Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While not opposing the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and the consequential provisions, there are a number of matters I wish to raise, for, adding to the succession of Labor’s botched policies since it came to government, this House is now to consider the establishment of Safe Work Australia—a body that will be dominated by state representatives making decisions about occupational health and safety policy for employers and employees who have little or no voice or influence in this process and who most certainly will have far less influence in terms of representation than they currently have on these issues. The government is seeking to replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council established by the coalition whilst in government to facilitate the tripartite coordination and harmonisation of workplace safety and workers compensation laws. Under the coalition, the Australian Safety and Compensation Council was designed to facilitate a national approach to workplace safety and workers compensation, utilising a tripartite, consultative method to draw on and include employer and employee knowledge and experience in the move towards a national occupational health and safety workers compensation system.

While the coalition is broadly supportive of a harmonised national occupational health and safety system, it would be difficult to imagine a body better designed to fail in achieving this objective than the body proposed under this bill. Unlike the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, Safe Work Australia reduces the number of social partners—that is, the industry and union representatives—from three to two for each partner. That is, there will be a total of four, not six, industry and union representatives. This is a reduction by one-third of representatives for each social partner. Compare that with the representation on the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, which is essentially being rebranded, albeit in a way that compromises the tripartite approach traditionally required for occupational health and safety regulation to effectively operate in workplaces.

The government’s proposed structure for Safe Work Australia will create an imbalance whereby workplaces directly impacted by the development and formulation of occupational health and safety will be denied the opportunity to genuinely participate in the decision-making process underpinning the formulation of such policy. Labor talks—often—about its commitment to occupational health and safety, yet Labor does not appear to understand that a process that does not seek to actively engage employers and workers in a meaningful way will not produce the improvements in workplace health and safety that are necessary for Australian workers. When it comes to effective safety in the workplace there can be no contest that improving and sustaining OH&S performance in the workplace from both an employer and an employee perspective is achieved by doing ‘with’ people, not by doing ‘to’ people.

This is particularly the case where achieving outcomes involves significant changes, costly changes or changes to culture. Once again, Labor has failed Australian workers and workplaces with the proposed establishment of Safe Work Australia. The current composition of Safe Work Australia fails to have proper regard for the views of industry and employees, which will undermine its credibility and the outcome it seeks to achieve prior to the bill even being passed. For many years, Australian workplaces, particularly those operating across state boundaries, have been forced to endure seven separate jurisdictions with seven sets of occupational health and safety laws and workers compensation requirements. The costs to business are prohibitive. Funds that could have been better spent by business on training, employee development or additional safety mechanisms are required to be spent understanding, complying with and implementing numerous OH&S and workers compensation systems across every state and territory. In contrast, those companies fortunate enough to secure self-insurance under the coalition government have saved literally millions of dollars and yet have still delivered safe and healthy workplaces for their employees. In the case of Safe Work Australia, we are now witnessing a common Labor trait, where they cross their fingers behind their backs and tell Australian workers and business that they are doing one thing but, instead, make decisions and create ineffective regulations that actually create more problems than they solve.

Labor is limiting the involvement of social partners, and this is just inconceivable. Why would Labor want to limit the number of representatives from employers and employees? This is no doubt going to lead to a situation where government representatives will be able to repeatedly override legitimate concerns raised by the social partners during OH&S harmonisation discussions, including concerns relating to increased costs, or to impractical safety proposals for workplaces. You have the bureaucrats outnumbering those who are actually working in the workplaces across Australia. With limited capacity to oppose various proposals there is no doubt Safe Work Australia will be used by the government to develop other codes, policies and regulations under the guise of safety to achieve certain industrial outcomes on behalf of minority interests that would otherwise need to be discussed with stakeholders at a state level.

Clearly, the government has borrowed this approach from its Labor counterparts at a state level, where workplaces are already in many cases overwhelmed with impractical and unworkable occupational health and safety laws. Now federal Labor wants to introduce a body to achieve harmonisation which will be dominated by those same Labor governments, their bureaucrats and their advisers who have already failed to establish in many cases workable occupational health and safety and workers compensation systems in their own states. Remarkably, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is determined not to listen to stakeholders, not to listen to the representatives of employers, and of employees—the unions—with significant involvement in workplaces. Instead, the minister has chosen to reduce their representation and rely on state governments, who have already failed in their own backyards.

The foundation upon which Safe Work Australia has been established is fundamentally flawed, with the direction and success of Safe Work Australia also being contingent on the cooperation and participation of the ministerial council to which it is required to directly report. Members of the ministerial council have repeatedly failed to attend and/or cooperate with the Commonwealth in these meetings, which raises legitimate concerns about just how effective Safe Work Australia will be in an environment where state Labor governments have not been willing to cooperate and genuinely contribute to discussions about the harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws across Australia—particularly the New South Wales state Labor government, which has been reported by many as having the least effective and most costly OH&S system in this country.

Where the ministerial council fails to meet or refuses to cooperate and to consider the Safe Work Australia issues, the work of Safe Work Australia comes to a halt—that is it. Just last year we witnessed the New South Wales Minister for Industrial Relations refusing to cooperate in a national discussion on occupational health and safety. He refused to cooperate! If anything, this Safe Work Australia Bill, in its current form, will make it easier for uncooperative state Labor governments to undermine the harmonisation process for their own political gain. Further, the proposed structure creates an unjustifiable imbalance. Improving OH&S performance is critically dependent on a collaborative effort and the buy-in of all stakeholders. A process that does not seek to engage workers and employers in a meaningful way does not lead to improvements in workplace health and safety.

Labor’s duplicity is further highlighted by its unwillingness to report back to the parliament on the progress of Safe Work Australia. This is extraordinary. The bill currently proposes a process for reporting back to parliament on the progress of Safe Work Australia every six years. Every six years! It is incomprehensible that Labor wants to introduce a state dominated independent authority that has no requirement to report back to the federal parliament for six years. I would have thought that annual reporting on an issue as important as occupational health and safety and workers compensation would be appropriate. But every six years? Beyond the term of a government? This is a nonsense.

Safe Work Australia is just another botched policy—when it would have been so easy to get it right—on top of the failed Fuelwatch, the failed GroceryWatch, the proposed abolition of the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner and, in the past week, the failure of the award modernisation process, which industry says could potentially lead to significant job losses and inflationary outcomes. There is one common thread running through all of these botched Labor policies: the Labor government does not have a plan and is incapable of listening to Australians and delivering credible and acceptable policy solutions.

An example of this is the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner. It is under threat from the Labor government. Last year the construction industry contributed 6.7 per cent to Australia’s GDP and employed approximately 940,000 workers, or nine per cent of the Australian workforce. The coalition’s reforms and hard stance on lawlessness and corruption within the building and construction industry from 2002 onwards directly contributed to a significant reduction in the number and cost of strikes, increasing output and productivity. In comparison to the $76 million being spent by the Rudd Labor government to maybe, just maybe, achieve a 0.8 per cent increase in GDP, the Office of the ABCC, for a fraction of that cost—an average of $30 million a year—has already achieved a 1.5 per cent increase in GDP—

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the expense of people’s lives.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What rubbish! Protecting crooks like Kevin Reynolds and Joe McDonald.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

yet Labor has placed this dark cloud over the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner at the behest of its union bosses—and I take the interjection from the member for Stirling.

By watering down the compliance powers of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner and the national building code and then subsuming the body into some superbureaucracy, Fair Work Australia, Labor is opening the door wide and allowing the lawlessness, the corruption, to once again become the norm rather than the exception in the building and construction industry. If Labor were genuinely committed to ensuring the safety of workplaces, employees and employers, it would hold firm on the retention of the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner and the national building code—the two elements that have provided some degree of protection and safety for participants in that industry from the thuggish bullying tactics engaged in by certain elements of the building and construction unions.

There is already reported and widespread misuse of safety powers on building sites, and now Labor is proposing a body that may well water down any capacity workplaces have to control or address the misuse of such powers by watering down the powers of the ABCC and establishing Safe Work Australia, a state controlled safety authority. You can just imagine the representatives that the state Labor governments around the country will put on this body.

In their quest to appease the union movement and abolish the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner as it is currently constituted, members of the Labor government are disregarding the reason for the establishment of the Office of the ABCC and the introduction of the building code in the first place. This is reflected in the terms of reference of the Wilcox inquiry, where once again Labor appears to be rewriting history, pretending the Cole royal commission never, ever happened. There is no reference to the Cole royal commission or the reasons for the establishment of the Office of the ABCC in any aspect of the new terms of reference. In fact, the final terms of the inquiry contain no reference to considering the importance of retaining the independence of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, nor the decline in industrial disputation in the construction sector since its establishment, nor the increase in productivity since the creation of the commissioner and the national building code.

