It's a failure of leadership, accountability, and enforcement
Across Australia's tunneling industry, workers carry knowledge of a slow and irreversible danger — silica dust, and the diseases it leaves behind — yet knowledge alone has proven insufficient armor. A University of Sydney survey of 290 tunneling workers, published in 2025, reveals that nearly one in seven respondents already bears a silica-related diagnosis, not because workers are uninformed, but because the systems meant to protect them are failing at the level of leadership, accountability, and enforcement. As Australia's infrastructure ambitions grow, so too does the quiet accumulation of preventable harm in the bodies of those who build beneath the ground.
- Nearly one in seven surveyed tunnel workers has already developed a silica-related disease — silicosis, chronic bronchitis, or rheumatoid arthritis — from dust exposure that exceeds legal workplace limits.
- Two-thirds of workers identified concrete barriers to safer conditions: production deadlines override precaution, managers show indifference, and regulatory enforcement is so weak it functions more as ritual than deterrent.
- Worksites are cleaned and readings adjusted before announced inspections, creating a performance of compliance that collapses the moment regulators leave — and nearly half of workers have no confidence regulators are genuinely promoting safety.
- The tools to reduce harm exist — better ventilation, enclosed cabins, advanced respiratory equipment — but they are applied inconsistently and often used as substitutes for eliminating dust at its source.
- With Australia's infrastructure pipeline expanding, researchers warn that without systemic reform in enforcement and workplace culture, thousands more workers will develop diseases that cannot be undone.
Tunnel workers across Australia know the danger well enough to name it: silica dust causes silicosis, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis — diseases without reversal. Yet a national survey of 290 tunneling industry workers, led by University of Sydney PhD candidate Kate Cole and published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, found something more unsettling than ignorance. It found a chasm between what workers understand and what actually keeps them safe.
Cole, who brings over two decades of infrastructure and construction experience to her research, was unambiguous in her diagnosis: "This is not a knowledge gap — it's a failure of leadership, accountability, and enforcement, with workers ultimately paying the price with their health." The numbers support her. Nearly 14.2 percent of respondents already reported a silica-related condition, and expert review of described working conditions found dust levels routinely exceeding legal exposure limits.
The barriers to change are structural and cultural. Time pressures, management indifference, and toothless regulatory enforcement were cited by 62.5 percent of workers as obstacles to effective dust control. Inspections are announced in advance, allowing sites to be cleaned and air monitoring results adjusted before regulators arrive. One worker described the process bluntly — sites are made to look good, numbers are manipulated, and inspectors tick their boxes and leave. Nearly half of all respondents had no confidence that regulators were genuinely promoting safe practices.
Production schedules dominate site culture. Workers who raise concerns risk their livelihoods. Dust control measures are abandoned when deadlines tighten, and some workers described visibility reduced to just a few meters. The technology to do better exists, but it is applied inconsistently — and too often used as a substitute for controlling dust at its source rather than as a final safeguard.
Cole's warning is plain: as Australia's infrastructure ambitions expand, the absence of systemic reform — in enforcement, accountability, and workplace culture — means preventable disease will continue to accumulate quietly in the bodies of those who build beneath the surface.
Tunnel workers across Australia know the danger. They can recite it: silica dust causes silicosis, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis—diseases that don't go away. Yet a national survey of 290 tunneling industry workers and professionals, conducted between September 2024 and June 2025, has found something more troubling than ignorance. It has found a chasm between what workers understand and what actually protects them on the job.
The research, led by Kate Cole, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health, was published this week in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. Cole has spent more than two decades working on large-scale infrastructure and construction projects, including tunneling work. What she and her team discovered is not a knowledge problem. It is a problem of will. "Workers understand the risks," Cole said, "but the survey results indicate that systems in place are not consistently protecting them. This is not a knowledge gap: it's a failure of leadership, accountability, and enforcement, with workers ultimately paying the price with their health."
The numbers are stark. Nearly one in seven survey respondents—14.2 percent—reported already having a silica-related disease or condition. The most common diagnoses were chronic bronchitis, silicosis itself, and rheumatoid arthritis. When experts reviewed the working conditions described by most job groups, they found dust levels that exceeded legal workplace exposure limits. Yet the barriers to change persist. Two-thirds of workers, 62.5 percent, identified obstacles preventing effective dust control: time pressures, management indifference, and regulatory enforcement so weak it barely registers as a threat.
The survey uncovered a pattern of theater masquerading as safety. Regulators announce inspections in advance. When they arrive, worksites have been scrubbed clean, air monitoring numbers have been adjusted, and dust control measures are suddenly visible and functional. One worker described it plainly: "They can't see what really happens when they're not there. Sites are informed of the visit and make it look good. Numbers are botched, readings not true. It's like they come in, tick their boxes and away they go." Nearly half of all respondents said they had no confidence that regulators were actually promoting safe practices. Trust in air monitoring results was similarly low, with workers suspecting that measurements were taken under artificially improved conditions that bore little resemblance to ordinary work.
The culture on these sites runs counter to safety. Production schedules dominate. Workers who raise concerns about dust risk their jobs. Dust control measures are abandoned when deadlines tighten. Some participants reported conditions so thick with dust they could not see more than a few meters ahead. The technology exists to do better—ventilation systems have improved, enclosed cabins are available, respiratory protective equipment is more sophisticated than it was a decade ago. But the survey suggests these tools are applied inconsistently, or worse, used as substitutes for controlling dust at its source rather than as a last line of defense.
Cole's warning is direct: Australia's infrastructure pipeline is expanding. Without systemic change—stronger enforcement, genuine accountability, a shift in workplace culture that treats worker health as non-negotiable—preventable disease will continue to accumulate in thousands of workers. The gap between what workers know and what protects them will remain. And the price will be paid in lungs that cannot be repaired.
Notable Quotes
Workers understand the risks, but the survey results indicate that systems in place are not consistently protecting them. This is not a knowledge gap: it's a failure of leadership, accountability, and enforcement.— Kate Cole, lead researcher, University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health
With Australia's infrastructure pipeline continuing to expand, without systemic change, preventable disease will remain an ongoing risk for thousands of workers.— Kate Cole
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does knowing the risk not translate into protection? These workers aren't ignorant.
Because knowledge alone doesn't change behavior when the system rewards the opposite. A worker who slows production to control dust might lose their job. A manager who invests in proper ventilation might miss a deadline. The incentives all point away from safety.
The advance notice of inspections—that seems almost designed to fail.
It is. If regulators announce they're coming, sites have time to stage-manage. Workers see this. They understand that compliance is theater, not genuine change. That erodes trust in the entire system.
What about the workers who already have silicosis? What happens to them?
The survey doesn't follow their stories, but silicosis is progressive and incurable. They'll live with it. Some will get worse. The disease doesn't stop because the work does.
Is this unique to tunneling, or is it a broader construction problem?
The survey is specific to tunneling, but the dynamics—time pressure, weak enforcement, production over safety—are common across construction. Tunneling is just where this researcher found it documented.
What would actually change this?
Real enforcement with unannounced inspections. Penalties that hurt. A shift in how projects are scheduled and funded so that safety isn't a cost to be cut. And workers who can report problems without fear of retaliation. None of that is happening yet.