Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2]. This is a very important bill for the Rudd Labor government and the Labor Party. As the party that has stood up for working people for over 100 years, there are three key issues that we have stood on and continue to fight for: wages and conditions, job security and worker safety. Few political organisations across the world could boast the success that the Australian Labor Party has had with respect to wages and conditions. Just ask American workers, ‘What is annual leave?’ I suspect that many would not be able to say what it is and certainly many would not be able to cite examples of paid annual leave.

The second area in which the Labor Party have a long and proud track record is job security. Again, we have been very successful in ensuring that Australian workers have strong protections and measures in place to protect the security of their employment. No other issue played a bigger part at the last election than job security. The Work Choices regime took job security away and put in place a regime that allowed workers to be sacked anywhere, for any reason and with no comeback. The Labor Party ran a very strong anti-Work Choices campaign focused on unfair dismissal. This was absolutely central to getting rid of the Howard government and restoring job security for workers across Australia.

Job security and wages and conditions are very important aspects of the work that we have undertaken historically in this place for working Australians, but even more important than those issues is the question of worker safety. Every Australian has a right to be safe in their workplace. Every working Australian has a right to return home at the end of the day safe and sound. That is what this bill is all about. The purpose of this bill is to establish Safe Work Australia as an independent Commonwealth statutory body to improve occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia. The bill establishes the operational arrangements to support SWA, including provisions relating to the nomination, appointment and terms and conditions of members; conflict of interest issues; procedures relating to the conduct of meetings and decision-making processes; and the development of plans and reporting requirements to WRMC. It enables the chair to constitute committees to draw upon a wide range of expertise for the performance of those functions.

The list of tasks that I have just read out which Safe Work Australia is bound to carry out is indicative of the level of sophistication Australia is now getting to on the question of workplace safety. This is a tribute to how the Labor Party and our affiliate unions have campaigned in workplaces, in communities and in this parliament to achieve gains for working Australians. The benefits are not confined to individual working Australians and their families; the benefits are for the whole nation. Thank goodness we have got past the mentality of many employers of yesteryear, where they thought they could send young people down the mines and those sorts of things. Today every employer understands that it makes good economic sense to have safety in the workplace and that it protects the interests of not only their organisations but the people who work for them.

Before getting to the detail of this bill, I would like to go through some basic statistics on safety in Australian workplaces. These statistics are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and I believe that is the best place to access such information. Broadly the picture is as follows. Of the 11 million working Australians, over 700,000 people experienced at least one work related injury or illness. The work related injury rate is around 64 per 1,000 people employed. More men than women experienced a workplace related injury. Differences in age make a difference. Studies have shown that younger workers sustain work related injuries at a higher rate than older workers. Factors contributing to this include their employment in industries with high injury rates, such as the service and retail sectors, possible lack of awareness of workplace safety, inexperience on the job and a lack of adequate training provided by employers. Older workers, aged 55 years and over, experience the lowest work related injury rates, somewhere around 50 per 1,000 people employed.

Injury rates differ depending on the industry. People working in industries involving physical work are at higher risk of experiencing a work related injury. Industries recording the highest injury rates are agriculture, forestry and fishing, which come in at somewhere around 109 injuries per 1,000 people employed. Manufacturing has a high proportion, with around 87 injuries per 1,000 workers, and construction has 86 injuries per 1,000 workers. Industries with the highest work related injury rates for women are accommodation, cafes and restaurants. Those statistics come in at somewhere in the vicinity of 98 injuries per 1,000 women employed. The statistics go on and on.

I want to talk a bit about the costs as well. As we know, the workplace injury cost to Australia, although we are driving it down, is still immense. A work related injury may involve a number of costs, including loss of income, medical expenses and loss of productivity. There may also be compensation for a reduced quality of life or for treatment of long-term injury or illness. In some cases, as we know, there may also be legal fees and investigative costs or fines and penalties. In 2004 the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission estimated that the total cost of work related injuries for the financial year 2005-06 would be at least $34.9 billion. The great challenge we have is to bring that figure down and bring workers home to their families safely at the end of the day. That is what is behind this bill.

Safe Work Australia, SWA, will be a reform focused body with the power to make recommendations directly to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. SWA will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council. SWA will be funded by both the Commonwealth, with around 50 per cent, and the states and territories with the balance. SWA will be a tripartite body comprising 15 members, including an independent chair and nine members representing the Commonwealth and each state and territory. That is fantastic.

A specific charter of responsibilities has been developed for SWA. Safe Work Australia will develop a national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation. It will prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety legislation. It will develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all of Australia’s jurisdictions. It will develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements throughout Australia. It will collect, analyse and publish OH&S and workers compensation data and undertake and publish research. It will drive national communication strategies to raise the awareness of health and safety at work. It will further develop a national occupational health and safety strategy beyond where we are today.

The bill will also create and maintain mechanisms for review and revision of the effectiveness of SWA in performing its functions. This will ensure that the body is active and operating effectively and responsively in meeting its strategic and operational goals. SWA will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, which was set up and administered by the previous government as an advisory council. In contrast to that body, SWA will be funded by both the Commonwealth and the states and territories, and it will provide a central role in occupational health and safety and workers compensation reform.

The Rudd government is moving to reform the national economy in a number of ways. We want to get rid of the state duplications that have existed historically within Australia. SWA will have a critical role here. There is no doubt that national companies have an additional burden in sorting through the different state compensation regimes and occupational health and safety rules. Workers have the same problems across this nation. If you are a worker from WA you often have to learn about new safety laws if you move to Victoria. In my view, this makes no sense. It makes no sense for employers and it makes no sense for workers to have to learn two different sets of safety rules and procedures for undertaking the same job. I hope SWA will play a leading role in reform on this front.

The establishment of Safe Work Australia is an essential part of the government’s strategy to improve safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia. Since being elected, the Rudd government have undertaken a review of the Comcare scheme, set up an independent panel of experts to conduct a national occupational health and safety review and developed a landmark intergovernmental agreement with our state and territory counterparts to harmonise occupational health and safety legislation nationally.

In July 2008, there was a historic meeting that should be noted in this debate. For the first time, all state ministers and the Commonwealth sat down and agreed on harmonising occupational health and safety legislation. It was an historic day that workers from just a few decades ago could only have dreamed of. This bill is one of the big steps in moving towards that great vision. The day that this vision is brought to fruition will be a very good day for Australia, and I do not think many people on any side of politics would disagree with that. I am hopeful that this bill heralds the first chapter of real substance of a very important new era of cooperation between the states and the Commonwealth on occupational health and safety and compensation.

Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council established by the previous government. Safe Work Australia will develop national policy relating to workers compensation. These reforms are historic. I would like to congratulate the minister for workplace relations, Minister Gillard, on the great work that she has done to get this bill, and the process, to the stage it is at today. In the past, people said that reform like this would be impossible. The minister has shown that with hard work, compromise and goodwill it is possible. This is another great Labor reform for workers and a great reform for business.

I would like to conclude on this point: we have come a long way but there is still a long way to go with workers occupational health and safety and compensation arrangements. More than 300 Australians are killed every year at work. Many more die as a result of work related disease. Each year over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work. The cost to our economy, as I mentioned earlier, has been estimated to be $34.9 billion per year. The cost to those injured and to their families, work mates and friends is inestimable. This bill, I believe, is the next big step we need to take to tackle those statistics, to get more people home uninjured from their workplaces and to get more Australian businesses to be even more productive and safe places to work. I commend this great Labor bill to the House.

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