‘The potential risk was obvious’: Shearwater home barred from housing 40 Vanuatu fruit pickers

A surprise inspection at a Shearwater home found 40 overseas workers, 56 bunk beds, powerboards overloaded with cooking appliances, and “obvious” risks to life. What a tribunal decided.

The seven-bedroom property at 30 Arthur Street, Shearwater, which housed 40 workers from Vanuatu last year, and about 70 farm workers from Tonga in 2020. Picture: Google Maps

At an unannounced inspection, a “cramped, hot and too crowded” Shearwater house was found crammed with 56 bunk beds for overseas fruit pickers.

In the “densely-packed bedrooms”, cooking appliances and phone chargers were connected to “overloaded” power boards beside bunk beds, a Tasmanian tribunal heard.

Those power boards were in turn connected to other power boards – and located in proximity to flammable bedding material.

About 40 fruit pickers from Vanuatu had been crammed inside the property, most of whom did not speak English, and who needed to relay through colleagues their “dim views about the conditions” they were living in.

A number of rooms had been converted into bedrooms, and extra toilets and bathrooms had been added without council approval, the tribunal heard.

Fire alarms were not interconnected, there was no fire evacuation plan, and fire blankets and hydrants were not compliant with Australian standards.

The tribunal has now found it was “obvious” the workers were living in dangerous conditions, and there could be “tragic loss of life” in the event of a fire.

It has now upheld Latrobe Council’s decision to issue an emergency order to evacuate all the workers.

It is not the first time the house at 30 Arthur Street had come to public attention – about 70 berry farm workers from Tonga were evicted from the same house under a previous emergency order in 2020.

In its newly-published decision, the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal said the unannounced inspection took place in February 2023, after a member of the community tipped off Latrobe Council.

Arriving at the door in the surprise visit were Latrobe Council employees, building surveyors, the Tasmanian Fire Service’s Mersey acting district officer, and a number of police officers.

The company that owns the house, Insight, and the company’s director, Simon Baldock, appealed the emergency order, arguing there were “no reasonable grounds” to determine a threat to life could arise.

Simon Baldock.

Insight also argued the property was lawfully occupied as a type of building used for domestic dwelling – as the workers were “related” and enjoyed “a degree of kinship”.

But the tribunal was not swayed by its arguments.

It said there was no evidence the workers were related, and found the house could not be classified as a domestic dwelling, but as a Class 3 lodging-style house for seasonal workers – which had far more onerous fire safety obligations.

“The potential risk to the seasonal workers that were housed in the dwelling was obvious,” the tribunal said.

“The emergency order insofar as it required those workers to evacuate was necessary to prevent the possibility of a tragic loss of life if there was a fire.”

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