Department under fire for attitude towards inquest into quadruple fatality crash

THE NT Government department has come under fire for its attitude to a coronial inquiry into a quadruple fatality last year

The wreck of the Nissan X-Trail 80km from Pine Creek. Three people died at the scene and a fourth died on the way to hospital. Picture. Channel 9

THE Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics has come under fire for its attitude to a coronial inquiry into the deaths of four people killed in a crash on the Kakadu Hwy last year.

The department’s traffic engineer, Aftab Abro, and project director, David Kerslake, appeared before the inquiry this week where Mr Abro initially rejected a police finding that loose gravel caused the fatal crash.

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In giving evidence on Wednesday, Mr Kerslake said he accepted the conclusions of police and coroner Greg Cavanagh commended him for his “impressive” evidence, saying it “assisted us greatly”.

But Mr Cavanagh criticised the department for its lack of preparation for the inquest.

Mr Cavanagh urged DIPL to “prepare in a timely way” where an inquest was likely following a multiple fatality and “get themselves in a position to impress rather than not”.

“Not every road fatality will end up as a coronial inquest but you can usually pick the ones that are going to be and set yourself up to look good,” he said.

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“For instance, if you’re really going to disagree with the contribution of the gravel on the road, if that was going to be the department’s position, which in the end it wasn’t, you’d think, months ago, they would have got in an independent expert to review that issue.”

But Mr Cavanagh agreed with deputy coroner Kelvin Currie’s submission that Mr Kerslake had “rather redeemed” the department, praising him for having “made the concessions that needed to be made”.

“It’s a pity they weren’t made yesterday,” he said.

In response to a discrepancy about when the department knew there were factors involved in the crash other than driver error due to drink driving, Mr Kerslake said the department had taken steps to improve communication with police.

“One of the things missing in this is I think there’s a communication problem here … I think that’s where the whole thing has probably fallen down,” he said.

“I realise we are often looked at as a bureaucracy that don’t care … (but we) are particularly concerned about road accidents and it’s certainly something that we do not take for granted or lightly.”

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In her closing submission on behalf of the department, lawyer Helena Blundell, said an audit commissioned by the department reflected “the degree of care that they give to these sorts of accidents”.

Mr Kerslake told the court work to address issues identified in the audit, including the sealing of gravel roads, would begin next month.