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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1603 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

Unfortunately, in Australia fatalities are reported as those resulting from traumatic injuries, and they exclude journey claims and fatalities that result from disease. At this stage Australian data on death caused by occupation diseases is considered unreliable for reporting purposes.

Research showing rates of workplace fatality per 100,000 employees and self-employed people from Great Britain, Europe, the USA, New Zealand and Australia show Australia as having one of the highest rates of workplace fatalities in the world. Even after benchmarking for differences between the various countries for data collection methodologies, Australia has a consistently higher rate of death per 100,000 workers than do comparable countries. That does not include deaths resulting from journeys to or from work.

The rate of workplace death in Australia is clearly unacceptable. In 1999-2000, the last year for which data is available, compensation fatalities numbered 206 in Australia. This was a very minor decrease over previous statistics from 1998-99, at 208, but was down on 1997-98, when 237 Australians failed to return home from work.

In 1999-2000 the ACT contributed three private sector deaths and one public sector death to the national death toll. But I am pleased to advise members of some other statistics which have just been made available to me from ACT WorkCover. They include deaths to workers travelling to and from work as well as deaths at the workplace. For the ACT, from 1989 to 2001, there were 33 deaths-27 in the private sector and six in the public sector. It is interesting to note how these deaths occurred. Ten resulted from motor vehicle accidents on journeys to and from work or during work periods, five were from electrocution, four were from crush or machinery injuries and three were from plane crashes.

In relation to motor vehicle accidents, it is difficult to distinguish between journey claims, where the fatalities occurred while workers were travelling to or from work, and incidences where the vehicle was the employee's normal workplace and the employee was driving a vehicle as part of their normal employment.

Of the remaining fatalities, most concern for workplace safety is in relation to deaths caused by electrocution and incidents involving machinery.

The four industries that recorded the most fatalities during the period in the ACT were the construction industry, with six deaths; the retail industry, with three deaths; the transport industry, with three deaths; and the education sector, with three deaths.

Without being melodramatic, it is sobering to outline a number of these deaths in generality only. For example, in 1991 a male was crushed by a granite slab whilst working in the construction industry. In the same year another male worker was crushed beneath a scraper, again in the construction industry. In 1992 another person was crushed by a machine, again in the construction industry. In 1993 an individual was electrocuted in the manufacturing industry. In 1997 another person was crushed by a roller in the construction industry, in the construction of roads and bridges. In 1995 a woman died as a result of head trauma from a fall in the clerical industry. That is the sobering reality of deaths in the ACT, in both the private and the public sectors.

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