A 28-year-old man has died in hospital after he received an electric shock while working at a Melbourne restaurant last Friday.

The man was initially revived after workmates pulled him unconscious from the roof cavity of the Upper House restaurant at Federation Square.

He was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital in a critical condition but died yesterday morning,Worksafe Victoria said.

This is the second electrocution death on Victorian work sites this year.

A man died from an electric shock while working under a house at Camberwell on January 2, WorkSafe said.

In the latest incident, the 28-year-old man received CPR from workmates. He was clinically dead when paramedics arrived, but they managed to revive him.

The number of work-related fatalities reported to the Victorian agency this year now stands at nine, four more than in the same period last year.

WorkSafe executive director John Merritt said the rising death toll was a reminder for workers and employers to put workplace safety first.

“The high number of fatalities already this year, and the 29 in 2006, should be the greatest incentive for workers and employers to do everything they can to ensure a safe workplace,” he said.

“It is WorkSafe’s tragic experience that all too often safety improvements are made after a death or serious injury. That’s too late.”

ASBESTOS campaigner Bernie Banton has taken up a new fight – against the New South Wales Government’s personal injury laws.

Fresh from a successful six-year battle with building products company James Hardie over compensation for asbestos victims, Mr Banton today announced he’s joining a campaign calling for fair compensation for people injured in accidents.

The campaign, A Fair Go for Injured People, was launched in September by four peak legal bodies in response to sweeping government changes to NSW personal injury legislation.

Under the changes, people injured in civil liability cases, motor vehicle accidents or in the workplace must meet a certain threshold of bodily impairment before they can be awarded compensation for pain and suffering.

Mr Banton labelled the threshold ridiculous and said too many people were missing out on fair compensation.

“I see this is a repeat of the James Hardie issues, people being denied their right to compensation,” he said.

“We need to get it on the agenda and get commitment from government and alternative governments that they are going to attend to this issue because it needs to be attended to now, not in the future.

“People are missing out on what is rightfully theirs.”

Mr Banton said he would use similar tactics in this campaign to those he used against James Hardie.

“We’ve just got to keep at them. The only way to win these wars is to keep at them and not let the issue die,” he said.

“It’s so important for people’s financial future that the money is there and available to them and we’ve got to get people over this ridiculous threshold … I believe that all that is necessary is a stroke of the pen.

“It’s this threshold that’s got to be adjusted so everybody gets a fair go, all we’re asking for a fair go.”

Campaign spokesman and NSW Bar Association president Michael Slattery QC said 95 per cent of people were unable to access proper compensation.

As an example, Mr Slattery said green slip insurers had taken in $10 billion in premiums since 1999 and paid out just $2.7 billion in benefits to the injured.

“It’s a very important campaign and having someone like Bernie Banton on board and assisting with it will give it a great boost and hopefully it will get real attention from the NSW government and the opposition,” he said.

“Thousands of workers are missing out … I think Bernie’s going to make a difference.”

The campaign is being driven by the Law Society of NSW, the NSW Bar Association, the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

TWO men were injured when a 800kg carriage from a carnival ride toppled onto them while they were dismantling it after Moomba festivities in Melbourne.

The accident happened about 1.30am (AEDT) today on the north bank of the Yarra River near the city centre as the men were helping to pack up the ride, police said.

“Whilst dismantling an 800kg carriage of the ride, it toppled over and struck the men, trapping one underneath for a short time, and injuring the other,” a police spokeswoman said.

“After being rescued by workmates, the men were treated by paramedics at the scene before being taken to The Alfred hospital with non-life threatening injuries,” she said.

Both men are from NSW.

WorkSafe inspectors are investigating the incident.

A MAN is in a serious condition in a Melbourne hospital after being hurt in an explosion as he worked on a bus engine.

A Rural Ambulance Service spokesman said the accident happened about 6pm (AEDT) yesterday near Echuca.

Paramedics believe the 45-year-old man had been trying to start the engine by pouring petrol on the carburetor when it ignited.

The man was treated at the scene before being flown to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.

He suffered burns to his body and face and was this morning in a serious but stable condition.

A MINING company that owns a camp where two people were killed when Cyclone George swept through Western Australia’s far north today announced a review of its procedures.

Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) chief executive Andrew Forrest said his thoughts and deepest sympathies were with the families, friends and work colleagues of those who died and the injured.

Gympie man Craig Raabe, 42 died in hospital on sunday after he was injured when the cyclone hit an FMG railway construction camp 105km south of Port Hedland early on Friday.

Perth woman Debra Till, 47, died when the storm flattened the camp.

