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

I rise again to speak on the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2]. It is with a sense of disbelief that I find myself speaking yet again on this bill, one that has been reintroduced in exactly the same terms as the original bill that we debated last year. Its reintroduction in exactly the same terms as those which the Senate failed to pass last year is another sign that this government and this minister have been seized by a level of arrogance and hubris that really beggars belief. It is further evidence that this government views the role of the Senate and this parliament as merely a rubberstamp for Labor policy.

The Labor Party believe that it is ‘my way or the highway.’ This is policymaking at its very worst. We have seen a good example of that this week with the ETS scheme and the Labor Party’s complete inability to countenance that anybody but themselves can have good ideas or should even be engaged in the debate. It is a display of contempt not only for this parliament but also for the relevant stakeholders, who are the ones actually affected by this bill. Of course these stakeholders have expressed serious reservations about the Safe Work Australia Bill in its present form.

As history will show, this bill was laid aside last year after the government refused to accept the amendments made by the Senate. I will remind the House what those amendments were, because they were eminently sensible. The amendments improved the bill by outlining the objects for the new body, Safe Work Australia. There seemed to be a significant oversight in the drafting of the bill in that there were no objectives for the new body contained within the bill. The Senate rectified that when the coalition moved the amendments. The amendments restored effective levels of representation to employer and employee representatives on Safe Work Australia. It seems remarkable that the people who are ultimately affected by occupational health and safety—the workers and employers themselves—have less say on this new body than do state government bureaucracies. We moved amendments that introduced a balanced voting process designed to engage and include the very people actually affected by safety laws—workers and industry. We moved amendments to ensure that workers and industry were effectively and ably represented by the appropriate peak representative groups. We freed the peak representative groups from excessive ministerial interference when it came to appointing their own representatives. We freed the CEO of Safe Work Australia from excessive ministerial interference in the management of the new body. Finally, this bill was amended to establish an audit committee to examine the finances and expenditure of Safe Work Australia. None of this, I would have thought, is particularly controversial.

To amend a bill in the Senate, you need to not only use the numbers contained in either one of the two major political parties—neither have the numbers to amend legislation by themselves in the Senate—but also make your argument and get the support of other senators. It is worth noting that the amendments made to this bill were supported by every other non-Labor Senator. These amendments were supported by Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding, and they were also supported by all the Australian Greens senators. These amendments were also supported by substantial interest groups outside the parliament, not least of which were the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

If the House could just reflect on that for one moment: we have amendments that were supported by every other non-Labor Senator—including Senator Xenophon, Senator Fielding and the Australian Greens—and outside the parliament by the ACTU and ACCI. When all those diverse groups can find common cause to improve government legislation, you would think that might give the government pause and lead them to reconsider their approach. They might say: ‘Hang on, maybe we don’t have all the good ideas. Maybe these amendments supported by such a diverse group are worth considering.’ But of course they refused to do that. This minister is far too arrogant and is filled with her own self-importance. She will not countenance that amendments supported by such a diverse group could be worth considering; hence we see the bill reintroduced in exactly the same form as it was originally introduced.

We all recognise that achieving a national OH&S system is a very desirable outcome. Indeed, all the senators who supported the amendments support the creation of a national OH&S system. Everybody recognises that ensuring that workplaces across the country have the same rules for safety will deliver better and more effective outcomes for workers and for enterprises. We all recognise that in order to ensure a national system can be rolled out effectively, Safe Work Australia would need to be established to allow true representation of the social partners—those representing workers and enterprise—on the committee.

Those who hold a genuine interest in OH&S know that this bill and the agency it seeks to create is not the be-all and end-all in achieving this national reform. Those following this debate will know that a review has taken place into a model set of national OH&S laws. This review was charged with the enormously challenging task of determining a model framework upon which OH&S laws could be applied consistently throughout the country—as I said, a goal long held by the opposition and by other senators who moved to amend this bill in the Senate. The review panel continued its work and, fortunately for all those concerned, it has undertaken its work seriously and earnestly. By and large, the opposition considers the panel’s work sensible and balanced. Importantly—unlike the government and the minister—the review panel actually went out and listened to the views of workers and enterprise, and recognised that it is these stakeholders who are more important to delivering occupational health and safety outcomes than state government bureaucracies.

