A lack of proper supervision for young apprentices in Canberra's construction industry is putting them at risk of serious injuries on the ACT's building sites, a major review has found.
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A final report of a five-yearly review of progress on building site safety and culture has been released, over a month after the government handed a key advisory committee an original report without recommendations.
The report, by researchers at RMIT, has assessed progress on numerous recommendations from the Getting Home Safely review after a series of tragic construction site deaths in the ACT.
It comes amid a union campaign calling for the removal of WorkSafe ACT from the wider Access Canberra structure in a bid the union movement believes would improve its enforcement and independence.
The report highlighted the "inadequate supervision of apprentices" as an important issue as it "places young, inexperienced workers at risk of serious injury but also reduces the long term benefits associated with apprenticeship programs".
"This was perceived to be the case in both the residential construction sector and in larger commercial projects being delivered by large contractors," it reads.
It also identified workplace health and safety training as needing improvements, with industry members specifically questioning the impact of online training versus face to face training with a practical component.
The researchers analysed data and spoke to a series of focus groups across industry including workers, managers and senior managers of small, medium and large building firms working in the ACT.
It found there may have been improving reporting rates of injuries on work sites, but some industry sources also said there could be under-reporting and focus group participants seemed largely split on many issues.
It also found there were particular challenges risks in "mid-size" firms, as they had "lost the close working relationships" of smaller firms, but had not yet developed more systematic approaches to safety more common in tier one firms.
The report also looked at the role of subcontracting on safety, finding that "principal contractors were perceived to be arrogant in their approach" and too focussed on paper-based safety systems.
"Principal contractors were perceived to take an arms-length approach to the management of subcontractors' WHS unless an incident occurred, in which case they would attempt to shift the blame to the subcontractor," the report reads.
It also examined differing views on safety between managers and site workers, with "senior managers reporting the most positive perceptions and frontline workers reporting the least positive perceptions of the prevailing safety climate".
Workplace safety minister Rachel Stephen-Smith has referred the report to the government's construction safety advisory committee and the ACT Work Safety Council, to help create a new construction industry safety strategy.
"While I was pleased to see more support for worker safety in the industry than previously recognised, the results show that support for workers' health has not kept pace with improvements in safety," she said.
"In particular, work-family balance and mental health are identified as being significant problems for construction workers in the ACT."
Ms Stephen-Smith also said she was concerned about the "disconnect" between workers on the ground and managers and attitudes to just "get the job done" irrespective of safety were unacceptable.
