Unions demand new health and safety laws after heatwave

Glenn Newport was a fit and muscular 38-year-old when he died from a heart attack caused by exposure to extreme heat on a work site on January 13, 2013.

Nicknamed “Grievous” after a well-built Star Wars character, he was working on a natural gas project near Roma, central Queensland, when a coroner concluded he succumbed to 40C temperatures and high humidity.

Now, Australia’s peak union body is calling for new national laws to protect workers, warning that climate-change driven heatwaves constitute a major workplace health and safety threat.

Last week, a prolonged heatwave affected much of southeastern Australia, with dozens of record-breaking temperatures nudging the 50C mark in four states.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said the law was yet to catch up with the dangers posed by a warming climate.

“What we’ve heard from workers is that our health and safety laws are not keeping up with the increasing number of extreme heat days and how long heatwaves are lasting,” she said.

“In the last decade, almost 1000 Australians have died each year from extreme heat, and that number is increasing each year.”

The 2025 National Climate Risk Assessment projected heat-related deaths will quintuple at 3C of global heating, with quadruple the number of extreme heatwave days per year.

It also projected a $135 billion drag on productivity by 2063, including more than 700,000 days of work lost each year - with the industries of agriculture, construction, mining and manufacturing being the hardest hit.

Ms O’Neil cited cases of airport staff exposed to temperatures of up to 60C.

Mohammed Atik, a ground handler at Melbourne Airport for 18 years, told AAP he had pointed out the extreme danger posed by the conditions to his employers.

When the temperature exceeded 45C in Melbourne last week, he said he pleaded with management that conditions on the ground were much hotter.

“You’ve got the heat from the concrete, the tarmac itself, the heat of the walls,” Mr Atik said.

“And when those aircraft come in, those engines are hot as, so you can imagine the heat emitting off that engine while they’re unloading the aircraft from the back is absolutely enormous.”

Ms O’Neil said while variations to temperature and humidity cut-offs could be negotiated to reflect working conditions in different industries, all workers, including professional athletes, should be entitled to protection.

“A worker’s a worker, whether you’re a sportsperson on a field or on a court, or you’re the people doing the refereeing, or the ball people,” she said.

Play was abandoned at the Australian Open on January 27 when organisers invoked the tournament’s extreme heat policy.

In January Jared Abbott, chief executive of the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) in Queensland, urged the state government to introduce new health and safety laws to prevent further workplace tragedies like Mr Newport’s.

The coroner who ruled on Mr Newport’s death also recommended the creation of an industry code of practice.