Shepparton Magistrates’ Court: Polymaster Pty Ltd charged over workplace incidents at Yarroweyah and Barwon Downs

A Swan Hill water tank company charged over the death of a customer’s neighbour at Barwon Downs claims the accident happened “because an employee wasn’t following instructions”.

Polymaster Pty Ltd allegedly failed to provide and maintain a safe system of work relating to the two incidents. Picture: Polymaster

A truck driver who claimed he wasn’t properly trained in unloading water tanks has been accused of not following instructions as a Swan Hill company faces court over the death of a customer’s neighbour.

Polymaster Pty Ltd fronted Shepparton Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday and Thursday over WorkSafe allegations that the company failed to provide and maintain a safe system of work

relating following two serious incidents, including the death of a Barwon Downs man.

The hearing will determine if Polymaster should stand trial over the incidents.

In the first incident at a Yarroweyah property in September 2021 a customer was seriously injured after a water tank rolled off a delivery truck and crushed him.

A few months later, on December 9, a water tank hit and killed a man at Barwon Downs while it was being unloaded.

It’s alleged the water tank was being delivered to the Barwon Downs property by a Polymaster contractor when it rolled off a flat-bed truck and crushed the customer’s neighbour.

WorkSafe also alleged Polymaster failed to stop people other than employees from unloading tanks.

Zane Thomas, a diesel fitter and truck driver now living in Queensland, delivered Polymaster products for 18-months while driving for JBM Logistics.

An example of a Polymaster tank.

A water tank incident resulted in the death of a man at the Otways on December 9, 2021.

The defence argued Mr Thomas received instructions from Polymaster about how to approach deliveries following the September incident.

But Mr Thomas was adamant throughout that he had not received instructions before the December 9 accident.

Defence lawyer Arthur Moses accused Mr Thomas of not telling the truth.

“I’m going to suggest to you, you’re making this up,” Mr Moses said.

Mr Thomas maintained he had not received any proper training.

“I’m a qualified mechanic, there was no training,” he said.

Mr Thomas said the incident was “the worst day” of his life.

“God forbid if I could trade places (with the deceased),” he said.

Workplace investigations manager Cameron Sorrell told the court that Mr Thomas had originally been treated as a suspect in the matter before being regarded as a witness.

Polymaster’s committal is being heard in the Shepparton Magistrates’ Court.

Mr Sorrell then produced a document that suggested Mr Thomas had been trained in the lead up to December 9.

The court also heard that an improvement notice had been delivered to Polymaster’s operations manager Mark Watson by Worksafe’s Scott Armistead.

“At the time of the initial visit it was observed that employees are required to manually handle large, bulky items weighing in excess of 250kg, which I believe involves hazardous manual handing, due to the application of high force required to manually handle these items,”

Mr Moses posed to Mr Armistead that Polymaster had implemented measures and that the death occurred “because an employee wasn’t following instructions”.

Mr Armistead said he was aware of a former incident – referring to the Yarroweyah incident in September.

The hearing will resume on August 15.