It is my view that until there is real penalty (I am not an advocate for industrial manslaughter) when the company is found by the industrial Courts to have caused or contributed to a death and the fine is to be paid in full to the deceased family -not into government coffers as it is now- , and if there are minor children that there be a trust found set up for the children until they reach the age of 21 with a set amount paid each year by the company into the trust found. Until then there will be no reduction in workplace incidents that result in workers being harmed or killed.

I have yet to meet anyone who can say that they went to work and volunteered to have a life changing injury or have a workmate die in their arms.
I know the day of my own injury it was a normal early winter\’s day, the only thoughts in my mind was my eldest son\’s birthday, I had no idea that my life was about to be turned upside down by a very preventable incident.

Put the penalty\’s in place as they should be, no longer allow plea bargains of good behaviour, and require the companies to publish just how many workplace injuries and workplace deaths the tender process has covered.

Then it would be interesting to see just how many companies would go out of business simply because no worker would want to end up as a computer generated WorkCover number or a body in the morgue with a cardboard tag on their big toe.

The SA government and the site managers still have many questions still to answer.