*** Press Release ***
I am former Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator (MRSCO) 232320 and I served as whistle blower in early 2022, informing the Victorian Department of Justice of widespread violations of Rule #178 which pertains to the safe and lawful positioning of camera cars in relation to emergency lanes on freeway locations.
The law is very clear that emergency lanes must be kept free and clear of all vehicles, except in the event of emergencies. Speed camera cars are no exception. The reason for this law is obvious: In freeway locations any vehicle parked in an emergency lane is parked in close proximity to fast-moving traffic and these lanes are reserved for vehicles to get off the road quickly in the case of breakdown or a sudden emergency.
Many people are of the mistaken belief that it’s quite safe to pull over in the emergency lane, but that’s actually not the case. The tragic case of when four Victorian police officers were killed in the emergency lane on the Eastern Freeway in 2020 illustrates just how very dangerous this can be. For a Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator, any typical day assigned to freeway locations usually involves being on site for anywhere between 2 and 6 hours at a time, so concerns about safety in these locations is not a trivial concern. In my case I was assigned to freeway locations day after day, week after week, month after month – and therefore had very valid reasons to be concerned about safety.
Many people are of the mistaken belief that it’s quite safe to pull over in the emergency lane, but that’s actually not the case. The tragic case of when four Victorian police officers were killed in the emergency lane on the Eastern Freeway in 2020 illustrates just how very dangerous this can be. For a Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator, any typical day assigned to freeway locations usually involves being on site for anywhere between 2 and 6 hours at a time, so concerns about safety in these locations is not a trivial concern. In my case I was assigned to freeway locations day after day, week after week, month after month – and therefore had very valid reasons to be concerned about safety.
As a Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator I was tasked with setting up the camera car in numerous locations along an 87km stretch of the Calder Freeway, as far north as Harcourt North and as far South as Gisborne South. And during the time that I worked for Serco (the company which won the $180 million contract to provide these services for the Victorian Department of Justice) I frequently observed the repeated and casual violation of this law by other operators. There were many times that I did not feel safe – particularly in wet, windy and foggy conditions where visibility and road conditions were compromised. But during any weather camera operators can still be in danger – as was highlighted to me very clearly when driving to Melbourne in November 2021 where I witnessed a truck rollover in the exact location where I frequently worked. If I had been working in that location at that time I have no doubt that I would have been killed or seriously injured.
According to Rule #178 of the Mobile Road Safety Camera Operator’s Manual no camera car can be positioned in an Emergency Lane zone. How Serco and the Victoria Police apparently interpret this rule is that they regard it permissible to setup the camera car within these zones as long as the car is positioned well off the road in between the cable barriers. The problem is that in many of the existing camera locations doing this is not as easy as it sounds. In some of the locations the road has narrow shoulders, making it difficult to get off the road far enough as to not partially encroach upon the emergency lane. In other locations the shoulder of the road can become soft, wet and boggy and operators have actually been advised to move the vehicle closer to the freeway traffic to avoid bringing mud into the car. Some operators, as I have observed, have completely been ignoring Rule #178 altogether and unlawfully positioning the vehicle in the middle of the emergency lane, seriously endangering themselves and public road users. This is clearly illegal and stupidly unsafe. And this may also have legal implications for the validity of many thousands of fines which have been issued on freeway locations throughout Victoria during the period of Serco’s contract with the Department of Justice. Other more legally qualified minds can debate that.
Anyone might think that a very large multi-national company like Serco, which is the recipient of numerous State and Federal government contracts and are being paid $180 million to provide traffic camera services for the State of Victoria would care a lot about legal compliance and public safety. After all, the whole camera program is supposed to be all about road safety. My training for this role focused heavily upon technical and legal compliance, as well as personal integrity, but when I attempted to draw the matter of safety and legal compliance violations to my local managers I was surprised to be met with resistance and push-back over my concerns. When I expressed doubts about the compliance of some of my own camera sessions to the senior MRSCO (the ‘go-to’ mentor for less experienced camera operators), instead of offering any helpful advice his response was, “Well if you’ve stuffed up that’s on you!” When I explained to him that I had been witnessing numerous violations of Rule #178 and that could easily be verified by simply looking at the paper records in a filing cabinet (exact car positions are meticulously recorded for each camera session) his response was, “I don’t have the F#@!ing time to do that!”
