In 2008, Kris Cotter was working in Boiler 1 at Gladstone Power Station doing a scaffold strip-out when an eight-foot steel plank fell from six metres above. It was a split-second moment that turned safety from being just part of the job into her life’s work.
“I was on the bottom deck pulling down scaffolding and I had a steel plank in my hand to pass down through the deck to the guy below me. He wasn’t there, so I stood back up and just had it resting,” explained Kris.
“An eight-foot steel plank from three decks above fell. It went straight through the gaps, brushing past my face before hitting my shoulder, elbow and crushing the hand holding the plank.”
With her rigger’s glove filling with blood, Kris managed to climb down and out of the confined space.
“I was lucky as it was only fractured. I could have lost my fingers or worse.”
Kris was only off work for a couple of weeks, but recovery was anything but straightforward. As a mother of five and newly relocated to Gladstone, spending time in hospital was not an option.
“I had a cannula in one hand and couldn’t use the other. My kids had to help dress me. I had Meals on Wheels because I couldn’t cook. I had cleaners come in because I couldn’t clean. I couldn’t drive, so someone had to take my kids to school and then take me to the hospital twice a day for antibiotics.
“That was when it changed me. I went, okay, I don’t want this happening to anyone else.”
With years of construction experience as a rigger, scaffolder and crane operator, and already having trainer and assessor qualifications, Kris began teaching height and confined space safety.
But she quickly realised she wanted to do more.
“I thought maybe I could do a diploma, but a mate suggested university. Studying scared the crap out of me as it had been a long time since I was in school, but I applied anyway. I thought I’m either going to get accepted or I’m not.”
She was accepted. Kris completed her bachelor’s degree in safety then moved into a safety advisor role in construction.
“It’s a tough gig being a woman in construction to start with. Then you’re the safety person and blokes think you’re telling them how to do their job. But that’s not how it works. I’m not there to tell anyone how to do their job, I’m there to help them go home in one piece.”
Over the next decade, Kris built a broad career across industries. She moved into quality auditing, then became the safety coordinator at the high-security prison in Rockhampton, overseeing multiple facilities while completing her Master’s in Advanced Safety Science Practice.
She later moved into consulting and mining before joining the regulator as Principal Construction Inspector for Central Queensland with Workplace Health and Safety Queensland.
“I got to see what the regulator looks for. How inspectors interact with workers. What they expect when they turn up. That inside knowledge is incredibly useful.”
On 29 February, 2024, she finished up with the regulator. The following day she opened her own business, Synergy Safety Solutions. For many, that would have been the destination. For Kris, it was just the next step. Within months of launching her business, an idea started forming.
“I’ve been to so many big safety expos but always in the cities, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane. They’re expensive and not accessible for many people, which made me think – why aren’t there ones in the regions?”
After researching and finding little that truly served regional Queensland, she made the call to create her own. On August 6 this year, the inaugural Regional Safety Expo Australia will be held at the Robert Schwarten Pavilion in Rockhampton.
“My idea for the expo isn’t just filling a regional gap – it’s about taking a holistic approach to safety. It’s not just about going to work and doing the job safely. It’s about mental health, physical health and community, because if you’re mentally and physically healthy, you’re less likely to get injured.”
That thinking shapes the Expo’s structure. A portion of ticket sales will be donated to Hands of Compassion, a foodbank service supporting the Rockhampton community, while community groups including Walk and Talk and Multicultural Australia will also be involved.
“If you’re working 40 hours a week and still struggling to make ends meet, that stress comes to work with you. But if you’ve got somewhere like Foodbank where you can feed your family, that takes a lot of pressure off. If you’ve got somewhere to go to for mental health support like Walk and Talk, then you come to work in a better headspace.
“For me, if we have safer communities, we’re going to have safer workplaces.”
Another driver behind the expo is something she’s seen again and again across industries.
“Safety professionals can get territorial. ‘That’s my safety thing, I’m not sharing it’. I wanted to create a space where industries talk to each about the positive safety initiatives they do every day to keep their workers safe.
“Because a lot of people don’t realise they’re doing things safely every day far more often than they’re doing them unsafely.
“We hear a lot about fatalities and injuries because it grabs attention. And yes, we need to know. But let’s also create a space where businesses can brag about the good things they do.
“If you keep telling people we’re killing people, we’re doing it wrong, eventually they just think, well how am I supposed to fix it? Why bother?
“But if you go to work every day looking for one good safety thing and you say, hey, I saw you do that safely, well done – that changes culture.”
That mindset shift is personal for Kris, and it has rubbed off on everyone around her, including at home.
“It shows in my kids. They’re all adults now, but when they were growing up after my incident, my kids would go, hey mum that scaffold doesn’t look safe. Now they’ll go to work and still say, hey mum, this happened today. This didn’t look right.”
Kris admits she cannot switch it off either.
“I can’t walk past a workplace and see something unsafe without trying to get the attention of someone on site. I don’t care if I get sworn at. I started my career in construction as the only woman. My shoulders are broad and I’m six foot two, so I hold my own. I’d rather have my pride hurt than walk past and later hear someone got injured and I said nothing.”
As for the Expo itself, Kris is clear on what success looks like.
“I would love attendees to walk away seeing how amazing the businesses are in our community. Maybe they go back to work and say, I heard this safety story and we can implement that here. If even half the people who turn up do that, that’s a huge shift.”
And if readers take one thing with them from this story?
“I’d love people to walk into work and ask, what is one good safety thing I can see today? Then thank that person. It sounds simple, but it’s not our culture yet. If more of us started looking for the positive – not just from supervisors or safety staff, but everyone – it would change how we look at safety.
“Start with one positive thing. That’s how you change it.”
| REGIONAL SAFETY EXPO AUSTRALIA 2026 Thursday, 6 August 2026 at the Robert Schwarten Pavilion, Rockhampton Find out more: www.Regionalsafetyexpoaustralia.com.au |
