Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the legislation before the parliament, the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2010 and the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Safety Levies) Amendment Bill 2010. There is no issue at work more important, in my experience, than workplace safety, and for the words I am going to give in support of this legislation I am indebted for the lessons of my time with the Australian Workers Union, particularly for the work of Dr Yossi Berger, David Healy, John Clarence, Stephen Price, Paul Howes, Cesar Melhem, Helmut Gries, Rod Currie, Jim Ward, .and also Tony McDonald and George Parker, who both recently received well-deserved life memberships of the AWU. For me, the question of the simple things that we can do to ensure that workers on offshore platforms can go home safely to their families at the end of their shifts and rosters should always be at the heart of any debate that goes towards health and safety. We need to recognise that workplace fatalities that occur too often in Australian workplaces can be prevented—and I never use the word ‘accident’ when I refer to fatality or serious injury at work.

In my work I have, sadly, attended the funerals of men killed at work. They were not just miners killed by man-made tremors, factory workers killed by needless explosions and forestry workers hit by debris by explosions, but hydrocarbon workers burnt by negligent safety systems. Despite the best efforts of many—and I include the best efforts of this government and employers, unions and employees—there is still an endless list of sorrow and heartbreak. There is no consolation for the death of people at work, in particular perhaps for the death of young people in the full bloom of their health. We all know that there is no consolation. None of us believe there is any hope, inspiration or usefulness in it at all. All we can do is try and learn from these tragedies and hope to prevent them occurring again.

The bills in this House today result from the government’s intention to establish a national offshore petroleum regulator from 1 January 2012 to strengthen the role of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority. NOPSA is something that I and those in the Labor Party from the Maritime Union of Australia, the AWU and other unions campaigned for. It took us 10 years of agitating to have the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority established in 2005. I regret to say that the previous government played games of hide-and-seek, of show-and-tell, of foot dragging and delay. As a direct result of these delays safety on offshore oil and gas rigs and construction projects over water was placed under pressure and we are now dealing with accidents and explosions.

Offshore facilities are inherently isolated and dangerous workplaces. There is a history of famous and not so famous tragedies on them, such as the Piper Alpha disaster in the United Kingdom and the BP Texas City disaster in 2005 which killed 15 people. The most recent event in Australia was at the Montara wellhead in the Timor Sea. It fortunately did not kill or injure anyone, but it did pollute the surrounding seas with oil. This incident is currently being investigated independently through the rigorous procedures established by this government and the relevant minister.

Under these bills, the government will retain fees raised under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Registration Fees) Act 2006 to provide establishment funding for the national offshore petroleum regulator. These amendments make sure that NOPSA’s existing functions relating to the structural integrity or the soundness, strength and stability of offshore petroleum facilities also expressly cover wells and well related equipment. They also expressly give them the ability to examine non-occupational health and safety aspects of structural integrity. Certain structures, like wells and pipelines, do not usually have people near them, but when they do they must be safe. This bill clarifies NOPSA’s powers to ensure the safety of workers.

The election of the Rudd government has seen a return of the importance of debate about occupational health and safety in this country. The past Liberal government did not seem to be greatly interested in talking about health and safety. There was much done to soften regulation, to reduce the power of watchdogs and, most importantly, to take the voice of workers out of the safety debate. There was plenty of vague speech of OH&S culture and safety management, of management of acceptable risk and risk assessments of the sort of management humbug that has seen people hurt in the past at work. They did not talk of the practicalities of keeping people safe, of the burning need to keep that principle at the heart of every workplace. There was little discussion of the laws and standards and the punishments for workplaces that put their employees’ lives in danger.

One thing that was not discussed was the need to talk to workers about it. That was a no-go zone; that was a taboo. I recall very clearly their ideological opposition to unions, as typified by the mindless zealotry that was Work Choices. It meant that all too often they could not bring themselves to discuss safety with the people who dealt with hazards every day. As Dr Berger has written:

It is difficult to achieve good occupational health and safety standards in a workplace atmosphere bristling with denial and a sense of unfairness.

If you look at the record of the 12 years of the Howard government, why did they abandon the farmers? Why did they let dangerous chemicals, such as parathion-ethyl, a close relation of sarin nerve gas, continue to pollute our crops until the union banned it? They killed off Worksafe Australia and dispersed 100 fine researchers who would never again be gathered to do the work that they did so well as a critical mass before they were removed.

