CCH Australia - 12 July 2002

A joint venture and a labour-hire firm have been fined $235,000 and ordered to pay $21,000 in costs after one worker was shocked and burnt, and other workers exposed to health and safety risks, while digging around live 11,000-volt power cables.

Joint venture companies Transfield Pty Ltd and Worley Ltd pleaded guilty in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission in Court Session to breaching section 16 of the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act 1983. They were fined on 17 May 2002.

Labour-hire firm Manbead Pty Ltd pleaded guilty in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission in Court Session to breaching section 15 of the NSW Occupational Health and Safety Act 1983. It was fined on 18 June 2002.

Transfield and Worley were charged separately but prosecuted together. Manbead was prosecuted separately.

Transfield and Worley formed a joint venture known as TWJV but it wasn't incorporated. TWJV entered into a Strategic Alliance Agreement with BOC Gases Australia Ltd to design, procure, construct and precommission a new air separation plant on the site of an existing, but old, air separation facility at BOC's Port Kembla site.

To prepare for the new facility, the main 11,000-volt electrical power supply lines required modification. Some of the buried power cables had to be reconfigured and replaced.

The site supervisor, Joe Luczycki, was contracted by TWJV through Interpad Pty Ltd. The three workers he supervised were contracted through Manbead.

A Work Method Statement was produced which relied on Energy Australia's Guide to Working on Underground Cables.

TWJV gave no consideration to de-energising the cables. The workers were to dig around live cables. Because the cables were laid years ago their exact placement was difficult to identify. The workers were given metal implements to excavate. Management told workers the cables were live.

At about 7:30 am on 30 July 1999, one of the workers, Mark Pinney, was digging in one of the trenches using a crowbar that had been left lying in the trench the day before. He hit one of the 11,000-volt power cables causing an earth fault. There was an explosion and a cloud of smoke.

Mr Pinney was shocked and received two small burns under his armpits. His two co-workers escaped unharmed. He was taken to first aid then to Wollongong Hospital for treatment and monitoring.

The safety vest he was wearing caught alight during the incident and was left at the site. One hundred and fifty millimetres of cable on two of the powerlines disintegrated, while a third powerline sustained damage to its copper wires and part of the insulation cover came off.

Justice Kavanagh said accepting that work could be carried out around live powerlines and that the energy supply need not be interrupted should be challenged and not "unreservedly adopted by industry".

"Industries working on or around an electrical supply should not rely on advice from the suppliers of energy as to safe working methods. Employees should not be required to work around live supply lines where inevitably they could suffer a serious risk to their health and safety. Alternative work methods must be considered," he said.

Justice Kavanagh said the labour-hire company, Manbead, had no formal safety procedures in place and failed to have any input into the system of work adopted by TWJV. It just assumed the TWJV job specification would ensure site safety. It passed the responsibility for work design and training of its employees to the principal contractor - TWJV.

Although Manbead told its workers to complain if there was any danger, there were no independent site safety standards in which the workers could be instructed to assist them to recognise work hazards. Manbead presumed its employees were properly trained in this area.

After the accident, Transfield reassessed its safety system and introduced a behavioural-approach model to work with its systems model. Transfield had prior convictions. Worley also improved its safety systems and expressed sincere contrition. Transfield was fined $110,000 and Worley $70,000. Both were ordered to pay $7,000 in costs.

After the accident, Manbead expressed its concern and need to improve its safety systems but no evidence was provided by 18 June to show that it had happened. Manbead was fined $55,000.