Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing could portray the arrogance and contempt that this government has for this parliament more that a refusal to entertain these very simple amendments that make the government’s existing legislation better. The whole world is telling you that you are wrong: in this case the opposition, the Greens, the Independent senators—and that, quite frankly, is an unlikely alliance—the ACTU and ACCI. They are all saying that the government has got this wrong, yet the government is refusing to listen. This is exactly what the Deputy Prime Minister is doing: refusing to listen. The Deputy Prime Minister is walking away from safety consultation at the highest level by refusing to incorporate the Senate amendments of her Safe Work Australia Bill 2008. The bill has been amended because the bill is fundamentally flawed.

I would just like to comment on what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying with regard to this leaked shadow cabinet submission that she keeps referring to. As unseemly as it is for the Deputy Prime Minister to be rummaging around in my bins, I am very happy for her to table this submission and then the Australian people can make a judgement. I am very happy for her to table this leaked cabinet submission, then everyone can make a judgement and see that what she is claiming about that submission is completely and utterly false. When the ACTU, ACCI, the Greens and the Independent senators are all supporting these amendments, yet the minister absolutely refuses to entertain them, that is just being bloody-minded and stubborn.

Labor has sold out Australian workers and industry in the interests of placating particular state bureaucracies. The Deputy Prime Minister is refusing to accept that a process that does not seek to actively engage employers and workers in a meaningful way will not bring safety improvements necessary for Australian workplaces. The whole point of an effective occupational health and safety regime is that it encourages employers and employees to take responsibility for safety within their own workplaces. It is widely acknowledged that this approach is the best approach to create safe workplaces. The government’s bill, before it was amended, did not even contain a set of objects for this new body, Safe Work Australia. Contrary to what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying, the opposition is supportive of a national occupational health and safety regime. The reality is that it will be the government that will be holding up this process if they stubbornly and unnecessarily refuse to countenance these sensible Senate amendments. They are amendments that were supported by every other member of the Senate with the exception of government senators, and, as I have said, they are also supported by the ACTU and ACCI—again, as unlikely an alliance as the alliance that we have formed in the Senate to amend this bill.

I will go through what these amendments are—these shocking amendments that the government will not even consider. The amendments outline the objects of the new body, Safe WorkAustralia. They do this because surely it makes sense to highlight to the Australian what the new body exists for. The minister was saying that somehow this is going to imperil the intergovernmental agreement, but she refuses to even go back and consult the states about what these amendments might mean. She would have more credibility if she walked in here and said, ‘We’ve gone back to the states and they find that it’s unacceptable,’ yet all we are seeing is stubbornness and a refusal to even look at the amendments.

The amendments also restore effective levels of representation to employer and employee representatives. The term that people use is ‘social partners’. This is, quite frankly, possibly the most important part of the amendments. As I have said, it is ultimately the responsibility of employers and employees to secure workplace safety. They need to adopt a culture in which they take shared responsibility for the safety of their workplace. We can sit here in this place and legislate ad nauseam but nothing is as important as this cultural acceptance by employers and employees that workplace safety is their responsibility. I will be happy to run through some of the other amendments as this debate continues. (Time expired)

See this speech in context