Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to support the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Amendment (OHS) Bill 2007 as it provides a very strong statement from the Australian government that we want contractors, people involved in the building industry, to practise safe work practices, and we want those people to put their workers’ safety at a premium in their conduct, not regard it as an optional extra.

It is, from our reading of the Cole Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, a key aspect of the commission to ensure that we can establish the powers and functions of the Federal Safety Commissioner. The bill provides for the establishment of the Australian Government Building and Construction Industry Occupational Health and Safety Accreditation Scheme. The act also regulates the appointment and powers of Federal Safety Officers. It allows the Federal Safety Commissioner and persons working in the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner to disclose information on the scheme to the minister. It amends the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 to streamline the processes of appointing Federal Safety Officers and clarifies that subsection 35(4) of the Building Construction Industry Improvement Act only overrides Commonwealth provisions to the extent of any inconsistency.

Indeed, the main purpose of this bill is to amend the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act to: extend the application of the scheme administered by the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner to cover situations where building work is indirectly funded by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth authority, ensure that persons are accredited under the scheme at the time of entering into a contract for building work funded by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth authority, ensure that the Commonwealth or Commonwealth authority takes appropriate steps to see that such persons are also accredited while the building work is being carried out, and extend that accreditation requirement to funding arrangements beyond those currently contemplated by the legislation. Essentially, we are keeping faith with the building workers of Australia by ensuring that the Commonwealth can provide a ready role model for others involved in this sector.

I listened with a deal of interest to the member for Gorton about a half an hour ago—he is a good fellow. If you read his words and listened to his presentation in the House, you would be left with the conclusion that what he was saying seemed fair and reasonable. The trouble, though, is that every time those opposite speak about workplace fairness, they are coming with so many strings attached that the ‘good ship Labor’ sinks into the ocean. It leaves the moorings of the wharf with so many strings attached that there is no way it can sail.

The Labor Party try to suggest that this is all about the Australian government having some pathological dislike for the union movement. Nothing could be further from the truth. This government is enormously in favour of an effective union movement that truly represents the workers of Australia and truly meets their interests and ambitions. But the trouble with those opposite is that so many of the Labor Party arguments about the matters contained within this legislation, and all matters to do with industrial relations, are ready proof that too many—in fact, I would say all—union leaders in this country are living off the efforts of the past. The reputation of the union movement in effecting a safer working environment is without doubt. There is no doubt in my mind that unions have been at the heart of so much of the argument to create a safer working environment. But they are living on the efforts of those in the past, because those in the union movement today are no longer the keepers of a working environment that is safe. Employers themselves understand that the costs to them, both personally and emotionally, as well as the potential for fines and other imposts if they do not make a safe work environment, are very real—as they should be.

I get disappointed as a person who was once a member of a union—the Australian Journalists Association. When it affiliated with the ACTU, I resigned because it went from being a professional body to being just another union. I do not understand how any journalist in Australia can suppress their partiality when they are a member of the media and arts alliance. I remain gravely concerned, but I never hear those opposite speak about work safety actually being hinged around things like the inquiry into the Queensland construction industry, which found that over 50 per cent of people on construction sites could not read English to an adequate level. Fifty per cent of people on Queensland construction sites had an illiteracy that could in itself cause a deal of danger. Sure, they could understand the word ‘Danger’ and the word ‘Warning’ and those sorts of words, but a full interpretation of written instructions or a full interpretation of the way in which to act safely in the workplace is not possible for 50 per cent of those people, according to work which was done by the Department of Education, Science and Training a couple of years ago. I think that is a point of enormous concern.

Nor do we hear from those opposite that one of the strings attached to their argument about the unions being completely involved in all arbitration when it comes to work safety is just how over the top and ridiculous some of these occupational health and safety requirements have actually become. The Beattie government in Queensland has so overlegislated now that a chap rang me a year or so ago and told me about a fridge mechanic who entered his house. The fridge mechanic said, ‘I am required by occupational health and safety law to prescribe a safety instruction to you if you are going to stay in your kitchen while I repair your fridge.’ The seals had broken. There was safety tape marked out two metres around the fridge, and he told this home owner that, unless they had steel-capped safety boots, safety goggles—and possibly a face mask but certainly at least goggles—and other safety equipment such as gloves they would not be allowed to be anywhere near the repair of the fridge. You just cannot help but wonder how silly and over the top a lot of these things have become.

So here we have the Australian government instead, through this legislation, saying to our building contractors in Australia who want to work with the Australian government, ‘Have a work safety principle operating, have a set of requirements that you impose upon your workers, deliver on that and you can deal with us.’ We are not, as the Labor Party are suggesting, affecting any rights of entry of union officials under the Workplace Relations Act. Nor, as the Labor Party try to suggest, are we overriding any state or territory OH&S legislation.

Under the Workplace Relations Act, a union official is entitled to access a site to investigate potential breaches of OH&S, but they need to have, of course, a right of entry permit and they need to make sure that they comply with all the requirements of the relevant state or territory OH&S legislation. We are not, though, going to allow, as has been done by the CFMEU in Western Australia, a proliferation of occupational health problems in the form of the ‘blue flu’. Therefore, we are not going to see an end, as the Labor Party have again committed to tonight, to the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, which was established in 2005. That is what Kevin Reynolds, the head honcho of the CFMEU in Western Australia, wanted to see—as we heard reported today by the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Kevin Reynolds is longing for a return to his power and a Greg Combet style of having the unions back in charge of Australia. We are not going to allow a situation where union officials enter a work site and in fact stop work from progressing, building from being performed and progress from being achieved on some premise of unsafe practices when, in fact, all they are about is trying to spread blue flu, which saw so many days lost to industrial action—71 per 1,000 workers in the December quarter of 2004. Now, since the creation of the ABCC, we have seen that number reduced to just nine in the same quarter last year. It went from 71 in the last quarter of 2004 to just nine in the last quarter of last year. For the 12 months ending in December last year, there had been 45.2 days lost per 1,000 workers compared to—wait for it!—725 days lost in 2005.

This so-called concern for occupational health and safety by trade union officials has cost jobs in the building and construction sector. This government is about providing a positive example and through legislation is enacting a process by which people in the building industry will be able to work for the Commonwealth, and it is amending the Building And Construction Industry Improvement Act to allow the scheme to apply more broadly. It has always been intended that the scheme would eventually be applied to construction projects funded both directly and indirectly by the Australian government. The amendments contained in this bill will allow the scheme to progress to stage 2. Stage 2 will apply to head builders on construction projects indirectly funded by the Australian government, subject to certain thresholds, and it will lower the contract threshold for directly funded construction projects from $6 million to $3 million. An example often put forward is that of indirectly funded construction projects such as a project funded under AusLink. And I know of examples that have been put forward in discussions with state governments about education funding, particularly vocational education funding, where the state governments, so bereft of the morals expected of a reasonable authority, have danced to the tune of union officials and actually held up in past years vocational education funding bonus payments simply because they did not want to see these particular measures contained within this bill applying to projects that might be constructed. For instance, TAFE college buildings were not built or their construction was delayed because the work of the union was more important than the facilities to be funded by the Australian government. These sorts of—

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