What followed that encounter was a textbook case of workplace intimidation where my roster was suddenly changed for “operational reasons” so that I could be called into an unscheduled meeting at the end of my day where he and my Area Manager suggested that I should stop raising such concerns and explained that Serco was struggling to make their $180 million contract profitable because of the very competitive bidding process. The not-so-veiled message was, “Get with the program and stop raising concerns about legal compliance and safety!”
When I began work at Serco is seemed, at least on paper, that the company had very high standards of integrity. Their “Speak Up” policy document very clearly highlighted the requirement for all of their staff to speak up whenever they observed instances of wrongdoing, as well as outlining the obligations of the company in such situations. But evidently, as my own experience proved, the reality is starkly different. Following my unpleasant experience with my local managers I proceeded to conduct a personal audit of all of my own freeway camera sessions and discovered 18 of my own camera sessions were legally non-compliant. The mandatory pre-session checks with the Serco TCO office in Tullamarine had failed to flag and quarantine these. I then began gathering evidence documenting which sites were most problematic and forwarding any email correspondence from Serco to my own private email address just in case I was suddenly fired or forced to resign. However, my investigation was cut short when the vaccine mandates were introduced and I was not permitted to work while I awaited the availability of the Novavax vaccine – despite the fact that in my role I could have continued to work completely alone.
The vaccine issue also became a point of contention with Serco because my Union’s legal team believed that Serco was obligated under existing Workplace Health and Safety laws to conduct a Risk Assessment before making any changes to my conditions of employment. Serco ignored that request for a Risk Assessment for the next 9 months… a fact which became significant later. While I was sitting at home suffering loss of income, like so many other Victorians, I had some time to consider what my next steps should be. My monthly roster, which I kept receiving by email even when I wasn’t permitted to work, continued to assign me to those more dangerous freeway locations and I knew that if I reported what had happened to senior management then going back to work would be a hostile and toxic work environment where my safety concerns were not taken seriously. Finally I wrote up a report, including the irrefutable evidence of my own 18 non-compliant camera sessions, and in the same email I offered two weeks notice. Serco then had plenty of time to investigate my claims, thank me for drawing these matters to their attention, fix the problem and perhaps even reassure me that workplace intimidation was not part of their company culture and encourage me to stay. But in an extraordinary example of baffling corporate hypocrisy, none of that happened at all.
What did happen next was extraordinary: Initially my report to Serco Traffic Camera Operations was simply ignored, in clear violation of Serco’s own policies which require the company to respond within a particular time-frame, as well as offer certain assurances to whistle blowers. When that time expired it was left up to me to follow that up with further emails. When I did finally get a response it did not include any assurances but included a few photos from the camera car that were somehow supposed to prove that no such violations had taken place. Clearly Serco did not even check the car positions for the 18 sessions in my report or else they would have confirmed my claims. Nor did they conduct the thorough audit of all freeway camera sessions which I requested. And apparently there was no reprimand for the managers who had dismissed my concerns and attempted to silence me either. Clearly my principled stand on safety and legal compliance was not appreciated or taken seriously by Serco’s Traffic Camera Operations.
Finally I wrote a formal Whistle Blower Report, in accordance with Serco’s own policy guidelines, and forwarded that to the local police sergeant in charge of traffic camera operations, the local Magistrates Court, the Minister for Transport and some selected Members of Parliament and, finally, to the Serco Asia-Pacific CEO, Peter Welling himself. Within a short time I received a reply from the Victoria Police advising me that my report had been forward to the Department of Justice. They took that matter very seriously and initiated an investigation which was referred to IBAC, then referred back to the Department of Justice. A 12-week investigation took place which both vindicated my claims and prompted a secondary investigation which is now currently underway. I give credit to the Department of Justice for taking the matter seriously when Serco’s only response were attempts at cover-ups and incredulous denials. Unfortunately these processes took so very long that, according to one law firm I consulted, any legal recourse I may have had expired after 21 days, although I am still currently seeking other legal opinions.
