Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset I should declare that I am a director of the Committee to Defend Trade Union Rights trust and that has been recorded on the register of members’ interests. I find myself on my feet in this chamber once again to participate in debate on the building and construction industry. One could be forgiven for thinking that this government is obsessed.

The bill before the House today is to extend the application of the Australian Government Building and Construction Industry Occupational Health and Safety Accreditation Scheme to cover situations where building work is indirectly funded by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth entity. An existing subsection in the legislation prohibits the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth authority from entering into a contract for building work with an unaccredited person. It does not extend to building work indirectly funded by the Commonwealth or a Commonwealth agency. It also does not require an accredited person to carry out the actual building work. The proposed paragraphs 35(4)(b) and 35(4)(c) remedy this situation. The bill also ensures that appropriate accreditation has occurred and it will streamline the process of appointing federal safety officers.

Labor intends to support this bill because it relates to occupational health and safety matters and we should support the bill. It is designed to allow the government to use its influence as a client and as the provider of capital to improve the construction industry’s occupational health and safety. There cannot be—and nor should there be—any objection to that objective.

The building and construction industry is hazardous by its very nature and good management practices will assist in minimising deaths of, and injuries to, workers in the industry. Only last year the CFMEU opened a wall of remembrance in memory of all workers killed and injured at work. Each year many building and construction workers are injured at work and sadly some die. This parliament has previously dealt with the results of lack of occupational health and safety when it passed the James Hardie (Investigations and Proceedings) Bill 2004, which flowed from the need to ensure that companies took responsibility for workers’ occupational health and safety. In this case, legislation was required to ensure a proper investigation of the causes, if any, between illness and the workplace. That was the right thing to do and subsequently we have seen the results of that legislation.

I have here a list of the workers whose names appear on the CFMEU wall of remembrance. These are the building and construction workers who have been killed since 1988 in New South Wales and sadly the number comes to 121. The list of those injured was too long to be included on any one memorial. I seek leave of the Main Committee to incorporate in Hansard the list of all the victims. I have shown a copy to a member of the government.

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