More than six months on from a major incident at a building site in Phillip in which hundreds of tonnes of earth, steel and concrete cascaded into a deep excavation pit, WorkSafe ACT is still unable to provide any insights into why it happened.
Fortunately, the collapse occurred on a Saturday when work at the site had ceased. No-one was injured.
Work has quickly resumed at the site and according to the developer Geocon "is tracking well and we look forward to handing the project over next year".
Geocon was unable to provide any detail of the rectification work required after the incident.
The collapse occurred on August 6 last year at the pit on the corner of Launceston St and Melrose Drive in Phillip as it was being excavated for an underground multi-level carpark.
Worksafe ACT immediately placed a prohibition notice on the site which is part of the massive new multi-million dollar WOVA residential and commercial development.
Rain had fallen in Canberra for two days prior to the collapse.
The Phillip incident was followed some weeks later by another pit collapse in Dickson which took out the backyards of several homes. It, too, remains under investigation.
The Phillip site, that was once held by the former Woden Tradies Club, was bought by Geocon in 2017 for $16 million.
Under WorkSafe guidelines, any work carried out "involving a trench or shaft excavated to a depth of 1.5m or greater is deemed to be high risk construction work and requires a safe work method".
In a brief statement issued on Tuesday, Worksafe ACT said enquiries into the matter remained "ongoing" and the agency was unable to make any comment at this time.
It also said that provisions within the Work Health and Safety Act "limit what information can be provided". Extraordinarily, it could not even provide a date of when the prohibition notice on the site was lifted.
Quizzed over the collapse during an ACT Assembly Estimates hearing in September last year, Workplace Health and Safety Commissioner Jacqueline Agius was uncertain as to whether or not there was a case to be put before the court.
Even when the matter is finalised, it is up to the commissioner to decide whether or not a report is made public.
"There are provisions within our act that guide whether or not I can release information," Ms Agius said.
"Ultimately, the question for me will be: will this result in safety outcomes and will this further safety outcomes? If it does result in further safety outcomes, or I assess that it will, then I am entitled to release those reports."
The Woden wall collapse is one of four incidents which have affected construction sites owned by Geocon, a prolific Canberra property developer, in the past six years.
In 2016, a collapse occurred during the excavation for the Southport apartments in Tuggeranong, in 2018 prefabricated concrete panels inside a lift shaft collapsed and fell seven metres down the shaft during the construction of Geocon's Midnight apartments in Braddon, and in 2019 part of the deck formwork collapsed at Republic, in Belconnen.
