On Tuesday,the NSW Auditor-General released a scathing report into SafeWork NSW,finding that despite international knowledge about the “heightened health risk” of deadly engineered stone products since at least 2010,the workplace regulator did not begin proper compliance until 2018.
NSW Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis says she is “shocked” by a NSW auditor-general’s report which revealed the state’s workplace regulator has been referred to ICAC.James Alcock
The report revealed the auditor-general has referred the regulator to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption for potential maladministration due to “significant flaws in procurement,project governance and risk management” in the purchase of a silica monitoring system despite “known concerns” about the technology.
The auditor found that despite the use of a real-time silica monitoring device winning a Department of Customer Service award in December 2022,there were “significant flaws” in the procurement of the technology,called Air XS,from UK supplier Trolex,including breaches of contract rules.
It revealed it had referred the contract to the ICAC after discovering “significant governance failings”,including “non-compliance with mandatory procurement policies”.
The cost of the project rose from an initial estimate of $200,000 to $1.34 million when it was issued in May 2019.
The auditor found staff within SafeWork NSW raised concerns the technology was “not sufficiently accurate” in detecting respirable crystalline silica,but those concerns were not escalated to senior departmental figures.
While the report noted Trolex had defended the accuracy of the Air XS devices in screening for silica,it found SafeWork NSW and the Department of Customer Services were warned on multiple occasions about concerns with the product.
Before its launch,emails between regulatory staff in SafeWork said testing of the product had shown it was “not sufficiently accurate in detecting respirable crystalline silica”.
Those concerns were not raised with senior staff in the department,but prompted further testing. Two days before the product launched,staff within SafeWork reported the results of that further testing were “not what DCS will want to hear”.
Despite those and other warnings,the product was still launched in April 2022.
An investigation by this masthead and60 Minutes last year revealed a growing number of workers were of the lung disease silicosis.
In October the federal workplace safety watchdog warned that no level of silica is safe for tradies in engineered stone products,which are used to make kitchen benchtops. States including NSW have agreed to ban the use,supply and manufacture of the product from July this year.
The auditor-general’s report concurs with the issues raised by this masthead’s reporting on failures by state regulators to effectively police workplaces using engineered stone. It found SafeWork NSW “took around eight years to actively and sufficiently respond” to what it called the “critical emerging risk” of the product.
Last week NSW Industrial Relations Minister Sophie Cotsis announced SafeWork NSW would be split into a standalone regulator,in response to a separate inquiry into the regulator which criticised it for having an “excessively light touch” in its investigations of other government agencies.
Cotsis said she was “shocked by the matters raised in the report by the Audit Office into the performance of SafeWork NSW”.
“The audit office report,together with the release of the McDougall Review last week,supports what injured workers have been saying for years about the damage the former government inflicted upon the work health and safety regime in NSW,” she said.
The Secretary of Unions NSW,Mark Morey,said the auditor’s report was further evidence of an “ineffective regulator presiding over a broken system”.
“Workers need a hypervigilant regulator that will actively keep them safe at work. Instead they have one that is being referred to ICAC,” he said.
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