The time-honoured technique to deflect unwanted scrutiny of poor decision making is to narrow the frame of inquiry. That way, what in plain view looks like a disaster can be made to appear inevitable, even desirable.
The building company has been accused of barring a union from investigating concerns over levels of silica dust in a key tunnel in Sydney’s Westconnex motorway.
Inner-city residents deafened by the construction of an underground highway were given noise-cancelling headphones by contractors to keep quiet about the noise.
Neighbours in Rozelle in Sydney s inner-west were given the $600 Bose headphones after complaining about the noise disruption from the motorway interchange being built beneath their homes.
Waterloo Street resident David Anderson described the noise from the works, which is part of the city s $3.9billion WestConnex project, as a roaring, rolling thunder .
But when he and his neighbours complained to contractor John Holland CPB about the issue, Mr Anderson received only two pairs headphones for him and his son and a letter asking him not to seek compensation from the company.