I thank the Prime Minister for his words - and for agreeing to our request for this motion.

Mr Speaker
 
It was 48 years ago, on a windy Melbourne morning at 11:50am, 50 metres above the Yarra, 128 metres of concrete and steel in span 10 to 11 of the West Gate Bridge suddenly began to shudder.
 
Workers later told of an ‘eerie ringing sound’ as giant steel bolts turned blue under the strain and shot from their sockets with a sound like light-bulbs popping.
 
And then in a flash, 2,000 tonnes of concrete and steel fell onto the muddy ground below, and onto the eight wooden site huts where the workforce's first lunch break had just begun.
 
Thirty-five men dead, 18 were injured.
 
Families fractured by tragedy, others, spared by sheer luck alone, wracked by that inexplicable human phenomenon of survivor guilt.
 
Today we remember riggers and fitters, ironworkers, boilermakers, engineers and fathers and brothers and sons.
 
Many of them were migrants seeking a fresh start in a new nation, who went out their front door that day from commission flats in Collingwood and humble houses in Altona and never came home.
 
Victor Gerada was a steel rigger, born in Malta.  
 
On October 14, the day before the collapse, he thought he had felt a shudder run through the bridge.
 
He told his wife Doris that night when he got home, explaining that he didn’t want to tell his workmates because he did not want them thinking the less of him.
 
That morning, Victor woke Doris before he left for work to reassure her that it ‘must have just been the wind’.
 
Victor and Doris’ home was close enough to the bridge for Doris to run straight there when she heard the sirens. She arrived just as her husband’s body was being loaded into the ambulance.
 
Jack Grist, site foreman and Fred Upsdell, a storeman, they had been mates for over 20 years.
 
They both lived in Altona, as usual Jack gave Fred a lift to work that day. They had their lunch in the hut at the same time. 
 
When the mess of the rubble and tangle of the scaffolding was cleared, their bodies were found next to one another. Later, the two old friends would be buried alongside each other.
 
The humble plaque on the memorial beneath the bridge at Hyde Street bears 35 names, it lists their trade or craft, each carries its own story and so too do the survivors, some of whom I have had the privilege to meet.
 
Men like Bob Setka, a rigger, who somehow, miraculously, ‘rode the bridge down’ - a 50 metre fall.
 
He’d stepped out from the interior of the span for a cigarette moments before, a decision that saved his life.
 
It should also be noted that a generation of union organisers rose out of that tragedy, men who worked on this job, galvanised by it.
 
I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of these survivors and some of those who were on the job that day: Tom Watson, John Cummins, Pat Preston, Danny Gardiner, there were more.
 
They learned very difficult lessons that day and they made it their mission to advance the cause, not just of better industrial relations but to champion stronger workplace health and safety across the state and the nation.
 
Mr Speaker
 
Most of us who use the bridge day-by-day rarely stop to reflect on Australia’s worst industrial disaster.
 
But today, in the house of the Australian people, we honour the memory of all those who died.
 
We acknowledge and remember the trauma, the guilt inflicted on families and loved ones and on the survivors, many of whom who lived with nightmares for years.
 
But in doing so, we remind ourselves, as we sit in the relative comfort and security of this place, that workplace deaths and injuries are not a tragedy confined to the history books and black and white photos.
 
It has been about three weeks since the parliament last met. But in the three weeks since parliament last met, around 10 Australians have died at work, whether that be falling from heights, or crushed by heavy machinery or falling material.
 
Thousands more right now live with, and die from, industrial diseases incurred at work.
 
Until every Australian workplace is safe, until every Australian has the right to come home to the people they love, then there is more for all of us to do.

ENDS