Before You Dig Australia (BYDA) is calling for government reform to meet international standards for ‘before you dig’ services to prevent underground utility strikes.
According to BYDA, more than 15,000 underground utility strikes occur each year in Australia, costing the national economy $4.6 billion through project delays, service disruptions and productivity loss, and exposing workers and communities to serious risk.
New research from the organisation examines why these incidents persist and identifies practical reforms – including a national mandate – that governments can implement to improve safety, infrastructure resilience and project productivity.
BYDA CEO Mell Greenall said Australia was well behind comparable jurisdictions such as France, Canada and the US in the legal and regulatory frameworks governing excavation safety.
“The problem in Australia is systemic rather than behavioural. While responsibility for preventing strikes often sits with frontline workers, the power to improve underlying conditions rests with governments, regulators and asset owners,” she said.
“What we’re talking about is a 40-year-old system in a high-risk digital age. It is a fragmented information ecosystem that remains largely static and document-based, yet one with consequences for all.”
Mel said the evidence shows the current system is no longer keeping pace with the scale and complexity of Australia’s infrastructure program.
The report finds France, Canada and the US have more advanced legal requirements, industry guidance, codes of practice, enforcement mechanisms and penalties than Australia. It highlights France’s national legal regime for ‘before you dig’ notifications, Canada’s shared responsibility model embedded in law, and US federal regulators’ powers to reinforce or address pipeline safety violations beyond state responses.
It also identifies several policy areas where government action can improve safety outcomes and reduce costly service disruptions, including:
- Nationally mandating a BYDA enquiry before excavation within WHS, electricity and gas regulations governing hazardous work – NSW is currently the only state that mandates the BYDA referral service;
- improving the quality and accessibility of underground asset data, including minimum standards and digital data sharing, which could save $782 million a year; and
- using national data insights to support regulators, enabling targeted enforcement, education and industry improvement initiatives, and greater consistency in legislation, which could save $322 million a year.
“These reforms do not require building a new system. Rather, they involve strengthening the legal and regulatory environment so the existing ecosystem can operate effectively. This is an immediate opportunity for government leadership,” Mel said.
“We must act now, before a major service outage or fatality event. The research in this report highlights an unavoidable situation: incremental improvement will not be enough. Decisions must be made now to prevent what we see as an inevitable serious incident involving an underground service strike.
“If nothing changes, the next fatality or outage is not a surprise – it’s a choice.”