In a surprising twist, after Serco learned that the Department of Justice was investigating, Peter Welling got personally involved and appointed Tim Redhead (from Ethics & Compliance) to launch their own internal investigation. Again, this investigation, which according to Serco’s own policy guidelines, was supposed to be thorough and transparent and completed within a reasonable time-frame, ended up being none of those things. I waited for months, contacting Serco on an almost weekly basis for updates. Knowing that all of the claims my report could have been very easily verified within a few days simply by accessing Serco’s camera session records, I could not understand why this process was taking months with no end in sight. When the final report was complete it incredulously claimed that they could find no evidence to support my claims, nor did their final report even mention if my local managers had even been questioned regarding their conduct towards me. In my opinion, Serco’s whole internal investigation was a shameful white-wash designed to sweep all wrongdoing under the carpet and to simply deny the substance of my report. And in anticipation of my outrage Serco was prepared for my response by having Mr Cawley Hennings waiting on the line when I was given the unacceptable news by phone. As I was in the middle of expressing my utter contempt for the lack of integrity in Serco’s “Ethics and Compliance” investigation, Mr Hennings then interjected and informed me that he had been engaged to resolve my grievances and began discussions around settlement over my loss of income from the vaccine mandates – something that the company had completely ignored for the previous 9 months but now suddenly seemed to care about.
In our talks Mr Hennings claimed that any offer of settlement was unrelated to the matters under investigation with the Department of Justice. And because of the acute financial hardship my family had been placed under due to the vaccine mandates and my loss of employment, I agreed in principle to a $15,000 settlement, which at least would have covered my lost of wages from the time of the beginning of the mandates up until I reluctantly gave notice. Fast forward a few days, which also included the very sad period around the death and burial of my elderly mother, I finally got time to read Serco’s terms of settlement and discovered, much to my dismay, that obtaining that settlement, contrary to what Mr Hennings had claimed, the offer depended on me agreeing to a sign a clause that would not permit me to speak about the circumstances of my resignation or seek any further compensation. Thinking that this must have been a mistake I got back to Mr Hennings and requested that Serco either remove that particular clause, or increase the settlement offer to provide some fair compensation for my lost employment. Their response was to abruptly withdraw the offer altogether. Suddenly it became very clear that Serco management were not concerned about my family’s hardship but were merely attempting to buy my silence. All communication from Serco concluded with the same response: They now consider the matter closed.
Since then I have made continued appeals to Serco to settle my claim for compensation by arbitration or mediation but all of my emails have gone unanswered. Not even the fact that the Department of Justice has since vindicated my claims, thanked me for my contribution and has put in place measures to address my concerns about Safety and Legal Compliance, this has made no difference to Serco’s position towards me at all.
Although this story is not over and there are, I strongly suspect, more juicy revelations to come, I tell my story publicly here as a warning to anyone dealing with Serco – including government departments that may be considering contracting them in the future. It is very clear from my experience that you can never assume that Serco management will do the right thing just because the company has some good policy statements. In the end, whether those policies are followed or ignored completely comes down to the integrity of those in management, what they are prepared to do to either honestly confront wrongdoing within the company, or what they are prepared to compromise to attempt to protect the company’s reputation. Obviously, based on my own experience, I have scathing criticisms of Serco. I take some comfort in the fact that the immense hardships that my family and I have endured so far has at least resulted in some changes that will make camera operators and public road users a little safer on Victorian freeways. But this is no thanks at all to Serco who have so far denied all wrongdoing and appear to have continually engaged in efforts to conceal it. Thankfully the Department of Justice has, at least so far, appeared to have done all they can to responsibly address these problems appropriately. But when future government contracts are awarded I certainly hope that companies with a better track record for honesty and integrity will be selected.
Former MRSCO 232320
Serco Whistle-Blower
To arrange discussion or interviews email: fightagainstcorruption@wvi.net.au
