Page 3368 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
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My advice is that there will be four separate independent expert assessments of the site. Of course our hope and my expectation is that, through that process, we will learn what the causes of the collapse were. It is vitally important that we do learn and understand. I think it is right and appropriate to say that incidents such as this should not occur. There really does need to be an absolutist approach to work safety always.
In relation to major constructions such as this, it is the government’s and the community’s expectation and, I am sure, the expectation of all of us or each of us that events such as this simply should not happen. It is a matter of grave concern to me, the government and all involved and, I am sure, all members that it did happen. We need to learn from it to ensure it does not happen again.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Seselja, a supplementary?
MR SESELJA: Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, Chief Minister. Chief Minister, could you provide some more details in relation to the investigations that are planned and are being conducted; particularly, when do you expect investigations will be finalised and how will the results be published?
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Seselja. Once again I have advice—and to some extent some of these issues will be determined by WorkSafe—that the site will be left as it is until each of the engineers, the independent consultants that have been engaged, has had an opportunity to thoroughly inspect and review the site. Hence, the delays in clearing the site are a direct result of the determination not to touch or to interfere in any way with the site so that there will be a full and thorough investigation so that we can, to the extent that expert advisers are able, determine the cause. I have been advised initially—this is something that may change but the expectation is—that those investigations will take at least a week so that there will be no attempt or move to clear the site or to begin to clear the site until each of those investigations has been completed.
Mr Seselja, I do not have a time frame in relation to when those reports will be available. I will seek it. I have to say that that is advice that I have not been provided with. But let me give you this assurance: the government will make available all of those reports that are available to it. I have no hesitation in offering any member of this place a full briefing and access to ACT government officials from Roads ACT or from WorkSafe in relation to briefings on the circumstances, the inquiries and the way forward, and we wish through this process to give assurance to the Canberra community that we are doing everything to ensure that these systems are safe.
MR COE: A supplementary.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Coe.
MR COE: Chief Minister, what complaints, if any, have the government received about works on the project, what were the nature of those complaints and when were they received?
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