There were steps which 'could and should have been taken' to prevent it, says court
Buddco Pty Ltd, an engineering services company, has been ordered to pay a hefty fine of $600,000 for violating its work health and safety responsibility.
The incident in question occurred when contractor Craig Tanner lost his life while cleaning an ink holding tank at a factory in Auburn in 2017.
Buddco had been hired to provide labor for maintaining and servicing the ink manufacturing plant for DIC Australia Pty Ltd. Mr. Tanner's fatal injuries occurred when an anchor blade was activated and trapped his leg inside the tank.
According to records, Buddco engaged subcontractors where it did not have the internal expertise or specialised equipment to carry out the services itself, including for confined space entry work.
On their first attendance at the site, the employer said they followed adequate workplace safety measures. Subcontractors were shown around the site, introduced to Buddco staff, shown emergency response and evacuation routes, shown relevant equipment (including the upstream and downstream connections to that equipment) and asked to complete DIC’s site-based induction.
The confined space work was primarily to enter and clean ink tanks located at the Auburn Site. It was rare for such a clean to be required more than once or twice a year for a single machine. Buddco always used qualified confined space personnel to undertake any work inside an ink tank.
On the day of the tragic incident, another worker, Yatin Mehta, also suffered serious injuries when he entered the tank to assist Mr. Tanner.
‘Obvious and foreseeable’
In its decision, the District Court of New South Wales found Buddco guilty of violating the Work Health and Safety Act 2011. The Court also noted that Buddco had no prior convictions, was otherwise of good character, and was unlikely to re-offend.
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However, the Court was not convinced that Buddco had taken responsibility for its actions and its role in the tragic incident.
Despite Buddco's detailed written safety system for confined space work and tank cleaning, the Court found that there was no standard or safe step-by-step procedure in place to ensure electrical isolation of the tank.
It also said that the tragedy could have been prevented since the risk was “obvious and foreseeable.”
“There were steps which could and should have been taken by Buddco. There was little or no cost, burden or inconvenience of those steps being implemented,” the Court said.
“The death of [the worker] and the serious injury to [his co-worker] were caused by the risk and the breach of duty,” it added.
Buddco currently provides ad hoc engineering and fabrication assistance to three companies in the ink/print production industry.
However, Buddco does not currently have any substantive or ongoing project-based work of the kind previously performed for DIC, which was Buddco’s primary source of revenue.
The future of Buddco is “uncertain” in light of its lack of guaranteed contract work, the Court noted.