Even worse, this month the head of the inquiry, Murray Wilcox QC, raised concerns about subcontractors being banned from tendering because they are non-compliant with code guidelines—non-compliant because they are, in many cases, breaking the law. Is the head of inquiry suggesting there is something wrong with employers being required to comply with the law? The purpose of the code and the building industry reforms in the first place was to prevent laws from being broken by union officials, contractors and employees. Why are we now hearing of concerns because the same parties are required to follow the law under the building reforms? Labor’s terms of reference for the Wilcox inquiry contain not one reference to how it will ensure the rule of law will be maintained and not overridden once more by industrial might. There is only one reason for this: Labor has no intention of maintaining the rule of law in the building and construction industry. For its payback to the union movement and its attempts to undermine the effective operation of workplaces in the building industry, the Labor government should be condemned.

The flawed policies all contributing to the demise of a once outstanding economic position keep on coming from Labor, with last week’s release of a draft exposure award from the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in response to a direct award modernisation request from the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Not only are there 1.88 million small businesses staring down the barrel of significant costs in the form of extended redundancy obligations but the retail and hospitality industries are predicting labour costs will increase by up to 20 per cent as a direct result of the employment minister’s award modernisation request. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission has been unable to comply with the employment minister’s pledge to not increase costs for employers and not disad-vantage employees. It was an impossible position that the employment minister placed on the AIRC.

The national retailers association has said employers will have no choice but to pass increased costs on to consumers and reduce staff levels as a direct result of the employment minister’s award modernisation request. The restaurant and caterers association of Australia has submitted that Labor’s award modernisation request will add up to $40 million in additional labour costs, leading to excessive closures and job losses—another botched policy decision leading to job losses and inflationary outcomes.

A close inspection of recent ABS statistics shows that there has been an 800 per cent increase in working days lost in the first six months of the Rudd government compared with the first six months of last year. When the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations was asked about this very serious issue that affects workplaces across Australia—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. We have been waiting for the honourable member to return in some way to the subject matter of this bill, which is safety. We have just endured about 10 minutes—

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the honourable member for Isaacs please resume his seat. I am aware of the standing order on relevance. This is a robust chamber where we do engage in wide-ranging debate, but I would ask the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to direct her comments to the bill.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. And when the min-ister for employment was asked about the number of strikes that had occurred under the new government—the industrial action that inevitably affects safety in the work-place, if the member for Isaacs has not ever under-stood that connection—the minister said in response that it was all to do with new agreement making. Yet the same Aust-ralian Bureau of Statistics figures show that 74 per cent of the working days lost had nothing to do with new agreement making. We are still waiting to hear from Labor as to the cause of this massive increase in industrial disputation since Labor came to office.

Labor came to office vowing to turn back the Liberal and National Party workplace relations reforms, albeit that they had delivered benefits such as low inflation and the lowest unemployment rate in more than 30 years. Labor must now manage economic problems such as inflation and slowing growth. It must now also seriously look at its workplace relations policies. What is at stake was made clear a few months ago by the Reserve Bank governor, Glenn Stevens, discussing why 1970s style stagflation—that is, high inflation and low growth—should not occur today in Australia. He said:

A key difference today, thus far, has been the behaviour of labour costs … If you go back to the mid-1970s, you had the government leading the charge in pushing wages up, you had a very different balance of power between the unions and business, a different quasi-judicial industrial relations system, and we had a serious wage-price problem back then … We don’t have that at the moment, and we must make sure we don’t get it.

The importance of efficient and flexible labour markets to achieving macroeconomic objectives has been made clear in a series of OECD economic surveys of Australia. While the Labor government is very good at trying to suggest that the Reserve Bank gave warn-ings about inflation, when you look at those statements you see that that is complete fallacy on the part of Labor. They are rewriting history once more. They ought to take note of the OECD comments about a decentralised industrial relations system, less adversarial labour relations and greater labour flexibility. The coalition understood the central importance of workplace relations to the economic wellbeing of the country. The Rudd Labor government clearly does not.

The Deputy Prime Minister and her department have made it clear that, in the 10 months since taking office, no analysis has been undertaken on the effects of Labor’s workplace relations policy on unemployment, inflation or economic growth. Incredibly, the minister has not requested a detailed, rigorous analysis of Labor’s workplace relations policy from her department nor sought assistance from Treasury. And the minister shows no intention of commissioning any serious analysis of the policies she is introducing. Instead, like the ostrich in the fable, the minister has buried her head in the sand, hoping to avoid any uncomfortable truths from the world around her.

Labor’s aversion to evidence is typical of its approach to policy. The Prime Minister promised evidence based policy but has delivered evidence-free policy. Labor ignored the advice of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Finance and other departments on Fuelwatch. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has stopped preparing written comments on cabinet submissions—at whose command is unclear. The fact is that the government is refusing to take advice, and the establishment of Safe Work Australia is yet another example of this. How could it possibly set up a body that reduces the voice of employers and employees if it were serious about improving occupational health and safety in this country?

This lack of attention to evidence and the views of stakeholders does not end there. Yesterday the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations revealed her deep ignorance about a very fundamental economic issue: productivity and the measurement of productivity in Australia. In a speech at the National Press Club the minister said:

… Work Choices was neither a recipe for fairness nor for prosperity. In fact, after its introduction annual productivity fell by two-thirds.

I will repeat that. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations said: ‘In fact after its introduction annual productivity fell by two-thirds.’ Now, if that were actually the case, and Australia’s annual productivity had fallen by two-thirds, GDP would now be closer to $370 billion than to $1.1 trillion. It is disturbing that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations does not understand such a basic economic concept as productivity. The minister also confirmed that the Rudd government’s proposed new workplace relations regime will be a Trojan horse for the union movement to resume practices such as pattern bargaining—which the minister supported at the Press Club yesterday—unrestricted access to workplaces and compulsory unionism.

The fact is that Labor’s workplace rela-tions changes—and this bill is part of this consideration—are going to cause a great deal of concern in workplaces across Aust-ra-lia. One serious concern is that Labor’s introduction of so-called good-faith bargaining will result in situations where employers are dragged before Labor’s industrial umpire and where unwanted conditions and wages can be imposed on workplaces. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations also said yesterday that pattern bargaining was not such a bad idea. We on this side of the House know that wage claims in one area of the economy which can absorb an increase should not be passed on and spread to other sectors of the economy which cannot absorb one. That is the type of environment for a wage-inflation spiral that can lead to the types of recessions we have seen under Labor governments before—and yet, astonishingly, the minister said yesterday that she supported pattern bargaining. The minister also confirmed that the Rudd government’s proposed new laws will allow unions to force employers into deducting employee union dues on their behalf.

The establishment of Safe Work Australia is another botched policy by Labor that reduces the voice of, incredibly, the unions, but also employers, effectively taking away the influence of those who know best when it comes to the issue of occupational health and safety in the workplace and putting it in the hands of state government bureaucrats—another job for Labor mates. What we are seeing is a watering down of the influence of the people who are best positioned to improve occupational health and safety in this country. Labor’s workplace relations changes, like its emissions trading scheme, are major policies which, if poorly conceived and implemented, will add greatly to the na-tion’s economic challenges. With the tumul-tuous international financial markets and the global financial insecurity we are now witnessing across the world, Australia cannot afford to embrace policies that cause job losses or job insecurity, but that is what we are seeing under this government’s so-called ‘reforms’ of workplace relations.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008, which is a bill to create an independent national body which will oversee occupational health and safety and workers compensation in this country, to be known as Safe Work Australia. This represents the first major legislative step by the Rudd government to create in our nation one single occupational health and safety and workers compensation system.

Occupational health and safety is an issue which is very dear to my heart. In my previous life at the ACTU, and also as a member of the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission and then the Australian Safety and Compensation Council—both of which will be predecessor bodies to Safe Work Australia—I made many speeches around occupational health and safety to try and promote the issue of OH&S in the nation’s public discussion. So it is a real joy—indeed, an honour—for me to be standing here in what is really the heart of our nation’s public debate, the House of Representatives, to repeat some of those words today.

Before I talk about occupational health and safety, I would like, with your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, to take a moment to talk about an event which at first may seem unrelated but whose relevance will become clear very quickly. It is a significant event in Australia’s history and one which is central to our national identity, and that is the ANZAC campaign at Gallipoli. Gallipoli is a story which is very much at the heart of our nation’s culture. You can see that in all the Lone Pine Streets around our suburbs. The spirit of Anzac is evoked on many occasions. Even the film Gallipoli is an icon in our Australian film history, starring, as it does, Mel Gibson and directed by Peter Weir.

