Holding her son's ashes outside the ACT Magistrates Court in May, Kay Catanzariti warned there would be more deaths on Canberra work sites. Now she says she has been proved right.
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The mother of the man crushed on a Canberra construction site in 2012 has renewed her push for a senate inquiry into fatalities on industrial work sites, after another worker was killed in the ACT last week.
A 62-year-old Sydney man died when he was struck by a fallen crane in Belconnen on Thursday night.
His death comes four years after Mrs Catanzariti's son, 21-year-old concreter Ben Catanzariti, was killed when a faulty concrete pump boom collapsed on him at a construction site on the Kingston Foreshore .
Mr Catanzariti said this tragedy might not have occurred had charges not been dropped against the company and engineer responsible for the machine.
"It happened because they [the DPP] didn't send a message when my son got killed," she said.
"We were told that Ben's case, there were a lot of companies waiting, watching to see what the outcome was in Ben's case. If they hadn't have dropped the charges in Ben's case and kept it open, people in the ACT still would have been on tenterhooks."
Schwing Australia Pty Ltd and NSW engineer Phillip James O'Rourke were responsible for maintaining the concrete pump that collapsed on July 21, 2012, killing Mr Catanzariti and seriously injuring two others.
It had been alleged that the pump had only recently been serviced and that bolts were incorrectly tightened, and then not checked properly.
However the DPP was forced to drop the charges in May this year after two reports, one commissioned by Schwing, found the company and the engineer were not responsible.
A distraught Mrs Catanzariti had warned that the failure to prosecute the company would lead to more deaths.
"I guarantee there will be another death in the ACT because charges have been dropped," she told Fairfax Media at the time.
Mrs Catanzariti, who begged prosecutors to keep the case open, said she felt "sick" when she learnt of the man's death at the University of Canberra public hospital worksite last Thursday.
The disability support worker from Griffith in NSW has previously met with Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce to push for a senate inquiry into deaths on industrial sites around Australia.
She said the ACT Government must mandate exclusion zones around equipment like cranes and concrete booms.
"If there was an exclusion zone this man wouldn't have died and all of his work colleagues wouldn't be going through what they're going through. The laws need to change," she said.
Mrs Catanzariti hopes the looming coronial inquest into her son's death will result in reforms in work site regulations.
"I've got nothing left of Ben and I just hope that out of Ben's coronial inquest, I hope they find the truth and I hope laws do get changed," she said.
"The AFP and the Coroner's office worked their butt off but they can only do what the law allows them to do. When they walk in those court room doors, they can only do what's within the law."
While this latest death on an ACT work site has unearthed painful memories for the Catanzariti family, Mrs Catanzariti said her thoughts are with the man's family and coworkers.
"I relive Ben's death every day. I relive it every time I see a concrete truck or see a boom," she said.
"There's a wife who's lost their husband, kids who've lost their father. I feel for all of the workers who saw it happen and tried to help this poor man."
