Managing Structural Assets - lessons from Dreamworld by Dr Neal Lake

Abstract

On the 15th October 2016, five people died while riding the Thunder Rivers Rapid Ride at the Dreamworld Theme Park, Coomera, when the float they were riding in flipped over, trapping and killing two people under the raft and crushing and killing two people under the conveyer belt mechanism. In February 2020 the colonial inquiry found that maintenance, inspection, risk assessments, record keeping, and engineering oversight were key issues that lead to the tragedy. This event contributed to the subsequent passing of Queensland legislation provisions to cover industrial manslaughter offences. These provisions are targeted at senior officers where they negligently cause the death of a worker. Companies will face penalties of up to $13m, while individuals found guilty could face 20 years behind bars. Many of the events, processes and issues that lead to the disaster have many parallels to managing local government infrastructure. This paper looks at the key findings from the inquiry and discusses the issues and impacts of applying the findings to the civil infrastructure industry. The key finding from this paper is that all of the contributing factors listed above are directly relevant to civil infrastructure and many improvements in current practice are needed to adequately demonstrate due diligence in managing civil infrastructure assets.