Why Gallipoli is so important to the Australian culture is not entirely obvious, but partly it must be that it is the story which embodies Australia’s participation in the First World War. There can be no doubt as to why that conflict was so important in Australia’s history. The loss of life of Australians in that conflict was staggering. Proportionately as many lives were lost by Australia in that conflict as by any of the allies who fought in it. That such an event happened so early on in our nation’s history makes it clear why it should be seared onto our national consciousness. You cannot go into a country town or a city in Australia with a population of more than one or two hundred without finding in it a monument to those who died in the First World War. For the record, in the nine-month campaign at Gallipoli, 8,000 Australians lost their lives. In the greater World War I conflict, 60,000 Australians lost their lives and 156,000 Australians were injured.

As I say, that may seem to be an odd way to start a discussion about occupational health and safety. So it is worth thinking about the situation of occupational health and safety in Australia today. The most conservative estimates say that well in excess of 2,000 Australians die each and every year as a result of their work, and there are many estimates far larger than that. To put that figure in context, with all its accumulated heartache, trauma and tragedy, the national road toll to the month of August this year was 1,510. In the 12 months leading up to September 2000, 477,800 Australians were injured at work, and it is estimated that, when all is said and done, something in the vicinity of 40,000 to 60,000 Australians will die as a result of work related exposure to asbestos. These figures are staggering and they beg the question of whether or not we should simply accept these figures as the price of doing business in a modern market economy. The human tragedy and misery that those accumulated figures represent for me completely answers that question: we must never accept it.

When I first heard those figures, the only comparison that I could think of in terms of Australian life was indeed the loss of Australian life and injury during World War I. But, whilst the figures may be similar, the place that occupational health and safety holds on the one hand and World War I holds on the other in the national psyche could not be further removed from each other. There are no monuments in all those country towns to those Australians who have died as a result of work related exposure to asbestos. There is no film directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson which tells the tragedy of Australia’s occupational health and safety record. While I completely understand that films and monuments are not going to save lives, that does say a little to me about the lack of priority that our nation places upon occupational health and safety. Given the lack of priority that we place on occupational health and safety, it should be little wonder to any of us that by international standards our OH&S record is found wanting.

I have made that comparison on many occasions over the last few years, and, to me, something of an improvement in the profile of occupational health and safety has occurred in those few years, I think by virtue of two events. First was the tragedy of the death of Larry Knight at Beaconsfield and the accompanying drama of the rescue of Todd Russell and Brant Webb, which absolutely held our nation spellbound for the better part of two weeks. I think what we need to remember about the heroic rescue in that case was that underlying it was an occupational health and safety incident, and a major one at that.

I also think one of the reasons we find it difficult to digest the effects of occupational health and safety injuries and deaths is the nature of the injuries and deaths. In fact, traumatic deaths are a small proportion of those who die as a result of their work. Far and away the majority of people who die as a result of their work do so by virtue of having contracted some disease. They die an often lonely and unnoticed death many years later in their homes or in a hospital. For those people, a story in the last couple of years has highlighted their situation, and that of course was the heroic life of Bernie Banton, who maintained a magnificent struggle against James Hardie in winning a landmark settlement with that company.

In these two events, I think we have seen the profile of OH&S beginning to be raised in our national discussion. We are seeing this great untold Australian story beginning to be told, and that is very welcome. But it has not come too soon, because there are many statistics which indicate that the situation is getting worse. I said that in the 12 months to September 2000, 477,800 Australians were injured at work. In the financial year 2005-06, that figure rose to 689,500. Over that five-year period, whilst the workforce grew by 12 per cent, accidents in the workplace grew by 44 per cent, with an additional 200,000 Australians being injured in that year compared to five years earlier. Of the many indictments that exist of the Howard government years, for my money, this is amongst the worst.

How we improve our occupational health and safety record is actually a difficult and complex question. Certainly it does involve telling the story of occupational health and safety in this country. But when you drill down to it there are a couple of issues which I think we do need to improve on if we are going to see changes in the workplace. For example, all too often, it seems to me, we regulate the symptoms of occupational health and safety hazards rather than the causes. For example, there is myriad regulation out there aimed at preventing people from tripping and falling at work, and of course that is a good thing. The single biggest reason why a person would trip or fall at work is that they were tired or fatigued at the time. However, there is barely any regulation around fatigue in occupational health and safety. Indeed, the great causes of occupational health and safety hazards in this country—fatigue, stress and bullying—go almost entirely unregulated, and in that we are a country mile behind the leading nations in Europe.

Another issue, which is related to the first, is the manner in which we keep statistics in this country. We keep very good statistics around workers compensation. But if you take a moment to look at those statistics, you will find they are a measure of the symptoms. They are describing the kinds of injuries that have occurred; they are not describing the causes which gave rise to the injuries. As a result, when that is the base data that we are working with when we try and formulate policy, it should be no surprise that the regulation that evolves is regulation around symptoms rather than causes. But underlying all of that is this: to solve these issues and to take the kinds of decisions that we need to around those two issues that I have highlighted, and to raise the profile of occupational health and safety in this country, we need to have a proper apparatus for occupational health and safety and workers compensation in Australia. That is why the bill that we are debating today is so important and why it is so critical to giving us the machinery to solve these issues.

The first point to be made about what is wrong with our public policy architecture around occupational health and safety is that instead of having a single system in Australia we have nine systems—six states, two territories and the Commonwealth jurisdiction. Whilst there is a great deal of consistency between each of those jurisdictions, there are differences as well. In all my time in occupational health and safety, it was never obvious to me why a Victorian set of ears was more sensitive to noise than those in Western Australia. To be fair to the Howard government, they did understand this issue, but their response to it was a knee-jerk response which made the whole field of occupational health and safety and workers compensation even more complex, and in fact did the wrong thing in terms of providing a safety framework.

Through an old regime of licences, which ultimately were an incident of competition policy, which in a sense is another story, the Howard government allowed a number of companies to access Comcare—the Commonwealth workers compensation scheme—and then, via that, the Commonwealth’s occupational health and safety jurisdiction. It was a cobbled together idea. There was no preparation in there. The single biggest issue is this: the Commonwealth jurisdiction is simply not set up to enforce occupational health and safety laws in environments that are heavily blue-collar like construction sites or transport yards. If you look at the enforcement indicators that exist, in the financial year 2005-06 there were 70 prosecutions in the state of Victoria and none in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. In terms of provisional improvement notices, there were 11,168 in Victoria and 12 in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. Taking account of the relative sizes of the jurisdictions, if you were an employer in Victoria in that year you were 24 times more likely to be the subject of an inspection than if you were an employer in the Commonwealth jurisdiction. That is not a marginal difference; that is a situation where on the one hand a system is being enforced and on the other it is not. And it is absolutely fair to say that Commonwealth occupational health and safety under the Howard years represented the Wild West of occupational health and safety law. It was to that scheme that they tried to attract national employers through what was essentially a federal power grab. It was confrontational federalism at its worst. Today, in this place, the legislative process has begun to rectify all of that.

The Rudd government are approaching this in an entirely different way. We are engaging in cooperative federalism by putting in place Safe Work Australia, a body which is being established with the cooperation of all the states and territories in Australia. Importantly, Safe Work Australia will, for the first time, unlike its predecessors, be a body which is jointly funded by the Commonwealth and the states so that the states have a real sense of ownership in what Safe Work Australia ultimately does. Safe Work Australia will be charged with the responsibility of developing national policy around occupational health and safety and workers compensation and, importantly, of guiding us down the path of harmonising our occupational health and safety laws to a more consistent regime of workers compensation in this country. It will look after the standards and codes which traditionally have been looked after by NOHSC and the ASCC.

To be frank, the drivel that we just heard from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition about the kinds of people who are going to be on this body was astounding. It demonstrates that she has not the faintest idea about how those bodies worked or how this body works. In fact, the best experts in occupational health and safety and workers compensation are, without a doubt, those people in Australia who are actually running these jurisdictions. This body will be a tripartite body, as NOHSC and the ASCC have been, which is very important because you then get the expertise of both the union movement and the employer movement involved in the deliberations.

Safe Work Australia will also have responsibility for collecting data and, given the issue that I raised before, this offers real hope for actually getting statistics and information properly orientated around occupational health and safety in this country. Safe Work Australia will also be charged with the responsibility of developing a communications strategy. As I said at the outset of my contribution, raising the profile of occupational health and safety in our national discussion is very important. Safe Work Australia will have an independent chair. I have worked under the independent chairs of NOHSC and the ASCC, Jerry Ellis and Bill Scales, both of whom have made an enormous contribution to occupational health and safety in this country in what I might say were very difficult circumstances for both of them. They have taught me the importance of having a strong, independent chair leading an organisation such as this. As I say, there will be representatives from each of the jurisdictions, from employers and employees, giving the body a proper tripartite basis.

