Blue Ribbon meat works death 20 years on: 'Rips away your belief system'

Without supervision, a young and unlicensed Matthew was driving a forklift at the Blue Ribbon meat works in St Leonards when it tipped.

According to Unions Tasmania, "Tasmania is the only jurisdiction in Australia that has not implemented, or is planning to implement industrial manslaughter laws."

Over the last decade, there have been 87 work-related deaths in Tasmania - Unions Tasmania believes that this figure does not accurately reflect or encompass all work-related deaths.

"We believe this number would be even higher if all work-related deaths, including suicide, were included in the official statistics," their website said.

July 12 will mark 20 years since his death, though his parents said they will never have closure due to the "injustice" of the aftermath of Matthew's passing.

"It's taken over our life, it's horrific," Mr Hudson said.

"It'll stay with us forever."

Mrs Hudson said that in the months before Matthew's death, the forklift he was on was sent to FRM [Materials Handling Pty Ltd] for its yearly maintenance.

"During that maintenance, FRM sent back a report to the company saying that the forklift had 14 faults," Mrs Hudson said.

"When Matthew was killed on that forklift, and Workplace Standards did their report, those 14 faults were still there three months later; [the workplace] chose not to fix that forklift."

Mr Hudson said the journey his family have been on since Matthew's death is so complicated that he could write a book about it.

In the days, months and years that followed the tragedy, Mr and Mrs Hudson's lives revolved around court hearings and cover-ups - all while grieving the loss of their middle child.

"When the system is broken, and you watch as nobody bothers to fix it, it rips away your belief system and leaves you to navigate the rest of your life broken," Mr Hudson said.

"They swept it under the carpet. They never directly blamed anyone."

On the day Matthew was killed, Mrs Hudson said no one personally called to inform them of what had happened.

"On the day that Matthew was killed, we didn't know how to proceed. No one could tell us where [his body] was," she said.

She said the first thing she did was call the hospital, who told her Matthew's body wasn't there and to contact the police.

The police told Mrs Hudson to call Workplace Standards, who told her to call the coroner - who told her to call the hospital.

Eventually, a friend of Mrs Hudson who'd previously worked at Blue Ribbon was able to pass on some information.

"Had...we been officially notified [of Matthew's death], we probably would have never known how corrupt the system is," Mrs Hudson said.

"So one of those loopholes was when Matthew was killed, they took his body straight to Hobart, and they did an autopsy without permission - by law, we have 48 hours.

"One of the questions in the Coroner's Court was, 'Why did you do that, and why did he go to Hobart? Why was it not done in Launceston?'"

"To this day, we've never been [officially] told."

Blue Ribbon's then-owner, Australian Food Group, was found guilty of two breaches of the Workplace Safety Act and received a fine of $25000, which was raised to $70000 after the Hudsons appealed it.

Mrs Hudson said the appeal cost them $80000 in lawyers fees over four years, $11000 for a coroner's inquest, $7000 for Matthew's funeral and many other hidden costs.

"Those fines go to the government. People think it goes to the families, but it does not go to the families."

In the 20 years since Matthew's death, Mr and Mrs Hudson have made it their life's mission to advocate for stronger laws and education surrounding work-related injuries or fatalities.

"To me, it was a complete system breakdown - and none of it's been fixed," Mrs Hudson said.

"And it's very stressful for us to think that other families are going to go through this same thing."

This Sunday, April 28, is International Workers' Memorial Day; it is a day of remembrance for workers who have been killed, injured or made unwell by their work.

"Matthew activated this, but it's more now about remembering all of our workers," Mr Hudson said.

Unions Tasmania will host a memorial at the Workers Memorial Garden, Elizabeth Gardens, where Mr Hudson will speak.