Lessons from Longford: The Trial

Contents Includes:

• This 68 page study examines these legal requirements and the trial, the first ever OHS trial held in a supreme court. Specifically, the report address a number of questions, including:
• Why did the Judge say so emphatically "What happened was no mere accident"?
• Are OHS offences crimes?
• How effective was Esso’s defence strategy?
• What does "practically preventable" mean?
• Why did Esso not blame its control room operators at the trial, when it has blamed them at the Royal Commission?
• Did the trial produce any findings about the causes of the disaster?
• Would Esso have been at risk of conviction under the corporate manslaughter legislation which was proposed for Victoria?

Lessons from Longford was published in 2000 and examines the findings of the Royal Commission into the Esso gas plant explosion at Longford, Victoria, in September 1998. It is written by an expert witness at the Commission hearings. Two men were killed in the Longford accident, which ripped through the Esso plant with devastating consequences. Melbourne’s gas supply was cut off for two weeks, causing disruption on a wide scale.

Prof Andrew Hopkins is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra.

He is the author of numerous articles on the management and regulation of occupational health and safety, as well as several books, including:

Making Safety Work: Getting Management Commitment to Occupational Health and Safety, Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1995

Managing Major Hazards: the Lessons of the Moura Mine Disaster, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1999

Lessons from Longford: The Esso Gas Plant Explosion, Sydney: CCH, 2000.

Dr Hopkins was an expert witness at the Royal Commission into the causes of the fire at Esso’s gas plant at Longford in Victoria in 1998.

He was an expert member of the Board of Inquiry into the exposure of F111 maintenance workers to toxic chemicals at Amberley Air Force base.

He currently teaches courses on criminology and the sociology of disasters.

He has a BSc and an MA from the ANU and a PhD from the University of Connecticut.