This legislative initiative today, together with the Rudd government’s review of the Comcare scheme, together with the establishment of an independent panel which is looking at the national occupational health and safety framework in Australia, and together with the landmark intergovernmental agreement between all the states and territories and the Commonwealth around harmonising our occupational health and safety laws, represents a very significant forward program to rectify what is, by international standards, a very poor occupational health and safety record. We absolutely need to do that and as quickly as we can. Occupational health and safety affects everyone. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Australians have their lives changed because of an injury in the workplace. That means that every year Australia’s poor occupational health and safety record breeds a well of misery which is unmatched in its scale in almost any other part of Australian life. It is time to start the process of changing Australia’s occupational health and safety performance. That start begins with this bill.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, let me say that I fully support moves towards the rationalisation of workers compensation and occupational health and safety and towards making our workplaces safer. We need to do all we can to ensure that workplace accidents are kept to an absolute minimum and that, when accidents do happen, those affected can easily access financial support while they are unable to work and the physical support necessary to achieve a return to work whenever possible. Safe Work Australia is tasked with developing national policy, monitoring legislation and codes of practice, developing consistent enforcement policies and raising awareness of health and safety at work. It will report to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. If Safe Work Australia achieves these aims, it will be a step forward.

However, the government should be aiming higher and trying to overcome the obstacles to reform that have existed for many years. The Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 will not do that. After looking more closely at what we should be trying to achieve, I would like to raise some issues with the structure of Safe Work Australia and then examine the political obstacles that will provide a test for the government and its good intentions. At the heart of this bill is the need to reform Australia’s systems of workers compensation and occupational health and safety with the overarching problem that each state and territory maintains its own regime, with Comcare operating at a federal level. This multiplicity of regimes imposes an unnecessary burden on any company operating interstate, without any corresponding benefit for employees. Indeed, in terms of the competitiveness of our economy, one could argue that employees are disadvantaged by reduced job security. For instance, Optus has calculated that a single national self-insurance scheme for occupational health and safety alone would save up to $2 million of its $6 million annual workers compensation costs. Insurance Australia Group estimates that multiple schemes added some $10.1 million to the cost of setting up its national IT platform and cost about $1.7 million annually to run.

As long ago as 2006, the Productivity Commission calculated that a reduction in regulatory compliance costs could result in a saving of $8 billion a year—0.8 per cent of GDP—through developing a national approach to policy making in a range of areas. Australia has a population of just 21 million, and we are trying to compete with countries like China and India, which have huge and potentially profitable internal markets and vast export potential, yet we handicap ourselves with these unnecessary costs. The European Union, with its population approaching 500 million and its diversity of languages and cultures, is continually rationalising across national boundaries.

We have been slow historically in dealing with inconsistencies between our states, and we continue to drag our heels. Our failure to rationalise, to put aside state and sectional interests for the national good, is holding Australia back. The benefits to the health service, say, of saving nearly one per cent of GDP, as I mentioned, would be substantial. What if these resources were diverted to our schools? What if savings of that order could be offset against the cost of an emissions trading scheme or invested in clean and renewable energy production? It is high time we put the national interest above state interests.

Of course, this kind of reform has been on the agenda of the Council of Australian Governments for some time, but it has to be said that there has been little progress to date. The cynic might suggest that the coalition government was never going to make any headway in transferring powers from Labor run states, even if it was good for the nation—and I would suggest they were right. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas—and don’t we have some turkeys running our states and territories! In the last few weeks, however, the cosy position of wall-to-wall Labor administrations has been looking less secure, as voters have indicated their desire that the turkeys should be plucked and stuffed. Western Australia is certainly a notable example. In the meantime, as we await further opportunities at the ballot box, we surely have the right to expect some progress.

I acknowledge that the aims of Safe Work Australia do represent some progress—but do they go far enough? I note that Safe Work Australia will ‘prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety legislation and model codes of practice’ and ‘develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions’. The adoption by all states and territories of model legislation would at least mean that companies operating interstate would only have to comply with one set of requirements in the workplace. However, it would still mean dealing with a different jurisdiction in each state and territory. Any changes to the model legislation would have to be enacted in each state or territory, with the distinct possibility that differences would again arise between jurisdictions because of different legislative timetables.

Consistent enforcement policies would also be welcome. I am sure that we have all heard stories of how inspections on one side of a state border can result in a warning, advice and a follow-up visit, whilst, on the other side of that border, the same set of circumstances results in immediate prosecution. Any move towards consistency is welcome, but how much better it would be if federal legislation were enforced by a single federal enforcement agency, with presumably some saving on cost to the taxpayer in addition to benefits to business.

Turning to the composition of this new body: of 15 members, nine will represent the Commonwealth and states and territories. The remainder would be made up of two representing employers, two representing employees, an independent chair and the chief executive officer. It would make recommendations to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, as I said previously. Its composition is, therefore, heavily political, and those members who one would hope would have some practical industry experience will be severely outnumbered. This is of particular importance when one looks at the voting arrangements. It transpires that they will not merely be outnumbered; they will in effect be marginalised. I quote from the explanatory memorandum to the bill with regard to clause 38—Decisions at meetings etc.

This clause provides for a two-thirds majority of the votes of the voting members present and voting to determine a question at a meeting other than a question relating to the model OHS legislation or model OHS codes of practice.

It goes on:

… any decisions concerning model OHS legislation and model OHS codes of practice must be made by an absolute majority of all the voting members representing the Commonwealth, States and Territories.

So any proposal on OH&S legislation and codes of practice, no matter how beneficial or practical, that fails to meet the vested interests of the states and territories will fail to get before the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. The explanatory memorandum continues with reference to clause 40 of the bill:

This clause requires all members (including the CEO and substitute members) to disclose any pecuniary or other interest in matters under consideration by SWA.

Members declaring an interest:

… must not be present during any deliberation by SWA on the matter and must not take part in any decision on the matter.

Then we come to the crunch, and again I quote:

However—

and this is a very important ‘however’—

this requirement does not apply to any decision with respect to the model OHS legislation or model OHS codes of practice. This ensures that the requirements of an absolute majority of the Commonwealth, States and Territories—as provided for by subclause 38(2)—are not undermined by ‘conflicting out’ those members.

This amounts to a political fix—to avoid causing the council any embarrassment by having to veto proposals it knows it cannot deliver. In the matter of model legislation and codes of practice, it seems Safe Work Australia will not be an independent body at all, merely a creature of the state and territory representatives. On the one hand, the government is paying lip-service to the principles of conflict of interest and then, on the other hand, it chooses to ignore them. So much for the independence of Safe Work Australia. It is only independent up to the point at which the interests of the states and territories are threatened, at which point the views and advice of those members with practical industry experience can be virtually ignored. It is the vested interests of the states and territories—and one state in particular—that have resulted in the existing plethora of different rules, regulations and enforcement practices in the first place.

If the government is serious about reform, then how about this as an alternative: a body comprised entirely of employers and employees’ representatives, reporting not to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council but to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, who oversees federal legislation and enforcement? At this point, I acknowledge that some states and territories have gone further down the road of reforming OH&S matters than others. But, as we have seen with prolonged discussions over the fate of the Murray-Darling, it may only take one state to block the reform process, however critical the circumstances.

In order to see how the interests of the states and territories are likely to be represented on Safe Work Australia, we need to look at their record of reform under the present arrangements. The international benchmark for modern OH&S practices in legislation was set following the UK parliamentary inquiry by Lord Robens in 1972. The Robens report noted the apathy that existed with regard to OH&S at the same time and made the following statement:

… safety awareness industry and commerce can only be developed by an accumulation of influences and pressures operating at many levels—that of the boardroom, the senior manager, the supervisor, the trade unions, the worker on the shop floor.

The solution was to establish the principle that every individual involved in the work should be held responsible and liable for what they can practically and reasonably control. This principle of practical and reasonable control has become an international benchmark since it was put forward in 1972. Yet, when we look at the duty of care descriptions in the various Australian jurisdictions, we find that two states have still not yet caught up. In New South Wales, the employer has a total obligation to safety while the employee has only to take reasonable care. In Queensland, the employer again has a total obligation to safety while an employee only has to follow the employer’s instructions. In all other jurisdictions, the duties of care are similar, as suggested by Lord Robens.

I remind the House that Safe Work Australia can put forward changes to model legislation and codes of practice only on the basis of an absolute majority of Commonwealth, state and territory members. To make progress, it will have to rely on the goodwill of the minority in accepting the position of the majority. This may be optimistic, particularly in the case of New South Wales. The position was tipped even further against employers with the passage of a new OH&S act in 2000 in that state. This provided for a presumption of guilt against the legal employer but not against the employee, and for prosecutions to be carried out by the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales, where there is no avenue of appeal and no trial by jury. Therefore, although criminal convictions are recorded, the principles of criminal justice do not apply. Also, unions have the ability to bring prosecutions and can receive half the fines imposed in a successful prosecution. They may also have their legal fees paid. Clearly, it is right that prosecutions should be brought against negligent employers, but surely they should be brought by an independent agency and one which does not stand to benefit financially from the prosecution. It goes against the principles of justice that the person bringing the prosecution stands to gain from it. How would we feel if parking officers took a cut from every parking fine imposed? What impact would that have on the independence or the perceived independence of such officers?