More than 20 people were injured.

Mrs Till’s family has threatened legal action against FMG for not evacuating staff before the cyclone hit.

“I’ve lost my wife, the boys have lost their mother and Debbie will never see Tyson, our grandson, again,” Mrs Till’s husband John said on Southern Cross radio.

“You cannot imagine how hard that is.”

Mr Forrest said FMG had commissioned a complete review of procedures and processes to be headed by what he said was an independent risk management and incident investigation specialist.

“We are also co-operating with the coroner’s office and Worksafe in their investigations,” Mr Forrest said.

A third person, Sydney Desmond Baker, 74, died of a suspected heart attack, at Indee Station, near the FMG camp, during Cyclone George.

House painter John Takacs won damages of $913,390 from the Uniting Church after hefell from the roof of a Sydney retirement village in 1999.

Lawyers said restrictions on damages payouts which had since been introduced in NSW would have reduced Mr Takacs’ compensation by “hundreds of thousands of dollars”.

The judgment was seized upon by NSW Bar Association president Michael Slattery QC, who is leading an election-linked campaign for better compensation for injured people.

He said the Takacs case highlighted how much money the changes had cost the state’s injured workers.

Mr Slattery is trying to persuade both sides of politics to eliminate inconsistencies in the different compensation systems that operate within NSW.

Premier Morris Iemma has vigorously resisted pressure to change these arrangements, saying the proposals would cost too much money and would benefit lawyers who run personal injury cases.

The Premier has said he will not go back on the tort law reforms introduced by his predecessor, Bob Carr, in 2001.

Mr Slattery rejected Mr Iemma’s argument and said there was ample capacity to increase awards for injured workers.

He said operating costs for WorkCover, which covered employees for workplace injuries, grew last financial year by $365 million, or 57 per cent.

Most of that blowout in operating expenses is believed to have gone to private insurance companies that operate the scheme on behalf of the Government.

The Coalition parties are having talks with the legal profession and will make an announcement during the campaign.

Under the current compensation system, injured workers cannot go to court unless their injuries pass a threshold test.

And those who require significant medical care are unable to sue for the cost of their continuing treatment. This forces most injured workers to pursue their claims through the state Workers Compensation Commission where payouts are significantly below those once awarded by courts.

Barrister Ross Letherbarrow SC said there was no doubt that Mr Takacs would have lost “hundreds of thousands of dollars” had his injury occurred after the compensation changes.

Mr Takacs, now 39, fell 9m off the roof of the Northaven Retirement Village in suburban Turramurra. He was knocked unconscious and suffered traumatic brain damage, broke his right elbow and wrist, damaged nerves in his right arm and suffered a nose injury that required surgery.

Mr Takacs said he suffered long-term anxiety and depression and short-term memory loss after the fall. A doctor told the NSW Supreme Court Mr Takacs had sustained a permanent disability in his right arm.

The court heard that after the accident, Mr Takacs had endured “interference with the marital relationship, with his ability to socialise with his children, and with his pre-accident occupational, social and recreational activities”.

He was unable to return to full-time work.

He claimed against the church for general damages, out of pocket expenses, economic loss and loss of earning capacity and domestic assistance, both past and future.

Mr Takacs said the Uniting Church had failed in its duty to provide a fence or safety harness. He tripped on a ridge in a metal roofing material known as Kliplok.

Mr Letherbarrow said that if Mr Takacs had been injured after the introduction of the new compensation arrangements, he would probably have needed to seek compensation from the Workers Compensation Commission.

He said it was still theoretically possible for people to seek court-ordered damages if they met the threshold test of 15 per cent “whole person impairment”.

But he said there were now severe restrictions on compensation awards made by courts. This meant most injured workers needed to rely on the Workers Compensation Commission.

“All the systems are different – the motor vehicle accident scheme, the civil liability scheme that covers injuries in public places and the new workers compensation system,” Mr Letherbarrow said.

A FORMER labourer was suffering a disease caused by toxic workplace fumes when he downloaded hundreds of images and movies of child exploitation to his computer, a court has heard.

Terrence Robert Cox, 38, of Deception Bay in Brisbane’s northern bayside, today pleaded guilty in the Brisbane District Court to possessing 292 child exploitation images and movies.

Judge Walter Tutt sentenced Cox to a suspended 12 months’ jail term.

Police raided the married man’s home following a tip-off on August 28, 2005, the court was told.

The prosecutor said the “very explicit” imagery found on his computer featured girls and boys aged five to 11 years, and showed children having sex with each other as well as with adults.

