Christopher's law

The tragic death of 18-year-old Christopher Cassaniti on a Sydney construction site earlier this year has galvanised his mother, Patrizia, to campaign for safer workplaces in construction and other high-risk industries, DENISE CULLEN* reports.

Patrizia Cassaniti feels the same sickening punch to the guts every time another workplace fatality hits the news. The young man who died in an accident at a Central Queensland mine in July. The quarry worker who plunged 20 metres to his death outside Perth in June. The location, the details and the faces change, but the headlines still send her spiralling back into that awful day in April 2019 when her son, Christopher, was crushed to death after a scaffolding tower collapsed on him at a construction site at Sydney’s Macquarie Park.

“One day you’re fine, the next minute you’re in tears,” Patrizia explains. “The grief hits you without warning, it is very unforgiving.”

Patrizia operated a mobile coffee van for workers at the site long before Christopher started working there. She helped Christopher get his first job there, as an apprentice form worker. Each morning, the pair would ride in together, before catching up over smoko or lunch during the day, and then heading home. But on that particular Monday, 1 April, Patrizia decided to take the day off. She wanted to clean up after Christopher’s 18th birthday celebrations with friends and family over the weekend. But then came the phone call that shattered her world.

Christopher at work.

“A friend rang and, out of the blue, asked if Christopher was OK,” she recalls. “I said, ‘Of course he’s OK, why wouldn’t he be?’ And then my friend said, ‘Trish, have you not heard? There’s been a really bad accident at the job site. You may want to go down there.’”

Patrizia tried to reach Christopher on his mobile, but there was no answer. So she called her husband, Rob, and told him to meet her there right away. Photographers who’d also rushed to the scene captured the parents’ anguish. It was there that police told Patrizia that her precious middle son had died as a result of his injuries. (An older man who was also trapped under the debris survived, but was rushed to hospital.)

Compounding Patrizia’s distress, she tried to reach her two other sons, so they could hear it from her, but they had already learned about their brother’s death through media reports. These events have changed the family dynamic forever.

“It’s gone from being very loud — from me saying, ‘Be quiet’, ‘Don’t fight’, ‘Stop wrestling’, ‘Stop rumbling’ — to instant quiet,” Patrizia says. “You expect that to happen when your kids get married and move out with their own families, but this… it’s sorrowful.”

Neither of her boys, or her husband, talk about the tragedy. But, after Christopher’s funeral, Patrizia knew she needed to speak out. To find fresh meaning. She decided to harness her searing grief and transform it into a tool to create safer workplaces.

“My coping mechanism is to stay busy, and to fight for workers’ rights,” she explains. “Because if I don’t do anything, I’ll end up in a little ball in the corner.”

Patrizia with Christopher.

Patrizia launched her self-directed campaign a month after Christopher’s death, when she led the Union May Day March in Sydney. Since then, she has spoken at multiple safety events in an effort to force necessary changes to practices in construction, and other high-risk industries.

“I want people to be aware that safety is important and danger is real,” she says. “People filmed the aftermath of the incident — the chaos, the shock, and the grief — and that’s what I show audiences before I say a word.

“Then I stress to them, ‘This is not a re-enactment. This is real. The consequences are real. They’re horrendous. And you, as an individual worker, need to take responsibility. If you see something that’s unsafe, you need to say something, so you don’t go home after another incident, and think, ‘I could have avoided that’.’”

Workers can be tempted to turn a blind eye to safety concerns because of the very real fear that speaking up will get them fired or sidelined. To help break this culture of silence, Patrizia has thrown her support behind the development of a new mobile phone app which is “a bit like Crime Stoppers, in that it will allow people to speak up without fear of retribution”.

Patrizia and her husband Rob hope that the mobile app will help prevent further deaths from occurring. It is currently under development by SafeWork NSW following discussions between Patrizia and Kevin Anderson, the NSW Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, who is reviewing OHS laws more generally. The app will allow workers to take geotagged photographs of unsafe situations and upload them anonymously to the authorities for investigation.

Michael Hansen, Deputy Chief of Staff and Media Advisor at the office of the NSW Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, said the app was currently undergoing testing and was anticipated to launch towards the end of October 2019 to coincide with National Safe Work Month.

“(The app) will turn everyone on that worksite into a Safe Work inspector … and no-one is any the wiser as to who has reported it,” Hansen explains.

Patrizia is also adding her voice to the chorus of cries calling for the introduction of uniform industrial manslaughter laws, which she would like to be called ‘Christopher’s Law’. According to Safe Work Australia, as of 6 June, 64 Australian workers have been killed at work this year. Eleven of those, including Christopher, were construction workers. However, industrial manslaughter currently exists as an offence only in the ACT and Queensland.

“Safety issues must be addressed at a national rather than state level,” Patrizia says. “Why should a life be worth less in Sydney, say, than it is in Canberra?”

Employers who knew they would go to jail, and face a massive fine if something went wrong on their work site, would be a lot more vigilant, she argues.

“If someone dies in your home, and negligence is found, then the person who owns the house goes to jail. If you’re driving a car and you kill someone, you go to jail,” Patrizia points out. “Why is the life of a person who dies on a job site worth any less than the life of a person who dies at home, or on the road?”

Touched by Christopher Foundation.

Patrizia has started a foundation in Christopher’s memory, titled ‘Touched by Christopher’. According to the foundation’s website, its “mission is to help grieving families who have suffered a loss while on the job in the NSW construction industry with financial assistance available within the first week from the date of loss”.

Even though this is a painful road Patrizia never would have chosen, she is determined to walk it with purpose and resolve.

“I can’t bring Christopher back,” she says ruefully. “But if I can save one more life, it’s worth it.”

Patrizia Cassaniti is a speaker at SAFETYconnect 2019, incorporating the National Safety Conference, at the Crown Conference Centre, Melbourne from 28–29 August 2019. For more information on the Touched by Christopher Foundation, and to make a donation, visit www.touchedbychristopher.org.au.

*Denise Cullen is a Brisbane-based journalist and psychologist who writes on a diverse range of issues, including mental health, criminology and safety.