We are returning some of that capacity through Safe Work Australia, and after a decade of neglect we are trying to bring health and safety back—a decade after those opposite put the wrecking ball through the lot. We are working with the states to harmonise national health and safety laws which will place an unqualified obligation on employers to provide a safe workplace and to enshrine the power for workers to stop unsafe work, a power currently only available to 14½ per cent of the Australian workforce. We want to restore the requirement for employers to talk to employees about work related matters that affect their health and safety. This is common sense to me and it is common sense unless you still wear the Work Choices blinkers, as some opposite do. One thing this government is doing is listening to workers, because they are the ones who see the risks every day. The offshore workers, the ones I had the privilege of visiting and working with over 15 years, particularly those in Bass Strait, worked for 10 years to get NOPSA established. We are not blinded by ideology to the value of the years of learned experience in the workplaces and unions across Australia, to the people who heard the complaints and concerns of workers, who visited the sites and who tried to stop the injuries before they happened.

Whatever legislation we pass in this place and whatever good work is done by inspectors and regulators does not change the fact that safety in the workplace depends on us listening to workers. We need to ensure that every platform, every construction vessel and every pipe-laying barge has a strong OH&S committee and that each shift includes workers well versed in OH&S. They must be encouraged to report safety issues to management and to be included in discussions about safety. Risks taken for the sake of productivity should not be tolerated. We can and must do better. Zero harm is not a poster on a wall; it represents not just a desirable but a real and achievable outcome in the workplaces of this country.

The struggle for safer workplaces is one that will never end. We also need to act to ensure the gains made in the past and to improve safety in the future. I suggest that good health and safety offshore is often a struggle of memory against forgetting and of remembering the lessons learned and the lives lost. It should be a struggle against the slow spread of complacency and the temptation to take shortcuts. These bills are a small step towards improving the chances that workers in the offshore hydrocarbon and petroleum industries will end their careers alive, with their limbs intact and with the ability to enjoy their retirement.

But it would be remiss of me if I did not reiterate on the record that this bill, as with all safety legislation, has no relevance without effective, relevant and accurate inspections and very effective OH&S processes at the site. The former means that we need an experienced and well-supported inspectorate which must be encouraged to regularly inspect for OH&S standards as if their family were working there, not with an eye for not disrupting business. The latter observation about effective safety processes at site means that we must dispense with the blind faith in the regular nonsense that cultural change will suffice. We must dispense with the nonsense that can blind people to the fact that more and more risk is tolerated for the sake of productivity.

I have seen firsthand the aftermath of OH&S tragedy, where it is admitted with hindsight that plenty of shortcuts were taken by everybody but tolerated because of the various levels of denial. I have seen all too often the astonishment of the distressed manager. Again I am grateful for Dr Yossi Berger, from whom I will quote: ‘The astonished managers have the following or similar expressions of surprise after the tragedy: “I would never have thought”; “Not in my wildest dreams”; “That was totally unexpected”; “Who would’ve imagined?”; “I’d never have expected”; “I can’t imagine why anyone would do that”; “How could you possibly see this happening?”‘ These are all recorded instances after fatality or amputation.

Is it appropriate? Is it legitimate? Is it fair and natural to express astonishment at the death or maiming of workers. I suggest it is not. I think it is very important that the regulator, with its new areas in the new legislation, should recognise that we need to take careful note of the opinions and experiences of people working in the offshore industry. The presence of a board alone will not make workers safer. I suggest, for example, an examination of the age of the helicopter fleet currently bringing in and taking workers and material from platforms in the offshore industry. Is the helicopter fleet that serves the Australian offshore industry amongst the 22 or 25 offshore oil production fields around the world one of the oldest helicopter fleets in the world, and does this mean that we are heading for disasters that are not yet being acted upon and, indeed, may not likely be acted upon with these changes?

Finally, I also note for the new regulator the benefits of creating a small team of experienced workers or ex-workers—perhaps even the troublemakers—to promote the bad news, to act like OH&S ambassadors or bad-news officers all around all offshore facilities. Sharing information like that would be invaluable. In modern organisations it is always easier to get promoted when you pass on the good news. The question in health and safety, I have found, is what the bad news is that is not being passed up an organisation. In the petroleum and hydrocarbon industry, what is the bad news that is not being heard by the regulator or by the employers? I think the challenge is to promote bad news as opposed to just wanting to hear good news. With that, I commend the bill to the parliament.

See this speech in context