3.2 IMPLOSION INQUIRY: NO SIMPLE ANSWERS
Coroner Shane Madden had an unenviable task—trying to decide who, if anyone, was responsible for Katie Bender’s death. Roderick Campbell of the Canberra Times newspaper, reviewed the case (Canberra Times: 1999. Printed with permission of The Canberra Times):
‘It would be dangerously simplistic to assume that Katie Bender was killed in the Royal Canberra Hospital (RCH) implosion simply because shot-firer Rod McCracken misused too much of the wrong type of explosive.
That might be one of the most important conclusions Coroner Shane Madden comes to ultimately but the context of any such finding is far too complex to lend itself to simple explanations.
It seems certain enough that 12-year-old Katie Bender died instantly when struck by a 1kg piece of steel ejected at high speed from one of two steel columns on the outer, South-Eastern face of the main hospital tower.
However, this bald fact might well be seen as simply the final tragic scene in a drama that began two years before the RCH was imploded in July 13, 1997.
There seem to be two possible explanations for the projection of the fatal fragment: it was blasted out either because McCracken used too much explosive or because the columns had been rendered vulnerable to fracture in the earlier process of concrete-stripping with a rock hammer.
There had been an ominous sign of things to come when the rock hammer actually punched a hole through the web of one of the steel columns during the earlier stripping process.
The reason why fly material was projected out of the building and across the lake is dual. First, the blast was directed that way deliberately, to avoid any damage to the occupied hospice. Second, there was nothing between the hospital and the lake to prevent it.
ACT authorities were concerned—some might say to the point of obsession—with the hospice issue. Health authorities were adamant that the frail patients should not be moved. Then the hospice became the focus of almost all the safety precautions.
There was no sandbagging on the lake side of the hospital, in part because there was nowhere to put it, at least not once the adjoining structure, “the podium”, had been demolished mechanically; but sandbagging was used primarily to reduce noise blast, not to trap fly material.
Chain-wire meshing, carpeting and similar techniques could have been employed to contain any fly, but for reasons that have never been explained fully, were not. McCracken ordered wire meshing at one stage late in the piece but sent it back because it was too expensive.
More fundamental, perhaps, was the apparent failure of McCracken and the demolition contractor Tony Fenwick, to construct a 2m “bund wall” of rubble along the whole of the side of the hospital facing the lake. According to a research scientist, Dr Alexander Krstic, such a wall would probably have trapped the piece of steel that killed Katie Bender. Krstic was also of the view that if the podium and Bennett House had been retained there would have been very little chance that the fatal fragment would have penetrated beyond those structures.
So there are a number of important questions already. To what extent did concern for the hospice influence the outcome of the implosion? Why did McCracken/Fenwick not use traditional protective measures, including the construction of a full bund wall? Why did those overseeing the project and monitoring safety—Totalcare Industries, Project Co-Ordination Australia and ACT Workcover—not insist on these? Was any thought given by those planning the staged demolition to leaving other structures in place after the implosion?
The coronial inquiry’s interest in pre-implosion events begins with the decision in mid-1995 to commission a feasibility study of the clearance of Acton Peninsular to make way for the Museum of Australia. It was this study, undertaken by Richard Glenn & Associates, which first identified implosion as a possible demolition method.
The implosion option seems to have taken on a life of its own thereafter, becoming the preferred option and ultimately, in some people’s minds, the only option. To what extent and why, it might be asked, did everyone get locked into implosion?
The rot began when a 1995 Cabinet submission from Urban Services asserted inaccurately that the Glenn report had recommended implosion and failed to pass on the consultant’s safety concerns about the technique. The excuse offered—that there was only so much one could put in a seven-page submission—sounded limp in the extreme.
A better-informed government might not have embraced that implosion option as enthusiastically as it seems to have done. Neither might the senior bureaucrats of the Chief Minister’s Department who, when the demolition project was revived in December 1996, were pretty gung-ho about clearing the peninsular as quickly as possible.