Last year, the Business Council of Australia, the Minerals Council and other business groups and individual companies produced a paper entitled Making work safe. This reported that, with one-third of the national workforce, New South Wales conducted 63.4 per cent of all OH&S prosecutions between 1989-99 and 2002-03. Some 96 per cent of all New South Wales prosecutions resulted in a conviction in 2002-03. What we have in New South Wales is not a regime designed to deliver the best OH&S outcomes and safe workplaces but a punitive system—one heavily weighted against employers, with few obligations placed on employees to take reasonable care for their own safety—and also a cash cow for unions. Is it any wonder that New South Wales, with one-third of our national workforce, the largest state in Australia by virtue of population, is lagging badly behind in terms of economic growth and prosperity? Why on earth would anyone want to do business in New South Wales when they could do business elsewhere? To quote the Making work safe report again:

For any business of size in New South Wales, it is only a matter of time, and luck, before managers, executives and directors face prosecution for incidents where they did not exercise control.

It cannot be quantified, but it is fair to assume that this is adversely affecting the New South Wales economy as business views investment in New South Wales as carrying an unacceptably high, unfair and unjust risk of OH&S conviction for their personnel.

The legislation has also had the effect of shifting the focus of OH&S management from the prevention of injuries to the mitigation of legal risk.

The fact of the matter is that the New South Wales state government is controlled by the unions and, until that control is broken, New South Wales will be an obstacle to change on this and many other issues. There can be no clearer example of the malign influence of the unions than the fate of the New South Wales government’s own attempts to reform. In 2006, with the support of employers, the government put forward draft legislation moving towards harmonisation with other states and territories and going some way to removing the presumption of guilt. First, the consultation period was extended. Then the legislation was referred to the Stein review, which conducted further consultation. The review concluded—surprise, surprise!—that the existing legislation should be retained, though the report of the review was not released until some months later. In response to this, the New South Wales opposition put forward the government’s own draft legislation as a private member’s bill, but it was then voted down. So, after two rounds of consultation, including with New South Wales WorkCover, which was overwhelmingly in favour of reform, there will be no reform of OH&S in New South Wales. I should also point out that the proposed changes did not affect the unions’ ability to profit from prosecutions that they brought, so the cash cow under this legislation was still retained.

There are only a few groups benefiting from the kind of archaic class warfare still taking place in New South Wales and those are the unions, interstate business competitors and international business competitors to those operating in New South Wales. The unions are not making the workplace any safer for their members, and in fact they are just putting their own jobs at risk. By all means, let us harmonise our workers compensation and OH&S legislation, but the dead hand of the trade unions lies over proposals that the government has put forward. If this government is serious about reform, then it will set up a truly independent Safe Work Australia and it will commit to enacting its proposals, whatever the views of the teetering New South Wales state government.

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

I have certainly noted the contribution just made by the current member for Cowper. I am appalled that the coalition would suggest that liability for workplace injuries ought to be pushed onto employees. The Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 brings together two core themes that the Rudd government has. There is the issue of reform of the Australian federation through cooperative federalism and there is the issue of better workplace laws, of which perhaps the most important one is worker safety.

Cooperative federalism is one of our major reform areas. Cooperative federalism is about reducing duplication. It is a way we can improve consistency. It is a way we can improve efficiency. It is a way we can improve national productivity. It is a way we can simplify rules and improve public knowledge and understanding of rules. The Safe Work Australia Bill is about exactly that. This bill is good for workers as it will establish better national safety standards. It is good for workers as it will establish simpler, standardised, better understood, workplace safety rules. Safe Work Australia, as an independent national body, will have the role of improving occupational health and safety and of improving safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia as a whole. These aims will be good for business, good for government and good for workers. These reforms are a part of the Rudd Labor government’s goal of creating a seamless national economy that is not being dragged down by duplications and border disputes.

Of course there is more to this than economic efficiencies. More than 300 Australians are killed each year at work. Many more die as a result of work related diseases. Each year, over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work. The cost to our economy has been estimated at $34 billion per year. The cost to those injured and to their families, workmates and friends cannot be measured. My view is that 300 Australians dying each year is completely and totally unacceptable. We should not accept it. We should never accept that it is the way of the world that every year some fathers and mothers will walk out the front door while off to work, wave goodbye to their kids and families, and never come home. My view is that we have to raise the bar on workplace safety rules, raise the bar on knowledge of workplace safety procedures and raise the bar on adherence to those rules.

Let us look at this comparatively. No, we are not the worst-off country in the world when it comes to workplace safety—not by a long way. We have indeed built a workplace system, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Australian trade union movement, that is one of the best in the world. Our workplace safety systems are some of the most advanced in the world. We have come a long way. But we still have a long way to go.

Let us think of where Australia is today, broadly speaking—and Australia is one of the best countries in the world. Our workers compensation schemes are of course still very problematic. Workers compensation has been the source of major disputes between governments, businesses and unions for a long time. The schemes are very complicated and they are often very costly. There are all sorts of inconsistencies between jurisdictions. There is a long way to go in this area of workers compensation.

Then there are safety standards. Safety rules and regulations are a mishmash from one state to another. There are different rules and different standards, making it very difficult for workers, businesses and governments. Workers who move from one state to another are often confused or ignorant about workplace standards and procedures, leading to noncompliance and then accidents. There are many reasons why workplace accidents occur. Two central reasons are a lack of knowledge of and a lack of adherence to workplace safety procedures. If you have six different systems, of course you are going to have more confusion, a lack of knowledge, often indifference and a reduced inclination towards compliance with our safety rules. As they say, knowledge leads to action; confusion leads to inaction. In the workplace, confusion often leads to accidents. The establishment of Safe Work Australia will ultimately lead to simpler, universal rules and a better understanding of rules by workers and their employers. And that will lead to action.

Australia today has the opportunity to set a whole new standard in workplace safety. The establishment of Safe Work Australia is an essential part of the government’s strategy to facilitate improvements to safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia. Since we have come to office, the Rudd government have undertaken a review of the Comcare system, 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. This bill, along with the intergovernmental agreement, brings a new era of cooperation between the state and federal governments on this matter. It addresses another key area of cooperative federalism that will save lives, simplify rules and reduce the cost of doing business. Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, which was established by the Howard government and was a narrowly focused body with limited powers. Safe Work Australia will provide new benchmarks. It will be yet another example of why Labor is the party of reform.

Safe Work Australia is being tasked with some important jobs. Safe Work Australia will develop a national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation; prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety standards and model codes of practice; develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions; develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements; collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data and undertake and publish research; drive national communications strategies to raise awareness of health and safety in the workplace; further develop the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy; and advise the Workplace Relations Ministers Council on occupational health and safety and workers compensation matters. It is a big, big job. When this is achieved it will be seen as one of the great reforms within Australian workplaces and Australian industry. Safe Work Australia, in short, will be a big step forward for workers, their employers and their communities. It will be a body which will take Australian workplace safety laws to the next level to simplify safety laws and make them more effective and efficient.

I ask all members to think about this. There are four shires within my electorate. One of those shires—one of the smallest shires, the Colac Otway Shire—has had more than 900 work related injuries in the past five years, costing more than $18 million in rehabilitation and compensation payouts. That is a cost to local families, a cost to local businesses and a cost to government. Of course we always need to put things into some sort of absolute perspective. When the industrial world first came to Australia there were no workplace safety laws at all. In bits and pieces each colony, then state, put in place its own rules. These rules and regulations developed in their complexity in different ways in different states. Today, for the first time in Australian history, the states are committing to harmonising occupational health and safety legislation through this mechanism. This is essential and is a very productive reform.

I would also like to pay tribute to some of my former friends and colleagues within the trade union movement who for many years have championed occupational health and safety within their workplaces and have contributed substantially to making workplaces much, much safer. Their efforts have led to many more families being able to enjoy safe workplaces. When incidents occur they are looked after through the necessary compensation arrangements that have been put in place. I commend this bill to the House as a very substantial improvement in workers’ occupational health and safety.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and the Safe Work Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008. What we see in front of the House today is another example of Labor’s botched policy when it comes to so-called harmonisation of occupational health and safety across Australia. I know, as shadow small business minister, that the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Dr Emerson, travels around Australia highlighting how this proposal will herald a new dawn and how this proposal will be a key part of Labor’s plans to bring harmonisation across Australia and to ensure that red tape is reduced.

