Dreamworld legal action
THE workplace safety watchdog has taken legal action against the engineer who certified the Thunder River Rapids ride as safe, just a day before the disaster that killed four, and also revealed the size of its payouts to affected Dreamworld staff.
Workcover, which has paid $1.94m compensation to six current and former Dreamworld staff, is taking action against engineer Tom Polley for the October 2016 tragedy.
It says that if he and his company Danski Pty Ltd had not made representations to theme park owner Dreamworld’s parent company Ardent Leisure that the fateful ride was mechanically and structurally safe to operate, then Ardent would not have operated the ride on the day of the tragedy.
But Mr Polley and his company say the tragedy was caused by electrical faults in the ride that Dreamworld knew about, and that his checks only covered structural and mechanical issues.
Workcover alleges in its claim filed in the Supreme Court in Brisbane that Mr Polley and his company were negligent when they gave an inspection certificate and inspection report saying the ride was “mechanically and structurally safe to use”. That report was given on October 24, the day before the raft flipped and became caught in a gap between the end of a conveyor belt and the support walls.
Canberra tourists Kate Goodchild, her brother Luke, his partner Roozbeh Araghi and NSW woman Cindy Low were tipped on to the conveyor belt and died in the tragedy.
Dreamworld staff have received payouts of between $101,118 and $569,564 each, for the workplace injuries they suffered by witnessing the incident, the claim states.
They include maintenance worker Francoire de Villiers who was traumatised after pulling bodies from the water and says he has experienced flashbacks and nightmares.
Mr Polley, from Montville, north of Brisbane, and Danski have filed a defence to the claims submitting that they deny liability for the WorkCover payouts arguing that they are not to blame as it was caused by the failure of the water pump on the ride, which “was not extant at the time” they inspected the ride and certified it as safe.
Mr Polley and Danski argue that their inspection certificate expressly said the ride was safe to use but only if repairs were made to the rides “top gate closing mechanism”, and that his certificate only covered structural and mechanical safety and not “electrical faults”. They blame Ardent for the tragedy.
No date has been set for hearing. In 2020 Ardent was convicted and fined $3.6m, after entering guilty pleas to three workplace health and safety charges, following a lengthy coronial inquest.