THEME PARK ‘CUT COSTS’
THE Dreamworld executive safety team ordered cuts to maintenance and repair seven months before four people lost their lives, an inquest has heard.
The Southport Coroner’s Court was told Dreamworld’s mandatory ride registration inspections were more than nine months overdue and the theme park had removed an alarm which alerted about dropping water levels on the Thunder River Rapids Ride.
Luke Dorsett, Kate Goodchild, Roozbeh Araghi and Cindy Low all died on October 25, 2016, when the raft they were in flipped.
The inquest into their deaths was yesterday shown minutes from an executive safety team in March 2016 which detailed the park’s financial position.
“Revenue is up but profit is down, cutbacks are now being enforced. Repairs and maintenance spending needs to stop.”
CUTS to maintenance and repair had been ordered by the Dreamworld executive safety team seven months before the terrifying disaster in October 2016, an inquest has heard.
The explosive start of the second week of the inquest into the incident which killed four people revealed Dreamworld’s mandatory ride registration inspections were more than nine months overdue, the theme park had removed the alarm which alerted about dropping water levels on the Thunder River Rapids Ride and a safety audit a year beforehand gave a mark of 61.5 per cent.
Former Dreamworld safety manager Mark Thompson told the inquest he needed six more people to help him operate the park.
“Quite often I was doing the ground work or the grunt work,” Mr Thompson said.
“It made it hard for me to do proactive work when I was putting out forest fires.”
The fatal incident occurred after a pump stopped working on the ride, causing water levels to drop and a raft to become stuck on the conveyor belt.
That raft was hit by another carrying Luke Dorsett, his sister Kate Goodchild, her daughter Ebony, 12, Roozbeh Araghi, Cindy Low and her son, Kieran, 10.
The raft flipped and the four adults were killed.
The inquest was yesterday shown minutes from an executive safety team in March 2016 which detailed the park’s financial position.
“Revenue is up but profit is down, cutbacks are now being enforced,” the document said.
“Repairs and maintenance spending needs to stop.”
The park, however, would continue to spend on capital expenditure, meaning money would still be available for new attractions at the park.
The minutes showed Dreamworld was over the monthly budget by $120,000.
Mr Thompson agreed with barrister Matthew Hickey, acting for Ms Low’s family, that “familiarity bred contempt” and newer attractions were prioritised over old rides.
When Mr Thompson arrived at the park in March 2016, he was told all of the rides were overdue for their mandatory annual registration inspections which were supposed to take place in January 2016.
By October, the park had requested for a second extension from the state government to get the rides inspected.
“We had engaged a competent person but was let down by them,” he said.
“We asked for a further extension of time.”
A safety audit conducted in July 2015 found Dreamworld was only 61.5 per cent compliant.
A score of 75 per cent of more is needed to be marked fully compliant on the register.
The audit report, shown to the inquest, showed the 2015 results was a “significant improvement” on the year before which scored 46.1 per cent.
The inquest was also shown a safety policy which was reviewed in June 2015 and showed a crossed out paragraph about an alarm which sounded when a pump shut down.
The words crossed out included: “(An alarm will sound) when the main water pumps stop for this ride. If the pump stops for this ride then there is the potential for rafts to become a hazard to guests riding them. The rafts are very heavy and there are a lot of underwater obstacles that could cause the rafts to flip or entrap a guest”.
The policy had been changed to include these words instead: “The Rapid Ride alarm will be sounded if there is a potential risk to any guest or staff member in the ride area — example: a guest or staff member has fallen in the water.
“This is a change from previous where the alarm would be activated due to the water pumps stopping.”
The inquest was also shown Ardent Leisure’s response to questions from Workplace Health and Safety about the Thunder River Rapids ride.
In response to a question about why the fast emergency stop button at the unload platform was not labelled, Ardent Leisure said: “The emergency stop button at the unload platform of the TRRR was clearly marked on 25 October 2016.”
The inquest was then shown a picture of the button taken by police that night.
In the picture the red, mushroom-shaped button on a yellow box did not have any label or markings which clearly showed it was an emergency button.
The inquest will resume at 10am today.