But, like so many aspects of what Labor does, the bills that are before the House today are bills that execute, in traditional Labor fashion, its great plans to centralise power, to centralise regulation and to ensure that, where possible, those who do not have knowledge about occupational health and safety—who, it must be concluded from the legislation, are employers and employees—should, rather, turn to those who do have knowledge about occupational health and safety—who, it must be concluded again from the legislation, are in fact state government bureaucrats—to find out which is the best way forward. Because, like so many of Labor’s policies, the execution of this policy, which the minister will talk about across Australia and say is one of those key 27 areas where Labor intends to harmonise legislation to save red tape, will in fact introduce Safe Work Australia as the overarching body with responsibility for Australia’s national OH&S system as devised by the Australian Labor government. And in this case a number of key changes are being made.

Most concerning for me is that the core of this bill sees a reduction in the number of social partner representatives—that is, industry and union representatives—from three to two for each of the partners. Labor does not hold a monopoly on concern for the welfare of employers and employees when it comes to safe workplaces. Labor does not hold a monopoly, even though it is a trade union dominated political body that says it is the only one in this chamber concerned about whether or not Australia’s workplaces are safe. It is well and good to talk about having safe workplaces, but the execution of a policy designed to implement the best regulatory structure to achieve a safe workplace is a whole separate question, and that question is not best answered by the establishment of Safe Work Australia and a concurrent reduction in the number of social partner representatives. We see a one-third reduction in the representatives for the social partners when compared to the composition of the old Australian Safety and Compensation Council, which, through this bill, is effectively being replaced and rebranded—albeit in a way, as I have outlined, that compromises the tripartite approach traditionally required for OH&S regulation to effectively operate in workplaces.

We now see, as a result of the execution of this bill, the creation of an imbalance whereby workplaces directly impacted by the formulation and development of OH&S will actually be denied the opportunity to genuinely participate in the decision-making processes that underpin the entire formulation of such policy—and that point cannot be stressed enough. This Labor Party policy, despite it being sold—or perhaps a better phrase would be ‘despite the minister spinning it’—as being a step in the right direction, will actually see the massive centralisation of power here in Canberra and an increase in percentage and proportional terms of bureaucrats and not of groups like ACCI or, indeed, of the trade union movement.

It is worth noting that we should not easily sideline groups like ACCI. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is a very influential organisation—and rightly so, because ACCI represents over four million employees and hundreds of thousands of employers. From my perspective, it is very clear that a group that specifically advocates for and represents hundreds of thousands of employers—and, through those employers, four million employees—should be listened to. To have a watering down of their role in this process seems to me absurd. But it does not seem absurd to the Labor Party, because we know, as I said, that Labor’s approach in this bill is not to have a belief that employers and employees should have a place at the table in the same proportions as they did previously, but rather that the best decisions when it comes to OH&S are of course made by the bureaucrats. So that is the theme that we see woven throughout this legislation, and that is the outcome that will be achieved.

There would be many employers and employees, I am sure, especially in Australia’s small-business sector—which, of itself, represents about 2.4 million small businesses employing around four million Australians—who would be scratching their heads at this proposal by the Labor Party. They would be scratching their heads because we saw, up until last weekend, the Labor Party in power in every single state across our federation. They were glorious days for the Australian Labor Party. But, thankfully, that wall of trade union and political apparatchiks has now been broken. It is like the busting of the dam. And there is a new sunlight over in Western Australia. But the dam wall has been breached, and we look forward to more of it coming down in due course. But, that notwithstanding, small businesses across Australia would be scratching their heads today because they would be wondering why it is that the Rudd Labor government believes the best way forward on OH&S is to ensure that maximum power is given to state government bureaucrats and representatives when they themselves are responsible for the mess of OH&S laws that exist across Australia today.

The federal minister stands up and says how Safe Work Australia is a step in the right direction, through the centralisation of power here in Canberra—one step removed from the state based OH&S systems that we had—and that that is a step forward. But, by the way, it will actually be the state based bureaucrats that have the majority say when it comes to the operation of Safe Work Australia. It is little wonder then that I have had small-business owners, employers and employees talk to me about their concerns about what this bill will actually mean. At the end of the day, it is well and good for the minister to stand up and make a comment, and it is well and good for the Rudd Labor government to claim that this is a step in the right direction, but the execution and the implementation of it are fundamentally different. I have genuine concerns that, when the coalition explores this further in the other place, the actual result of the implementation of this legislation will be that we will see employers and employees effectively sidelined from the formulation of OH&S policy development—and that would certainly be a step in the wrong direction.

The key reason, as I said, is because of the actual composition of SWA. It will, without a doubt, lead to a situation where government representatives will be able to repeatedly override legitimate concerns raised by those social partners in the union movement and, for example, ACCI. During OH&S harmonisation discussions, including concerns relating to increased costs or impractical safety proposals for workplaces, we will see state government representatives saying, ‘Well, sorry; you are just going to have to cop that. That is just going to be part of it, because this is what we need because it will no doubt suit the bureaucracy, even though in practical application employers and employees could in fact be much worse off.’ We see many examples of this in practice at a state government level today. We have seen many examples of Labor’s botched handling of OH&S at a state government level—examples where, at a state government level, we have seen the encroachment of ridiculous attempts to ensure compliance and execute so-called safety concerns to actually achieve other outcomes that state Labor governments have sought.

There are issues such as right of entry. How many instances exist in Australia where we see right of entry requirements executed through OH&S laws? How many times will Australians—both employers and employees—now be subjected to encroachment by unions into workplaces under the guise of OH&S? My concern is that, with SWA effectively subject to ministerial direction, we could see this Rudd Labor government, which owes a very big debt to the trade union movement, making sure that they do their bidding. Let us not lose sight of the fact that this side of the House is not owned by any one organisation, unlike the Australian Labor Party. And the Australian Labor Party, we know, is the political wing of the trade union movement of Australia. I see members opposite shaking their heads—members of the government are saying that that is not the case. You cannot be a member of the Labor Party unless you are in a trade union.

We know that the Australian government is only there today because about $100 million of trade union funds flowed into an advertising campaign to help get Kevin Rudd elected. The member for Griffith knows that he has a very big debt to pay back to Australia’s trade union movement. There can be no doubt—and it should be of especially great concern to Australia’s 2.4 million small businesses—that the government’s rush to bring in SWA will actually see all sorts of opportunities created down the track, under this new, centralised, you-beaut, Labor policy, under ministerial direction, for unions to have access to workplaces, pretending to have, or being spun as having, genuine concern and regard for occupational health and safety.

We see as well that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister Gillard, appears to be determined not to listen to stakeholders—those representatives of employers and employees with significant involvement in workplaces—because, through the reduction of their representation and the reliance on state representatives who have already repeatedly failed, as I have outlined, we see that that seems to be the strategy for the execution of this legislation and the development of Safe Work Australia.

In addition, the foundation upon which Safe Work Australia has been established is also fundamentally flawed because it requires the direction and success of SWA to be contingent on the cooperation and participation of the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, to which it directly reports. We know that members of the ministerial council have repeatedly failed to attend or, at times, cooperate with the Commonwealth in these meetings in which there have been issues and legitimate concerns raised about just how effective SWA will be in an environment where state Labor governments have traditionally been unwilling to cooperate and genuinely contribute to discussions about the harmonisation of OH&S laws across Australia.

Where the ministerial council fails to meet or refuses to cooperate and consider Safe Work Australia issues, the work of SWA will effectively come to a halt. That is another key concern that the coalition has about the proposed legislation. It will ensure that we see the creation of an unjustifiable imbalance. Improving OH&S performance will be critically dependent on there being an effort and buy-in from all stakeholders, and a process that does not seek to engage workers and employers in a meaningful way will not lead to improvements in workplace health and safety. Labor’s duplicity in this regard is further highlighted by its failure to report back to parliament on the progress of SWA. How extraordinary that this bill proposes that SWA report back to this parliament only once every six years. Once every six years is what the Labor Party is putting forward as its plan to ensure that Safe Work Australia remains accountable to this parliament.

We have the sidelining of employer representatives, the sidelining of employee representatives, the centralisation of power in Canberra and control being given to the state representatives who have failed in the past but who will now have the casting and controlling number of votes on SWA—representatives who are also now being required to report back to the parliament only once every six years. This is potentially a recipe for a great deal of pain, problems, increased red tape, additional compliance costs and lower employment. That very reasonably is the expected outcome as a result of the creation of SWA.

I say to all of Australia’s small businesses—and also, of course, the large businesses—and to those employees who are genuinely concerned about the safety of their workplaces: keep a very close eye on the execution, implementation and development of OH&S laws under SWA. It is my concern that we will see a body that will be dominated by state bureaucrats, a body that will execute the same kinds of botched and failed policies that we have seen all over this country under the raft of Labor governments that existed—and still do exist in large part. We will also see a Prime Minister and a minister who are so indebted to Australia’s trade union movement that, under ministerial direction, we see the thin end of the wedge getting driven into Australian workplaces.

