SafeWork SA investigates Adelaide Crows’ Gold Coast Collective Minds camp

A “comprehensive” workplace safety inquiry into the Adelaide Crows’ notorious 2018 pre-season camp threatens to drag the controversy into a third year.

Workplace safety authorities are pursuing a “comprehensive” inquiry into the Adelaide Crows’ infamous 2018 pre-season camp almost five months after allegations of bullying and intimidation were labelled “quite disturbing” by Premier Steven Marshall.

The escalating SafeWork SA investigation, with which the Crows have been co-operating by providing information, threatens to drag controversy over the Gold Coast camp into a third year.

Preliminary inquiries by the state’s workplace health and safety regulator were launched in July but the matter has been elevated into the comprehensive investigation.

The precise nature and depth of the investigation are not known, although it raises the potential for prosecutions, a fine and safety order.

Crows players leave Adelaide Oval after playing St Kilda in July. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty

Asked by The Advertiser about the investigation’s status, a SafeWork SA spokeswoman said: “SafeWork SA’s comprehensive inquiries into the Adelaide Football Club’s 2018 pre-season camp are continuing.

“Adelaide Football Club has been voluntarily assisting in providing information as requested by SafeWork SA.

“As this is an ongoing matter, we are unable to provide any further information at this time.”

SafeWork SA’s role includes investigating workplace incidents and enforcing workplace health and safety laws.

An Adelaide Football Club spokesman said it would be inappropriate to pass comment while the inquiry was ongoing.

Mr Marshall on July 6 said he was disturbed by reports that Crows players were put through psychological abuse at the camp, including hurling abuse at a teammate about his childhood trauma. The Premier then declared a SafeWork SA investigation would be “an interesting thing to explore”.

SafeWork SA on July 22 declared it had “begun preliminary inquiries” into the Crows’ camp, which one-time star recruit Bryce Gibbs on Tuesday said had been a “disaster” that meant the players “lost a bit of trust with the footy department”.

The camp was widely believed to have played a key role in triggering the Crows’ collapse from 2017 grand finalists to this year plunging to the club’s first wooden spoon.

Directors of Collective Mind, which operated the camp, in September told inaugural Crows coach Graham Cornes that feedback from Crows’ players and coaches immediately after the camp left them believing the experience had been an overwhelming success.

SafeWork SA in July told The Advertiser that no notifications or complaints against the Adelaide Football Club had been received relating to the 2018 pre-season camp but it was looking into the matter.

While the regulator did not have jurisdiction over businesses in Queensland, where the camp occurred, SafeWork SA said it might have “jurisdiction over activities relating to safe systems of work” when SA businesses operated interstate.

According to SafeWork SA’s website, the regulator’s compliance and enforcement activities, in general, may lead to prosecutions being filed in the SA Employment Tribunal and the Magistrates Court, or an enforceable undertaking or expiation notice being issued.

The independent regulator is a business unit within the Treasury and Finance Department and, as such, is accountable to – but not directed by – Treasurer Rob Lucas.

Top Adelaide lawyer Greg Griffin in mid-July said the AFL made a “serious error” in claiming its investigation into the Crows’ camp was independent, saying it controlled the board and, therefore, the club.

The AFL integrity unit in 2018 cleared the Crows of any wrongdoing in the “cult-like” team-building camp and concluded that there had been “no breach of industry rules”.

Originally published as SafeWork SA investigates Adelaide Crows’ Gold Coast Collective Minds camp