Work Health and Safety; A Case of Kenoss Company

Running Head: WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY 1
Work Health and Safety; A Case of Kenoss Company
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY 2
Work Health and Safety Act 2011 commenced on January 2012 in Australia with its main
goal as setting up a strong and consistent framework that secures the health and safety of workers
and places of work. The Act specifies that it is not only workers within the workplace who are
entitled to the highest degree of protection against harm to their health, safety, and welfare from
hazards and risks arising, but also other people who have no association with the work or
workplace. Under the Electrical Safety Act 2002, one serious electrical incident is when a
person’s cause of death is electricity. Still, under the same Act, a person conduction a business or
undertaking (PCBU), is mandated to report to authorities should he be aware of any serious or
dangerous electrical incident or event. A breach of the electrical safety duty that leads to death,
serious injury or illness attracts hefty penalties as high as 1.5 million dollars for corporations.
This essay will analyze and conceptualize the breaches of safety rules by an ACT
Company Kenoss that led to the death of a truck driver in 2012 called Michael Booth. A
description of the workplace, the hazards and how the SEI would have been circumvented will
first be provided. The occurrence will be explained together with the input of WorkSafe towards
resolution. Moreover, I will discuss how I would address the case if I was working in the site.
The workplace where the accident occurred is at the Canberra site, Turner (Taylor, 2015).
The site had low slung power lines which the magistrate defined as an obvious risk which was
foreseeable and unavoidable, but was insufficiently addressed. The Kennos Company was the
“person conducting the business or undertaking” and therefore should have ensured that the
activities within the compound were conducted in a way that was electrically safe. The low
hanging power lines were hazardous to the workers and visitor and the best step to have taken
was notifying both the workers and visitors about the danger of being electrocuted should they
use tall equipment in the compound.
This fatal incident occurred in a very unfortunate manner. Kennos had been contracted by
the ACT Government to resurface a certain road. The incident occurred on the 23rd March 2012
when Michael Booth was making deliveries to the fenced material store site. He was alone and it
was not his first time to be on that site on severally the same day. When Booth tipped his truck to
unload the gravel type material, the tipper’s bucket either got into contact with the low lying
electrical cables or came very close to the wires causing an electrical arc that was so strong that
truck’s tyres were deflated and burn marks left on the road. That way, Mr. Booth was

WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY 3
electrocuted and even though he jumped off the truck when he still succumbed later after having
collapsed first.
How this incident could have been avoided was very simple. The company Kenoss,
should have ensured that there were safety signs and flags to warn any worker or visitor that the
live wires were low enough and thus Mr. Booth could have avoided the electrocution and even
could not have died. Again, strong measures should have been made to ensure that the access to
the site was properly managed. The site during the accident was closed with a sign on the gate
“Construction Site, Keep Out”. That was not enough safety precaution as the gates were left
unlocked without any site guard. If the contractors had considered locking the gates or having a
guard at the gate to direct the people making deliveries within the site, the chances for such an
accident occurring would be very minimal. Locking the gate alone would have kept Mr. Booth
from being in the site alone, as that would necessitate the presence of a worker to guide the
driver within the site or would have led to the withdrawal of the gravel load delivery to another
day.
It is not clear why the magistrate court did not consider others specific duties attached to
electrical entities, designers, installers, repairers and any other party that could have been
associated with the installation or the control of the electrical power lines as it is required by the
ES Act 2002. Again under the WHS Act 2011, the Workplace Health and Safety Queensland
(WHSQ) and the Electrical Safety Office (ESO) are required to have visited the workplace and
perform an audit on the site but was not done and neither did the magistrate decide to consider it
Another possible action that would have circumnavigated the risk was the induction of
the subcontractor (O’Meley Truck Hire). When asked by the court O’Meley told the courts that
he had never been to the site before and had not engaged in any safety talk with the site operators
before delivery. To add on that, turning off the power lines during the work days would have
saved the situation. 23rd March 2012 was a Friday and not a public holiday meaning it was a
workday. There was no any explanation as to why there was no one in the site whereas several
deliveries were expected. How the site had no workers at the day and time of delivery could be
interpreted as a case of poor contractor management (Enhance Solutions, 2018). This is further
supported by the fact that the safety officer was the son to the general manager and unreserved
for the position. Having a qualified person with the knowledge and skills regarding the safety
would have been a boost to reducing the risk of electrocution of the driver. Another way the