All of these concerns are the reason why the coalition will ensure that this bill is properly scrutinised, is thoroughly investigated and has its consequences fully explored in the other place. The coalition will not oppose this bill in this place, but we certainly reserve the right to examine it much more closely. Whilst in principle we support the notion of less red tape, we also have those very specific and genuine concerns about what this bill will actually result in for Australia’s 2.4 million small businesses and, more importantly, across all workplaces in this country.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start to talk about the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and the Safe Work Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008, I would like to acknowledge a few schools and students who are present in parliament today. I welcome the teachers and 52 students from Mackay West State School in the seat of Dawson. It was a pleasure to talk to them this morning and to give them insights into how this great democracy works. I also wish to acknowledge the students from Claremont Meadows Public School who are in the gallery today. I also wish to acknowledge the presence in the chamber of my colleague the member for Lindsay, who is a long-time resident of the Claremont Meadows community. It is always good to welcome students and teachers to this House and to set a good example of how our democracy works.

I rise to speak in favour of the Safe Work Australia Bill. The government has set itself the task of creating a seamless national economy unhampered by unnecessary state duplications, overlaps and differences. We do this because we care about building a better Australia now and into the future. Occupational health and safety is a prime candidate for this sort of reform. It is a fact that more than 300 Australians are killed at work each year. 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 from death or injury has been estimated at $34 billion per year. The cost to those injured and to their families, workmates and friends is inestimable. 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 coming to office we have (1) undertaken a review of the Comcare scheme, (2) set up an independent panel of experts to conduct a national occupational health and safety review and (3) developed a landmark intergovernmental agreement with our state and territory counterparts to harmonise occupational health and safety legislation nationally.

This bill, together with the intergovernmental agreement, ushers in a new era of cooperation and collaboration between the Commonwealth and the states and territories in this important area—a collaboration which will improve the health and safety of workers across Australia and reduce the complexity of regulation for businesses. Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, established by the Howard government as an advisory council, whose functions were confined to coordinating, monitoring and promoting national efforts on health and safety and workers compensation. Safe Work Australia will (a) develop national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation; (b) prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety legislation; (c) develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions; (d) develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements; (e) collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data and undertake and publish research; and (f) drive national communications strategies to raise awareness of health and safety at work. Occupational health and safety and workers compensation are too important to be neglected any longer. Workers’ lives and health are at stake, and so too is the efficiency of our economy. Occupational health and safety and workers compensation reform will increase profitability and productivity and better protect the lives and health of Australians.

The purpose of the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 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 will play a pivotal role in realising the government’s commitment to work cooperatively with the state and territory governments to improve occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia. It will do that by empowering Safe Work Australia to, firstly, develop national policy in respect of occupational health and safety and workers compensation; secondly, prepare model OH&S legislation and model OH&S codes of practice for approval by the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and adoption by the Commonwealth, the states and the territories; thirdly, develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure that a nationally consistent approach is taken to compliance and enforcement; fourthly, develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements across all jurisdictions and proposals for national workers compensation arrangements for employers with workers in more than one jurisdiction; fifthly, build expertise across OH&S laws and workers compensation schemes that will be readily accessible across jurisdictions and industries and will reduce the complexity and costs for businesses, including businesses that operate across state boundaries; and, sixthly, undertake data collection and research and publish findings to ensure that all jurisdictions and industries have access to up-to-date and industry-specific information that will enable employers and workers to adopt practices that will reduce instances of risk and injury in workplaces across Australia.

Safe Work Australia will be a reform focused body with the power to make recommendations directly to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. Safe Work Australia will be 50 per cent funded by the Commonwealth and 50 per cent funded by the states and territories. The bill will also create and maintain mechanisms for review and revision of the effectiveness of Safe Work Australia in performing its functions. This will ensure that the body is active and operating efficiently and responsively in meeting its strategic and operational goals. One of Safe Work Australia’s primary functions will be to develop national policy relating to OH&S and workers compensation. National policy developed by Safe Work Australia will be used to drive harmonisation initiatives, such as the adoption and implementation of model OH&S legislation and consistent enforcement and compliance strategies, and the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements across the Commonwealth, the states and the territories. I commend this bill to the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and the Safe Work Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008. The primary purpose of the Safe Work Australia Bill is to establish Safe Work Australia as an independent Commonwealth statutory body to oversee occupational health and safety—OH&S—outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia.

I want to note my grave concern about this legislation as it stands before this House today, in the sense that the bill proposes a reduction in the level of industry and union representation in the mix of Safe Work Australia. Indeed, it seems to be harking back to that principle espoused by so many Labor governments around Australia that government knows better than the industry. I find it ironic that in this chamber we have heard speakers representing the ACTU—the Australian Council of Trade Unions—speak on how it is a good thing that there will be a reduction in the ACTU and Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry representation on the Safe Work Australia body through the specific reduction in social partner representation. This, of course, will have the undesired outcome of enhancing state governments’ involvement in the decision-making process on the presumption that somehow these state governments will produce better OH&S outcomes around the country.

I do not think it stands up to a great deal of scrutiny that the states have done a superior job on occupational health and safety and will therefore do a great job as part of a national body. I acknowledge that some states have performed well on reforming OH&S legislation, but my own state of New South Wales is not one of them. For example, in 2006, New South Wales introduced some legislation to harmonise occupational health and safety with some of the other states. What we saw was a litany of delays—committees, reviews and consultation. A report was produced after many months of uncertainty, proposed changes, discussion, consultation and so on. The end result was a recommendation not to proceed with this legislation which would have harmonised and produced a better result in the area of occupational health and safety. This was in spite of the fact that WorkCover New South Wales was in favour of this reform. Indeed, there is a need for reform. We do need to have a federal body to reform and improve national standards of occupational health and safety for the future. We need to take away the presumption of guilt that is thrown at employers. We need to ensure that we have not only a presumption of innocence but also rigorous mechanisms for delving into cases where employers might not be doing the right thing. At the moment, that balance has not been properly struck.

The government has proposed in this bill that the composition of Safe Work Australia will include the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. But there are real concerns that the states, with their vested interest in not changing this legislation, will dominate the decision making of this body. It is the case that the states around Australia have been captured by unions and are beholden to unions. We have seen that at so many levels. It would be a poor outcome for Australia if we had a national body, formed under the guise of reform, that did not produce real reform—a body that could spend many months discussing and disseminating ideas but would have the voting power to vote down anything that may be meaningful or substantial.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions are serious bodies. They represent their members and workers well. With their respective responsibilities and roles, they do a great job for Australia. I would much prefer to have their input strengthened, because occupational health and safety is essentially about the relationship between the employer and the employee and ensuring that they are cooperating to produce great outcomes in occupational health and safety. The experience of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions will be valuable on this body. We should be seeking to increase and enhance their representation rather than reducing it in favour of state governments.

I think it is quite accepted around Australia today that the states do not have a brilliant record on many things, particularly New South Wales. Certainly, in terms of infrastructure, they do not have a great record of providing public transport in my electorate. My electorate has the highest dependency on cars of any electorate in Australia. We have heard today that the $12 billion metro line that has been promised by the New South Wales government since 1999 is going to be scrapped—again—in favour of a heavy rail option potentially in the next 20 years. My electorate has the highest proportion of car ownership in Australia and it has no train line running through it anywhere. So I certainly do not accept the contention that the states dominating this body will produce a better outcome for occupational health and safety in Australia. I think it will give governments an undue influence over outcomes.

I want to pay tribute to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. I also note that the member for Corangamite mentioned Bernie Banton. Bernie Banton resided in my electorate of Mitchell, and one of my first sad duties as the member-elect was to attend his funeral. He was a great campaigner for occupational health and safety. His funeral at Homebush was a fitting and moving tribute to his life. I felt very privileged to represent the people of my electorate in recognising his service and his contribution to occupational health and safety. I note also that he was a great friend and long-time associate of my predecessor Alan Cadman.

One of the difficulties with having a single federal enforcement agency that has nine Commonwealth, state and territory reps and only two employer reps and two employee reps is that, more often than not, you get a heavily politicised outcome. Industry experience is outnumbered. If you examine clause 38 of the explanatory memorandum you will see the way that voting is conducted. It requires a two-thirds majority of members on occupational health and safety matters—other than the model occupational health and safety legislation—and an absolute majority of the Commonwealth, states and territories.

This again highlights one of the deficiencies of this bill, which is that we require an absolute majority of Commonwealth, states and territories to be present to achieve reform. Essentially, if even half of the states and territories do not agree on reform, we are not going to get reform—which again will lead to a domination by the states and territories, with their vested interests. It begs the question: where is the bold reform? Where is the new era of cooperative federalism? That is a term that has been bandied about in this debate. Cooperative federalism really produces cooperative bureaucracy—and cooperative bureaucracy does not produce outcomes; it produces bureaucracy. That is my fear in relation to the model that the government is proposing.

