Cost, speed and inexperience driving deadly culture on Canberra worksites

Next door to a family home, a neon pink bike with training wheels still on parked in the front yard, sits an open construction site with no fencing, no workers and no identification.

Piles of metal poles, concrete rubble and sharp pickets are an invitation for a curious child looking for somewhere to play.

"The difficulty for WorkSafe on a site like this is we can't take action immediately because we don't know who owns it," Ms Agius said.

That information is retrieved from Access Canberra before an inspector can contact the builder and issue an infringement.

"I'm disheartened because it's such an easy fix ... it's security fencing and caps for star pickets, it isn't rocket science," she said.

Six-months into Operation Safe Prospect, which began following the deaths of two men a few streets away, WorkSafe inspectors continue to find sites like this almost daily.

Photos of children swinging from scaffolding on an unsecured site were recently sent to WorkSafe, Ms Agius said.

Infringement figures from Wednesday's blitz will be released next week, but history doesn't paint a good picture.

The third inspection of 26 Denman Prospect sites since the operation launched, resulted in 19 prohibition, or stop work notices.

Ms Agius said the operation was one step to hammering home the message that safety requirements were there to save life and limb.

That, alongside education was how she planned to turn around a dangerous culture in Canberra's construction industry.

"I think people take risks because they don't think that something is going to happen to them," she said.

"A bit like driving a car while you're over the alcohol limit."

Cost, pressure to get the job done quickly, and inexperienced workers are the key reasons builders cut corners, Ms Agius said.

Adam Bownes has inspected countless sites as part of Operation Safe Prospect, across Watson, Ginninderry, Taylor, Throsby and Denman Prospect.

He has seen horror story and horror story.

Workers falling from roofs or scaffolding was the biggest threat, he said, and was the focus of the operation.

"We've got carpenters on site erecting frames and trusses, that's where they have a risk of falling, likewise with roofing contractors."

But failure to comply with seemingly simple things was all too common, like not having caps on reinforcement bars which "like a bayonet" can impale someone. Unsecured scaffolding with a "sole board", designed to reinforce the structure, was often "hanging off the edge".

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Despite the rule-breakers, there is a strong culture of safety across many construction sites in the ACT, Ms Agius said.

Where companies and site managers "take absoloute pride" in ensuring everyone goes home at the end of the day.

"Safety costs money," Ms Agius said, "but you can't put a value on a person's life, on a person's limb, on their eyesight."

Across the road from the "atrocious" site that left Ms Agius disheartened, is a scene in stark opposition where a town house complex is under construction.

Here, Ms Agius said a "culture of safety" presides. Secure fencing blocks it from the street, temporary barriers have been installed for workers on scaffolding and a site manager oversees the entire operation.

Steps were taken to clearly mark trip hazards and temporary barriers were placed at all points where a worker was at risk of falling.

This is the kind of worksite that puts a smile on Ms Agius' face.

The operation she launched has resulted in scores of worksites shutdown in six-months, and she expects many more to come.

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