducted, raped and murdered by Dudley Davey, 35, after the killer lured her out of bed with a false story about his sick grandmother. SafeWork SA chief Martyn Campbell personally apologised to her family in March for his agency’s wrong decision not to classify her death as work-related. The inquiry was reopened and Coroner Mark Johns is deciding whether to conduct an inquest.
The father-of-three, 54, was completing patchwork on the Royal Adelaide Hospital construction site when he was crushed between the scissor lift and a concrete slab on November 27, 2014. He died in hospital the next day. When handing down his findings in November, Coroner Mark Johns said he was “not impressed by the SafeWork SA investigation” that included investigators being unavailable to attend the site the same day. He was “dismayed” the safety watchdog “would effectively wipe its hands of any responsibility”.
The father-of-two, 63, was crushed to death between a scissor lift and the head of a low doorway while supervising the fit-out of the $2.3 billion RAH project on February 20, 2016. Following a SafeWork SA investigation, no charges were recommended against builders after “human error” was blamed. His wife of 43 years, Deb, 62, has said she was “let down” by the decision not to lay any charges.
... and a rare successful prosecution
The part-time cook and cleaner, 54, died of hypothermia after becoming trapped in a commercial freezer at an SA Police training facility, at Echunga, in the Adelaide Hills, on October 4, 2016. Earlier this month, SA Police pleaded guilty to failing to provide a safe workplace while the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure will be subject to an “enforceable undertaking”. Any police fine will be used for SafeWork SA’s budget.
Originally published as Safework SA executive director Martyn Campbell admits failures of past investigations, pledges reform
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