Nine lives lost at NT workplaces over 18 month period, new data shows

NINE NT workers lost their lives on the job in the 18 months leading up to July, new statistics have revealed

NINE NT workers lost their lives on the job in the 18 months leading up to July, new statistics have revealed.

The latest Safe Work Australia key work health and safety statistics report, released on Monday, found six people died at Territory workplaces in 2019 — three more than in 2018.

As a proportion of population, the NT’s workplace fatalities rate was 4.6 per 100,000 workers, more than three times higher than the national average of 1.4.

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The 2019 workplace deaths included those of electrician Derick Suratin, who was electrocuted while working on the Tennant Creek Fire Station; Dwayne Beaumont, who was crushed when an excavator bucket dislodged and struck him; and Craig Butler, who was killed when he was buried alive by a wall collapse at the Bootu Creek Mine.

They also include the deaths of jockey Melanie Tyndall, 23-year-old electrician Jake Levick and 21-year-old US Marine Lance Corporal Hans Sandoval-Pereyra.

Updated statistics from NT WorkSafe for the 2019-20 financial year, released yesterday, show another three people have died at work in the first half of 2020.

Nine NT workers lost their lives on the job in the 18 months leading up to July, new data has revealed.

They include a 30-year-old construction worker who was fatally injured when a chain being used in a Maningrida towing operation failed and recoiled, striking him; a 60-year-old manufacturing worker who fell more than 3m on to concrete; and a 37-year-old construction worker who fell from the tracks of an excavator in Katherine.

Unions NT president Dave Hayes said the Territory’s workplace death rate was usually the highest in the country.

“I think it’s an old culture, that sense of she’ll be right, let’s just get it done,” he said.

“That culture needs to change, and to do that NT WorkSafe needs more resourcing to be out there and educating people how to work in a safer manner, whatever it may be that they’re doing.”

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“Every worker has the right to go to work and come home safe.”

An NT WorkSafe spokesman said the rate of workplace deaths in the NT was volatile given its relatively small population size, but “one work-related fatality is one too many”.

In response to the figures, the spokesman said NT WorkSafe was developing prevention-led work health and safety campaigns “with the aim of reducing incidents and injuries in the areas of concern”.

“These campaigns will help businesses and workers understand and comply with their work health and safety responsibilities,” he said.

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