Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure if Ted Holloway was a Queenslander. I might have to check. Obviously, the Queenslanders sent down Maxine McKew to get rid of John Howard. I will defer to the member for Maribyrnong as to Ted Holloway’s state of origin. Obviously the Hon. John Winston Howard was only the second prime minister to be voted out. Why? Because he attacked the ‘fair go’ and, more importantly, attacked the unions and health and safety, which is really an attack on the lives of people in workplaces.

We have also started work to make Australian workplaces not only safer but healthier. For example, we have undertaken a review of the Comcare scheme. Another shameful Howard government legacy was their gross neglect of Comcare. It was critically underresourced and unable to cope with its investigations workload. This obviously puts lives at risk, as anyone working in the construction sector would know.

The Rudd government has also set up an independent panel of experts to conduct a national occupational health and safety review and has developed an agreement with state and territory governments for nationally consistent occupational health and safety legislation. Having come from the mining sector, I know how particularly advanced this is, with governments, miners and unions sitting down together to work out ways to make businesses work smarter so that mining companies that go between states will not have to deal with different frameworks. This bill delivers on that agreement.

All Australians expect that, when a family member goes off to work, they will return home safely. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. More than 300 people are killed each year at work and more than 140,000 Australians are seriously injured. That sounds like simple statistics, but I can attest that my brother was seriously, seriously damaged by that workplace accident. So statistics do have personal tales behind them.

Australians still face danger in work sites around the country, and this is totally unacceptable. I think of people like Chris Geer and Steve Sayer, who fell to their deaths on a Gold Coast construction site earlier this year, at the time of the Queensland state conference, and there have unfortunately been more deaths, even on the Gold Coast, where my brother worked in the construction sector.

There should be no greater priority for employers than workplace safety, and I know that the overwhelming majority of employers are striving to do the right thing. I say that again: I know that most employers are trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, many of these employers have been entangled in red tape, as they battle the different laws in place throughout Australia. The inconsistencies between the states also lead to poorer safety standards and lower compensation for some employees. Once again, I refer to my brother Timothy, who was a classic example. He was working for a Queensland company on the Twin Towns Services Club but, because it was 10 metres over the border—in fact, I think the crane even swung over into Queensland at stages—and the deaths and the accident occurred right over the border, there were all sorts of problems and red tape with getting Sydney lawyers to deal with something that was really a Queensland accident. It will be great to resolve some of those issues by having greater consistency.

National cooperation will help overcome these issues and improve people’s lives. Greater cooperation will improve health and safety standards for workers and reduce the complexity of compliance and regulation for business. To achieve this, Safe Work Australia will develop a national occupational health and safety and workers compensation policy; prepare, monitor and revise legislation; develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure regulatory consistency across the nation; progress harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements; collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data; drive national awareness strategies; and advise the Workplace Relations Ministers Council on occupational health and safety on workers compensation matters.

We must all be aware that, when it comes to occupational health and safety, there is too much at stake to be distracted by political games and turf wars. We have to get this right. This really is a time for bipartisanship. The only way to get this right is to work together in cooperation with all of the state and territory governments. Safe Work Australia will establish a platform to bring about even greater consistency and cooperation between all governments in the future. We must also continue to work with the many unions who strive to make workplaces safer for their members.

In closing, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for introducing this legislation and for her commitment to safety in the workplace. She well knows that this type of legislation saves lives. I commend the bills to the House.

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