Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to speak in the grievance debate about a particularly sad event. On occasions like this I do not know what the right words are but I do know that no words would be wrong, so I stand here tonight unsure of the right words, a little nervously, a little awkwardly—a little gauche—and very, very sadly to talk about the deaths that occurred across the road from the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Saturday, 21 June. I stand here tonight to honour the two men whose lives were tragically cut short on Saturday morning. Chris Gear, 36, and Steve Sayer, 52, fell to their deaths on a Gold Coast construction site at the newly completed Meriton Pegasus apartment complex at Broadbeach. For those listening who are not from the south-east corner of Queensland, I can tell you that the site is between the Conrad Jupiters Casino and one of the Gold Coast’s most beautiful beaches. Hundreds of thousands of tourists would drive past this once innocuous spot every year.

When these two men, Chris Gear and Steve Sayer, went off to work on Saturday morning it was like every other day. I was at the Gold Coast, like so many other Labor Party members who were attending the annual state conference across the road, and 21 June was another beautiful day in paradise—a crispish, clear morning with plenty of promise. But in another way 21 June was a dark day. In the Southern Hemisphere 21 June is the winter solstice. Culturally we think of this as the shortest day of the year or the longest night of the year. We use the term ‘solstice’ for the whole day, even though the solstice actually takes but a second. ‘Solstice’ derives from the Latin root ‘sol’ meaning ‘sun’, as in solar panels, and ‘sistit’ meaning ‘to stand still’, so the term ‘winter solstice’ means ‘when the sun stands still in winter’.

On the morning of 21 June the whole world stood still for Chris Gear and Steve Sayer. Their world ended and the world of their friends and families and workmates was also horribly changed forever. In fact, the members for Bonner and Dawson and many other members who were at the Labor Party conference heard or saw the crash. Sadly I report to the House that I am advised by the union that several witnesses from, on and near the work site saw Chris and Steve slide off an outdoor swinging stage that left them dangling from their safety harnesses before the whole platform collapsed and these two poor men fell 26 storeys to their death. Chris and Steve were experienced high-rise construction workers but they had no warning of the peril they faced that morning.

My brothers who work in the construction industry tell me that a little bit of healthy respect is not uncommon amongst those who work on high-rises, particularly those who work on the outside, but Chris and Steve would have swallowed their respectable fear for the sake of their families’ livelihood. These same families and their workmates are anxious to know what happened. How could a normal day at work go so horribly wrong? But I must say that it is in the face of this kind of tragedy and adversity that we see the best of our construction unions. Michael Ravbar, General Secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and his deputy, Jason Stein, and many other CFMEU officials, organisers and delegates were on site immediately—as soon as they knew—to offer counselling to the grieving workmates and to see what was going on. The CFMEU and the BLF were instrumental in raising money for the families of the deceased men. They passed the bucket around at the ALP state conference and raised over $5,000 on the Sunday for the grieving families. No doubt today, on building sites all over Queensland and maybe even all over Australia, construction workers would have dug deep into their pockets for these grieving families. Construction workers might be tough men and women when it comes to protecting their rights, but they are soft touches when it comes to looking after their own. They are surely one of the most generous groups of people you will ever find in Australia. My brother David has told me that there is an intention on the work sites, especially on the Gold Coast, for normal workers to donate a day’s wages to the families of the deceased.

The CFMEU are working with the appropriate authorities in Queensland to inspect the Broadbeach building site in search of answers to ensure that this kind of workplace accident never happens again. The union will work with the occupational health and safety inspectors to make sure that the sun will never again stand still in similar circumstances. The CFMEU has played a strong role in the industry’s immediate ban of the swing-stage scaffolds in Queensland. They will remain banned until everybody is completely satisfied that these swing-stages are safe. Obviously, all safety-minded employers and employees would agree that this is an appropriate response amid these heartbreaking circumstances. This ban will mostly impact building in Queensland’s south-east, where the majority of high-rise constructions are taking place and, obviously, where the majority of the population is. However, a few building sites in booming Cairns and Townsville might also be affected.

This tragedy has also caused my family to relive the pain of a building accident that I spoke about in the House on Wednesday, 18 June—last week. This was an accident that also occurred on the Gold Coast, just down the road from Broadbeach, about 10 metres over the border in New South Wales. I have two brothers, Mark and David, currently working in the construction industry. One of them, David, was just about to pull the hoist rope in the crane across the road from the accident site on the afternoon of the deaths on the weekend. In fact, David had pulled down his company’s crane from the actual accident site just two weeks beforehand.

As I say, I have two brothers currently working in the construction industry. But I have another brother who used to be in the industry, Tim. It was Tim who was particularly disturbed to hear about the deaths of Chris and Steve on Saturday. Tim is a barman now, but he used to work in the construction industry. He was working on the Twin Towns Services Club on 29 November 1996 when a crane collapsed and killed the two men standing right alongside of him, Rod and Wayne. And the ponder weight from the crane landed on Tim and wrecked his back. So, while 29 November is a long way from the winter solstice—in fact, it is getting pretty close to the summer solstice—for Tim, it was a day when the sun stood still. And, for years afterwards, Tim’s life stood still. Thankfully, he is getting himself back together now, but the long, dark days will never really disappear.

Cranes, like swing-stages, are commonplace on building sites. They are not supposed to collapse. The accidents that claimed Rod and Wayne and Chris and Steve, and so many other workers throughout Australia, highlight the fact that Australians still face danger every day when they turn up to toil in work sites all around the country. That is why thousands of construction workers in Queensland have taken action today to support these grieving families. Construction workers and the CFMEU are concerned about failing safety standards on work sites. For all good employers in the sector—and there are many of them—there is no greater priority than providing adequate, world-class workplace safety standards for all employees. Unfortunately, this message is not getting through to every single employer. There are too many Rods and Waynes and Chrises and Steves dying in workplace accidents.

Australian Safety and Compensation Council figures show a five per cent increase in building site accidents since 1997-98. In 1997-98, there were 37 fatalities and 13,955 non-fatal accidents on building sites around Australia. However, statistics for 2004-05, which are the latest available statistics, show there were 31 fatalities and 14,724 non-fatal accidents—nearly 1,000 more non-fatal accidents. I have been advised in recent times that the increase in reportable incidents in some parts of Australia, in some building sites, has been closer to 30 per cent. And many workers have told me that some of the responsibility for a new health and safety climate on building sites rests firmly with the previous government. I will quote from the CFMEU Construction and General Safety Newsletter, Issue 14 from October 2007. In that newsletter, the National Occupational Health and Safety Officer, Martin Kingham, says:

The responsibility for any increase in death and injuries of construction workers sits squarely on the shoulders of the Howard Government. Its punishing construction laws and the ABCC—which took effect in 2005—bar unions from taking an active role in policing safety on the job.

I am not going to pursue that line. I do not think this is the appropriate time. However, I do want to refer to one particular story from Henry Lawson in the brief time I have left to speak. It is one of my favourite short stories, called ‘The union buries its dead’. It was written in the 1890s—incidentally, at the time the Australian Labor Party was formed. It is one of the blackest and bleakest of his stories. I will not have time to quote from it, but I will say this: the construction unions, like so many other unions, are sick of burying their dead.