Cox’s defence lawyers tendered a letter from his doctor which stated he’d suffered “toxic fumes disease” from working as a welder.

The letter suggested the disease may have impaired his judgment.

Cox has since established his own full-time IT business and is studying to become a Microsoft system engineer.

He told police that he knew the material was illegal, but he denied being a child molester.

The court heard Cox obtained the images and movies through a computer file-sharing system but he didn’t distribute any materials.

Cox argued he had looked at the images only once.

His wife of five years was present in court.

In handing down the sentence, Judge Tutt said viewing such images was “a sign of a sick, perverted mind”.

“Without the likes of you, there wouldn’t be a market of such degradation of children,” Judge Tutt said.

“You’ve contributed to its proliferation by your conduct.”

He said his crime was worsened by the fact he was a married man “with the love and support of your wife”.

“You hardly fit the profile of one who participates in this sickening behaviour.”

Judge Tutt recorded a conviction against Cox and ordered the forfeiture of the material.

The NSW Government has launched a new attack on the unacceptably high death and injury rate in the state’s workplaces. In 2004-05 there were 125 deaths and 50,000 serious injuries in work-related incidents in NSW.

The new campaign is a multimedia blitz, Homecomings, and is based on a successful Victorian campaign last year, punching the message that work safety is about coming home to your family. If you are injured or killed at work your loved ones and friends bear the emotional and other consequences as much as you suffer.

This psychological tilt at work safety attitudes targets a great weakness: one of the hardest attitudes to create at work is to have everyone thinking about safety every moment of every day. Injuries and deaths too often occur because of inexplicable lapses of safety attitude.

Accident case studies groan with such instances. A big trick in work safety is to achieve a 100 per cent safety focus all day every day. Homecomings says: “For your families’ sake, think safe.”

If work safety is to be improved, state governments need to learn from each other. Best practice needs to be repeated across Australia. But this is where NSW needs to learn a lot more.

The Homecomings campaign in Victoria emerged from a 2004 sea change in Victorian work safety laws. This produced a big shift in the approach of the Victorian WorkCover Authority to how it relates to businesses and workers on safety.

Before 2004 Victoria had experimented with highly aggressive prosecutions against employers. Because work safety is such an emotional issue, often the reaction is to blame someone. This reaction reasons that employers always cause work safety incidents and that tough laws and aggressive prosecutions are needed to scare employers into behaving.

This is the policy approach used in NSW. It’s the design feature of NSW work safety legislation and is the force underpinning NSW prosecutions. But after much public debate Victoria rejected this approach. The 2004 Victorian laws are built around the recognition that everyone at work contributes to safety. The laws hold everyone, employers and employees, equally responsible over what they control. Prosecutions target everyone who may have contributed to a safety breach.

Further, the Victorian laws removed legal blockages to the WorkCover Authority’s capacity to advise and help business with work safety procedures. Co-operation rather than aggression is seen as the first, essential part of a total package to improving work safety. Out of this new approach the creative Homecomings campaign was born.

But the NSW approach of aggressive, fearsome attacks against business is at odds with Victoria’s. So obsessed is NSW with instilling employer fear that natural criminal justice has been stripped from the system. Occupational health and safety criminal prosecutions impose presumption of guilt, apply unachievable criteria for proving innocence and deny full rights to appeal or trial before jury.

This stripping of justice is justified on the grounds of needing to obtain convictions regardless of safety behaviour, to create a culture of employer fear. Academic literature on the topic openly promotes this. But inevitably injustices occur under such a regime.

Many cases have emerged of clearly blameless persons being convicted. Irregularities in prosecution processes have been documented. And the judiciary is concerned. A senior NSW judge recently described one prosecution as “constituting more than prosecution and amounting to persecution of the defendants”, said the prosecutor had acted “inappropriately”, and argued for fixing of the laws and the sacking of the NSW WorkCover Authority as the Government’s prosecuting department.

Last year the Government seemed to recognise the problem. It tried to reform the laws but NSW unions campaigned against them. The Government backed down and the laws and culture of employer-hate on work safety remain. Co-operation and guidance as the first benchmark for safety are not part of the NSW Occupation Health and Safety system design or practice.

NSW is at a threshold on work safety. The Homecomings campaign is a great initiative. But the Victorian ads are underpinned by a realistic and practical approach to achieving better work safety cultures. NSW does not have this. The NSW campaign may fail because it’s marketing spin lacks policy substance.

For work safety’s sake, NSW needs to take the next step and fix its laws.

Ken Phillips is work reform director for the Institute of Public Affairs.