The Secretary for Education and Manpower yesterday defended the Government's efforts to protect workers' safety and enhance existing laws with new ones.
Joseph Wong Wing-ping said a new body responsible for enforcing occupational safety had been set up last month, with resources for 72 new staff in the next year and a further 29 after that.
More than half of the unit's staff would be site inspectors, he said.
Mr Wong said the Government had already introduced the Factories and Industrial Undertakings (Amendment) Bill last month. If passed, it would enable the Labour Commissioner to suspend work on industrial sites deemed too dangerous.
In the aftermath of the Rambler Channel platform collapse, in which six workers died on Thursday, top Government officials were scrambling to defuse criticism that the territory's industrial safety was compromised in large-scale infrastructure projects and that the Government was lax in enforcing safety laws.
Democratic Party infrastructure spokesman Albert Chan Wai-yip said contractors for important building projects frequently compromised safety standards in their rush to meet deadlines.