As early as December 1995, 16 months before tenders were let, a ministerial “retreat” had recorded the suggestion that the hospital should be “bombed” to rid Canberra of the “sentimental baggage” it was carrying over the hospital closure. That idea was picked up and run with by officialdom in the months before the implosion. A later addendum to the Glenn Report, in early 1996, was accompanied by handwritten advice that no one in Australia had the expertise to implode the RCH and that an overseas expert should be engaged. In hindsight, this was profound advice. A similar opinion was expressed, post-implosion, by international implosion expert Mark Loizeaux, but this key recommendation had been disregarded.
The next important stage was the calling for expressions of interest from prospective demolishers. The field might have been smaller than it should because advertisements appeared in the quiet time of late January 1997. There was no attempt to look overseas.
Totalcare, the Government’s agent, left most of the work of seeking and selecting tenders to its project manager, Project Co-Ordination, but if the perceptions of Project Co-Ordination’s Cameron Dwyer of his role as on-site manager were those of his employer and reflect this role accurately, the Acton demolition project was in fact a rudderless ship.
Dwyer claimed that he was managing only the work done by firms directly contracted to his. This included asbestos removal but not the major demolition work, which was done by firms contracted to the ACT. As far as these contracts were concerned, he was “superintendent” only, which seemed to involve little more than verifying that work for which payment was sought had been done.
What all this meant, in turn, was that no one was managing the demolition contracts themselves. No one really knew what McCracken and Fenwick were doing.
Dwyer’s evidence was seen by some of the lawyers at the implosion inquiry as no more than an attempt to avoid having legal liability sheeted home to him and his employer.
The alternative view was that Dwyer did, in fact, perform the role of project manager but failed to follow up a number of major issues. These included: the contractors’ supposed engagement of an engineer to advise on all aspects of the demolition; their recommendation on a safe viewing distance; and McCracken’s decision to change the blasting plan.
The tender process had other deficiencies, long before any work began. Perhaps the most serious of these was the apparent failure of anyone to locate and make available in a timely fashion a full set of plans and specifications of the main hospital buildings. No one went near the Commonwealth body that held a full set of more than 300 drawings. Dwyer found some plans in a room at the deserted hospital.
When prospective tenders turned up for a briefing in early February, they were given nothing. A far-from-complete set was despatched a little later, but this was on the eve of closure of expressions of interest. Those who expressed an interest in putting a bid were working in the dark, and had little idea of what sort of structures they were dealing with.
It was clear that some believed they were being asked to pull down reinforced-concrete structures when the reality was starkly different. Sitting on Acton Peninsula were two of the strongest and most “overconstructed” buildings imaginable. They were built of steel and lots of it.
The extent to which any of this absolves McCracken and Fenwick from a degree of responsibility is more problematic. Loizeaux said later that it was not uncommon to have no proper plans and it was up to the contractor to check the structure out thoroughly beforehand, but what if the plans were there but not provided?
Why, as Loizeaux would have done, did the contractors not make it clear that there were tendering of the demolition of reinforced-concrete structures, if that is what they thought, and reserve the right to vary their quote if that was not the position? Has the tendering process become so competitive and desperate that firms put in the lowest bid they can and hope for the best, knowing they are pretty well locked in?
As it turned out, McCracken and Fenwick might have underpriced the job seriously but were committed to their original quotes. What effect, if any, did this have on their subsequent performance of the job?
In any event, those assessing the bids—Project Co-Ordination and Totalcare—did not seem to know precisely what was to be demolished either.
Dwyer recommended ultimately that Fenwick’s City and Country Demolitions be awarded the contracts to demolish the main hospital tower and Sylvia Curley House. In large part this was recommended, and accepted by Totalcare, because it was the “lowest conforming tender”. Was it?
It is arguable that CCD’s bid was neither the lowest nor conforming. One of the reasons it was the lowest was that Fenwick assumed he could dump rubble at the Fairbairn Park raceway—where it would be used for sound mounds—thereby avoiding high tip fees. Those awarding the contract assumed the same but, as it turned out, without justification. If those fees had been payable, his bid would not have been the lowest.
Fenwick’s bid might not have compared as favourably if his price had been added to Project Co-Ordination’s management fee and compared with the bid of the company that had offered to perform both the demolition and project-management functions. It has been suggested also that Fenwick’s bid was “non-conforming” because it did not include a work plan, a list of subcontractors and cost estimates.
