The Royal Commission - Old Treasury Building

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The Royal
Commission
As the nation responded with grief and horror to the West Gate Bridge
disaster, Victoria’s premier, Sir Henry Bolte, announced the establishment
of a Royal Commission to investigate the cause of the West Gate’s collapse.
The Royal Commission was headed by Deputy Chief
Justice Sir Esler Barber. His fellow commissioners
were Sir Hubert Shirley-Smith, one of the world’s
finest engineers, and Professor Frank Bull, a leading
engineering academic.
The Commission sat for eighty days, and heard
from fifty-two witnesses. Less than a month after
its last sitting day, it issued an eight-thousandword, three-hundred-page report. The report
was described by the international engineering
community as one of the most searching and
comprehensive of its kind. It was also one of
the most scathing reports ever written.
To varying degrees, it blamed everyone involved
in the design and construction of the West Gate.
It stated that the removal of the bolts on span
10–11 was the immediate cause of the bridge’s
collapse, but that the fault for the collapse lay
elsewhere. Freeman Fox was found to have ‘failed
altogether to give a proper and careful regard to
the process of structural design’ for the bridge,
and to have ‘failed… to give a proper check to the
safety of the erection proposals put forward by
the original contractors, WSC (World Services
and Construction Pty Ltd)’.
Also found to be partly at fault was the method used
in constructing span 14–15 and subsequently span
10–11. This unfamiliar and unproven process called
for ‘more than usual care’, but the Commission found
that ‘neither contractor, WSC nor later JHC (John
Holland & Co), appears to have appreciated this need
for great care, while [Freeman Fox] failed in their duty
to prevent the contractor from using procedures liable
to be dangerous’.
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The Royal Commission’s report had a far-reaching
impact on Australian workplaces. It led to dramatic
changes in the regulatory environment surrounding
occupational health and safety; to a stronger
role for workers on site safety committees;
and to a far greater level of scrutiny for large
engineering projects.
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IMAGES:
(1–3) An official party inspecting the wreckage
(4) Beginning the clean-up
Inquest Deposition Files, PROV, VPRS 24/P3, unit 120
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