Ten outdoor Work for the Dole job sites run by employment contractor NEATO have been shut down, following the death of 18-year-old Josh Park-Fing more than two years ago.
April 18 marked two years since the teenager died on a government-sponsored Work for the Dole site from head injuries sustained when he fell from a flatbed trailer being towed by a tractor. It's suspected the tractor slipped a gear and jolted, causing the teen to fall.
At the time of his death Park-Fing was completing a Work for the Dole program at the Toowoomba Showgrounds arranged by employment contractor NEATO. He was earning $218.75 per week.
Park-Fing's father Ian says text messages exchanged with his son hours before his death – seen by BuzzFeed News – show the teenager was injured yet made to continue working.
Two years on and Park-Fing's distraught family is still waiting for answers.
Jobs minister Michaelia Cash promised to conduct an investigation and publish a report within a month. More than two years on, nothing has been released.
Forensic teams from Workplace Health and Safety Queensland investigated Park-Fing's death but have yet to complete their final report. The Department of Employment (now the Department of Jobs and Small Business) provided an internal report to Cash in September 2016, which she has declined to release publicly. But the report has been given to NEATO.
"Is it acceptable that Josh's family have waited over two years and more for any kind of report or any form of justice or closure?" Greens senator Lee Rhiannon asked Cash on Tuesday in Senate Estimates.
"As the matter is before the Toowoomba Magistrates Court, it is not appropriate at this point in time to release the report," Cash replied. "We've always said that we're awaiting the outcome of what occurs in the magistrates court. We don't want to prejudice, obviously, the hearing in any way at all."
Cash says the government won't release any details of its internal review until the matter is settled in the Toowoomba courts.
In November, the Queensland Office of Industrial Relations charged the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland (RASQ), NEATO and Work for the Dole project coordinator Adrian Strachan for alleged breaches of the Work Health Safety Act 2011 over Park-Fing’s death.
It’s alleged the RASQ failed to implement adequate systems to prevent workers riding on the trailer, including ensuring workers were adequately supervised; and that the RASQ could have better maintained the tractor. If guilty, it faces a maximum fine of $1.5 million for each charge.
NEATO allegedly failed to comply with its primary duty of care and if found guilty faces a maximum fine of $500,000.
Strachan has been charged with failing to comply with his duty as a worker. If the allegation is proven he faces a maximum fine of $50,000.
The matter will be back in court on June 22.
"We continue to express our sympathy obviously to the parents of Mr Park-Fing, ultimately though this is a matter for Queensland and it's before the Queensland, or the Toowoomba Magistrates Court," Cash said.
Lee Rhiannon grills jobs minister Michaelia Cash about the death of 18yo Josh Park-Fing on a work for the dole job site and why two years on his family don't have answers. #estimates https://t.co/JeQG5Gc3uu
"It's not a matter that the federal government is dealing with, this is being dealt [with] by the state of Queensland," she said.
Martin Hehir, the deputy secretary for employment, told Senate Estimates that NEATO is still being used by the government, but isn't allowed to run work for the dole sites.
Ten outdoor job sites run by NEATO have been suspended and the government isn't ruling out further penalties.
"We've also retained the right to undertake or impose further penalties depending on the outcome of the Toowoomba Magistrates Court," Hehir said.
"The [Toowoomba] work for the dole activity was suspended immediately and did not resume," he said. "We suspended nine other outdoor activities managed by NEATO involving plant equipment. No new work for the dole activities have commenced with the Toowoomba Showgrounds, or with the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland, or YWCA Toowoomba."
Hehir also said work, health and safety practices on job sites have been updated since Park-Fing's death, including compulsory risk assessments for each work for the dole activity and every job seeker referred to an activity.
The department said it has received 10,311 complaints about the government's jobactive employment program. There have been 40 tip-offs to its employment services line, 23 of which are currently under investigation.
The department has continually refused freedom of information requests to release a copy of the work for the dole risk assessment for the Toowoomba work site where Park-Fing died, because it contains information that could "harm" NEATO.