Project Co-Ordination did the lion’s share of the tender assessment. It might well be asked why Totalcare did not exercise a more independent judgement instead, as it seems, of doing no more than endorsing Dwyer’s recommendations. No one made any independent checks on McCracken and his expertise for the job at hand. No one who viewed McCracken’s promotional video at this stage in the process seemed to notice, let alone be concerned about, the amount of material that had flown out in other explosive demolitions jobs he had done.
Talking of Totalcare, an important issue that has emerged in whether it had been that organisation’s responsibility to ensure that all regulatory and other bodies with an interest in the project were brought together at an early stage. It is arguable that it was Totalcare’s job, as agent for the ACT Government, to make sure that the left hand knew what the right was doing.
The left and right hands, in one important respect, were the Dangerous Goods Unit and ACT Workcover. Despite their failings, they made at least some effort to call the stakeholders together, even if they hardly spoke to each other because of a history of petty animosity.
Why was the ACT Building Control never consulted? How was it that the federal agencies, such as the National Capital Authority, had virtually nothing to do with the project, despite the fact that is was federal land on which everything was occurring?
The failure of Workcover and Dangerous Goods to comprehend each other’s role was lamentable. Neither had any expertise in the implosion method and the efforts of Workcover, in checking interstate to see what it ought to be checking at home, were all too little, too late.
Workcover’s litany of failings was startling. It had no decent filing system and its inspectors shared information on a very ad-hoc basis. Whoever answered the phone got the job. Much of this stemmed from the fact that government had failed to resource the unit in anything like a proper manner.
Once again, it all comes down to this: those who had the job of overseeing what was happening on Acton Peninsula—Totalcare, Project Co-Ordination, Workcover, Dangerous Goods—did not do so, at least not in any coherent, coordinated or knowledgeable way.
To what extent, then, should McCracken and Fenwick be held accountable for the failings of everyone else?
What of McCracken? Leaving aside for the moment his technical skills and judgement, or lack of them, what was the climate in which he was operating? How much pressure was he under to get the job on time, within a time frame which, it seems, was unnecessarily short?
McCracken had an inkling early in the piece, about late April, that there was more steel in the buildings than he had thought, but it was not until May that he knew what he was up against.
For quite some time, he intended to bring the buildings down the way Loizeaux would say was totally appropriate: by using linear-cutting charges to sever more than 200 steel columns and, microseconds later, to use a small quantity of blasting charge to kick the columns out, thereby inducing the structure to collapse.
In late May, McCracken discussed with a Sydney explosives manufacturer, Christopher Murray, the purchase of linear-cutting charges, but it was not until late June, less than three weeks before the scheduled implosion, that McCracken arranged to test-fire them. The test did not proceed to McCracken’s liking. On June 27, another test was carried out. Murray says McCracken was happy, although other evidence suggests the contrary. In early July, he cancelled the order for cutting charges, having decided to use a quarry explosive, Riogel, to dislodge the pre-cut columns.
McCracken had engaged a structural engineer to advise him on whether his ideas for cutting the columns with oxy-acetylene were appropriate, but the engineer said he had never realised that McCracken had an implosion in mind. He had thought he was planning a “controlled collapse”. This sounds, to the layman, almost beyond belief.
Why did McCracken leave it so late to test-fire the cutting charges? Would it have taken less than a month, or up to six months (depending on which witness’s evidence one accepts), to obtain state-of-the-art American charges? Did Fenwick know about any of this? Was McCracken prevaricating?
What pressure was he under from others? How much of his precious time was taken up with meetings, site tours, media inquiries and the like? To what extent were he, and others, distracted by all the “public event” business and the demands of the radio station that was running a promotion, and the bureaucrats who seemed more interested in the symbolism of the event than the practicalities?
There are many questions—only some of which have been raised here— which only McCracken can answer. But McCracken, on legal advice, declined to give sworn evidence; for fear that his answers might be self-incriminating. Fenwick did not give evidence, either, on medical grounds.
Their interviews with police, while expansive, do not provide anything like all the answers. Despite this, Coroner Madden—with the aid of counsel assisting—will still have to find them.’