Even when reintroducing this bill, the minister gave as the primary reason for doing so her obligation under the intergovernmental agreement. So it is not that she wants to improve occupational health and safety, it is not that she wants workers to be better protected and it is not that she wants a more efficient system for private enterprise; it is that she has obligations to the state governments. That was her primary reason for reintroducing this bill and that is why we are discussing it again here today.

Despite that, we in the opposition have been very heartened by the sensible approach to occupational health and safety that has been taken by the review committee. The danger, which we were always concerned about, was that the New South Wales occupational health and safety system would be rolled out across the country, which would have been disastrous for all concerned. For those who are not aware, the occupational health and safety system in New South Wales is recognised—as are so many other things in the New South Wales administration—as being the worst in the nation. It has been widely criticised by many stakeholders for many years as being archaic, unwieldy and nothing more than a punitive legislative instrument, as opposed to an instrument that encourages better occupational health and safety outcomes.

Within the New South Wales system there is an automatic and inescapable presumption of guilt. This has long breached the fundamental right in systems of justice that people are innocent until proven guilty, something which we are all entitled to. The New South Wales system is unfair to workers and unfair to enterprise. There are a lot of examples from New South Wales of people being unfairly convicted of work safety breaches over which they had absolutely no control or influence. To make matters much worse, there is no right of appeal against these criminal convictions within the New South Wales system. Astonishingly, if the prosecution is undertaken by a trade union then half the penalty from the prosecution will be paid to the prosecuting union.

There is absolutely no doubt that the New South Wales system acts as a disincentive to growth and development within that state. It is one of the reasons why we find things always lagging in New South Wales and why it is recognised in so many areas that the New South Wales administration is the worst in the country. When I have had discussions about occupational health and safety with people around the country, they have often said to me that things could be much worse; we could be in New South Wales. The New South Wales system is really a ball and chain that is dragged along by that state and is one of the reasons why unfortunately we find New South Wales lagging in so many areas of economic development.

So it has been a great relief to the opposition that the review panel recognised the unworkable nature of the New South Wales regime and drafted a model framework that is loosely based on the Victorian system. The review panel has sensibly recognised that you get better occupational health and safety outcomes from an approach of encouragement, support and education of stakeholders, not from a legally questionable and penalty based regime such as that in New South Wales.

An even greater relief to those who are genuinely interested in occupational health and safety reform is the knowledge that the Workplace Relations Ministers Council has, in general, adopted the recommendations of the review panel. This means that national laws which provide consistency, certainty and the hope of achieving real and genuine outcomes for occupational health and safety around the nation can now be adopted. It means that workers and enterprise can now get on with the business of genuinely improving safety in workplaces throughout Australia.

Despite these positive developments—and I am pleased to report to the House that the opposition believes that these developments are positive—the coalition still holds reservations about this bill, as it has been reintroduced in its original format. We have extensively debated these concerns in this House and in the Senate and we have primarily focused on why this government believes that state government bureaucracies should have a greater say in this system than workers and enterprise. We firmly believe that the amendments we moved previously, which were accepted by the Senate, would have made Safe Work Australia a better body and put it in a much better position to facilitate the move to a national occupational health and safety system. It makes sense to get this reform right from the very beginning. However, we have always recognised that this is a very important national reform. We have long supported the efficiencies and the better outcomes that will be gained through a national system. With the positive developments in the creation of a national system in mind, I can confirm that the coalition will no longer press our previous amendments. We recognise that what is important here is achieving a national occupational health and safety system.

Unlike Labor, the coalition does not hold the view that it is ‘my way or the highway’. We believe that it makes sense to actually sit down and talk to people about how we might improve legislation in this House—clearly something that Labor does not believe in, as has been reinforced by events in the House this week. We do not see parliament just as a rubber stamp; we see it as a forum for debate that can improve legislative outcomes. But we see the government as contemptuous, belligerent and arrogant. Their approach is always: ‘Do it our way. We are not interested in talking to you, we are not interested in compromising and we are not interested in improving the bill, regardless of how many people are telling us that it can be improved.’ This will be noted by all who have observed this and other debates in the House this week.

Although the road to achieving nationally consistent occupational health and safety reform will be a little longer due to the inadequacies of this bill and Labor’s belief that state bureaucrats are more important than workers and employers, at least with the passage of this bill we will be moving down the path to a national OH&S system—something the opposition has always believed is desirable. Therefore, as I said earlier, we will not be pressing forward with our amendments.

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