PARK SAFETY CHIEF’S HOSPITAL ROLE
Dreamworld tragedy safety manager heading up OHS at St John of God
THE man who oversaw Dreamworld’s safety operations when four people were killed on a popular ride is now employed as OHS manager at Geelong’s St John of God Hospital.
Mark Thompson was hired by the hospital in April this year, according to his LinkedIn profile.
St John of God declined to comment yesterday.
THE man who oversaw Dreamworld’s safety operations when four people were killed on a popular ride is now employed as OHS manager at Geelong’s St John of God Hospital.
Mark Thompson was Dreamworld’s safety compliance manager on October 25, 2016, when the popular Thunder River Rapids ride flipped, resulting in the deaths of four people.
Mr Thompson worked at Dreamworld for 18 months, and led the safety team for about seven months before the tragedy.
He gave evidence at the inquest into the deaths of Cindy Low, 42, Kate Goodchild, 32, her brother Luke Dorsett, 35, and his partner Roozi Araghi, 38, on Monday.
Mr Thompson was hired by St John of God Hospital in April this year, according to his LinkedIn profile.
St John of God declined the Geelong Advertiser’s request for comment and would not confirm if Mr Thompson was still employed at the hospital or if management would take outcomes of the inquest into consideration. The hospital also refused to detail the position description for its OHS manager.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he left Dreamworld in June 2017 and was subsequently employed as a health, safety and rehabilitation consultant at Churches of Christ in Queensland from July 2017 to March this year.
His responsibilities included managing audits, mentoring and coaching staff, leading risk-assessment investigations and establishing health and safety improvements.
Mr Thompson spent most of Monday on the witness stand where he was grilled by a succession of lawyers acting for families of the victims about a lengthy list of safety shortcomings.
He was shown minutes of an engineering management team meeting advising expenditure was $125,000 over budget in the Year to date, profits were down and “cutbacks were now being enforced”.
“Repairs and maintenance spending needs to stop, only CAPEX (capital expenditure),” the minutes recorded.
A September 2016 email from Mr Thompson to WHSQ said the park was having “great difficulty” finding a “competent person” to inspect its “Big Nine” thrill rides, including the Thunder River Rapids ride. The inquest heard there had been no action since 2010 on a policy to ensure records were kept as compliance evidence.
The barrister for victim Cindy Low’s family, Matthew Hickey, suggested this represented “a complete and utter abdication of responsibility” by Dreamworld, to which Mr Thompson replied “Yes”.
Mr Thompson said that the park had a “very archaic” health and safety record system.
He told the inquest he was “never really given any direction to conduct risk assessments” of entire rides.
He said it was hard for him to do proactive health and safety work at Dreamworld “because I was constantly putting out forest fires”.
Asked by Mr Hickey whether passenger safety on rides should have been his top priority, Mr Thompson replied: “I was doing the best I could with what I had.”
Mr Thompson replied to the Geelong Advertiser’s request for comment late last night with an email directing any inquiries to a workplace relations company.