I do feel that, if you examine some of the provisions, there is a good case for saying that a body that represents 350,000 businesses and 280,000 enterprises that employ fewer than 20 people, that has a national network through industry associations and chambers of commerce and that has been formed virtually since Federation ought to have a strong say in the occupational health and safety policies and procedures of this nation. But I also stand up, ironically, for the Australian Council of Trade Unions. It represents two million workers and their families. It has been in place for almost 100 years as well. Look at the campaign in relation to James Hardie. Some great outcomes have been achieved over the years on behalf of workers. But this outcome is not a good one for either body in the sense that they will have a reduced say in future legislation and in harmonising OH&S legislation.

The fact is that New South Wales has worked to stymie reform in occupational health and safety. It has worked to delay legislation that was looking to ensure that the presumption of guilt was examined and removed, even when WorkCover was in favour of this reform. I think that highlights that there are some flaws in this model and that there could be a case for some strong reform. I think the limitation of the involvement of the social partners will, without a doubt, lead to a situation where government reps override legitimate concerns that are raised by the social partners during their discussions.

If we are really going to be serious about reform we should look at the notion raised by one of my colleagues—that is, to have a federal body where industry and the unions are the main partners, where they tackle the real issues and recommend a model directly to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I think that is a much better model than going through the ministerial council. It is another layer of bureaucracy that will, I think, stymie what may well be legitimate attempts at reform by the government and reform that we would all like to see in relation to occupational health and safety to ensure better workplaces. That is the approach that is adopted by this government too often: if we are in doubt, we may send something to a committee. If we are in doubt about the committee, we will have a review. If we have a review then we will need a report. We will take time to look at the report and then we may be able to produce an insubstantial and weak policy response that will not do very much to address the core problems that we are having. That is not a good way to run government, and over time that may well produce some poor results here.

I do not think this model, as it stands, will produce the results that the government is seeking. The states and their vested interests are set to dominate. We may well be back here at some time in the future to revisit this body in order to ensure that industry and the unions have a greater say at the table and are able to work together to propose new and meaningful reform. I find it a concern that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is determined not to listen to the stakeholders. I think the representatives of employers and employees with significant involvement in workplaces really need to be listened to on this. We should come back here, revisit this legislation and ensure that we have a body that has much more input from industry and the unions.

The foundation upon which Safe Work Australia has been established does appear to have that flaw in it. With the direction and success of Safe Work Australia being contingent on the cooperation and participation of the ministerial council, it certainly raises some questions about whether, if the ministerial council is not meeting or not operating well, we can again move forward with reform. Safe Work Australia will be required under this model to report directly to the ministerial council. The fact is that there may be members of the ministerial council who repeatedly fail to attend or cooperate with the Commonwealth in these meetings, which raises some concerns about how effective it will be when state governments are unwilling to cooperate or genuinely contribute to harmonisation questions.

As I stated previously, I think it is an acknowledged fact and maxim at the moment that most state governments are captive to the unions. Very little can be done in any of the states without getting a union seal of approval or a tick-off from the unions. Certainly a balance has not been struck between achieving good economic outcomes and good outcomes for members of unions. When we have states that are beholden to unions and captive to their policies and will not change their outlook on things that need modernisation and reform, we really have a blockage and an impediment to achieving reform in Australia that we do need to take steps towards removing. I think having all those partners that are so beholden to unions means that the whole structure of Safe Work Australia is out of kilter. If the ministerial council fails to meet or refuses to cooperate, there will be a concern that the operation of Safe Work Australia’s reform program and its policies may well come to a halt. I do not think that will be a good development.

Improving occupational health and safety, I might add, is a critically important area. It is critically dependent as well on a collaborative approach and a collaborative effort. If we are really serious about achieving some improvement in occupational health and safety, we want a process that engages workers and employees in a meaningful way. That is my essential criticism of this legislation. Many of the states have already rejected attempts at meaningful reform. Many of them have tied up reform in bureaucracy, committees and reports and then have ultimately rejected that reform. I do not think we are going to see much movement in terms of having states come to the federal table for more discussions, more debate, when they still have those vested interests and those blockages to achieving real and meaningful reform.

The bill currently proposes an inadequate process for reporting back to parliament every six years on the progress of Safe Work Australia. I do not think it is acceptable that Labor wants to introduce a state dominated independent authority that has no requirement to report to this place for six years. That is an important point for us to make a contribution on. If you are serious about achieving real reform, I do not think setting a six-year time frame for a report to this place is really a meaningful time frame in which to say, ‘Look, we’ve got states that want some reform and we’ve got a Commonwealth that wants some reform. We’re going to get a new body, Safe Work Australia, together. We’re going to have a discussion about reform and we’re going to set a report date to the Commonwealth in six years time.’ I really do not see that as a genuine time frame for us to make a contribution.

I do believe that this government sometimes has some reasonable objectives—and occupational health and safety does require some examination and, hopefully, cooperative federalism. But we are really getting a very weak policy response and we are really setting ourselves up for failure by setting up a body that is dominated totally by the states, without industry and genuine national union representation—without their input and without their ability to vote down or vote up proposals. In my view it falls into the category of some of the other failed government policies of GroceryWatch, Fuelwatch, the abolition of the ABCC—

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whale watch.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, ‘whale watch’, as the member for Grey said.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pension watch.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, ‘pension watch’. I could go on but I will not. I will spare the House the continued examination of failed Labor policies. But there is a sense with this government that, in attempting reform, we get a weak response that is designed to make people think that something is happening when, actually, very little will change. Meaningful reform will be held up and the vested interests of the states will continue to dominate in this vital area of occupational health and safety, and that will not be a good outcome.

We really should be examining ways of enhancing the input of the industry and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry—the peak body representing businesses in Australia. We should be finding ways to ensure employers and employees are making a meaningful contribution to OH&S policies at a national level and collaborating to produce better results. That would be one way of ensuring there is real reform in the next five or six years. In summary I would say that, until we get a model that is cognisant of those facts, I think we need to pause and reconsider some of the mechanisms in this legislation.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I turn to this very important piece of legislation, I would like to acknowledge the students from Claremont Meadows Public School who are in the gallery. They are constituents of my colleague, the member for Lindsay. Hopefully, they are furthering their education and seeing how we conduct ourselves here in the House. So I am assuming that they will not be here for question time.

As I said, the legislation before the House, the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and associated bill, is very important. There are risks associated with any job, and far too often people get hurt or even killed in their places of employment. Injuries sustained at work can cause physical and emotional damage which may extend for lengthy periods of time or throughout a person’s career. A large number of deaths occur in workplaces all over the world—and supporting working families should be near and dear to all of us. The statistics show that in Australia alone more than 300 people lose their lives during the course of their work and many more die as a result of a work related disease.

Government Member:

Bernie Banton.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend for acknowledging Bernie Banton. His situation typifies the case of a lingering injury that affects not only the person concerned but also their family—and, ultimately, in Bernie’s case, resulted in him losing his life.

Over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured in the workplace each year. I was talking to the CFMEU recently and they advised me that in 2006-07 there were 40 reported fatalities on building sites alone. That was up from 33 the year before. I know it is a very dangerous industry. I have two sons who work in the industry, so I personally have some knowledge of it. One of my boys only recently came back from working in Western Australia, out at Port Hedland. He was due to stay there for some time working as an electrician. He rang me one morning to confirm what we would be doing at Phillip Island, as we were both going down to see the motorcycle races this year. He called me back some time that afternoon and, in a distressed state, told me that one of the people he worked with, Andrew McLaughlin—a 52-year-old—unfortunately was crushed to death on the site.

My sympathies certainly go to the family of Andrew McLaughlin, who had family in Port Hedland, and his work colleagues. I certainly saw how his death affected my son. It resulted in him deciding that it was time to come home—which for a father is always good news. Notwithstanding that my son is 28 years old, you still care about your kids. That is why this legislation is so important. We all care about our kids and our families. Importantly, this legislation will ensure that we limit the risk for people who go about that normal, everyday function of going to work. It should be a normal, everyday function, with minimal risk of losing your life or sustaining a serious injury.

Recently the RTA of New South Wales indicated to me that, in New South Wales alone, there were 95 fatalities from crashes involving heavy vehicles. Again, these are work related. We might put them down to being a road based statistic but they are nevertheless work related fatalities. It should also be noted that there were 1,658 serious injuries that occurred as a result of those heavy vehicle accidents. As a matter of fact, Tony Sheldon, of the TWU, indicated to me that one in five fatalities on our main roads involves heavy vehicles. So one in five of those fatalities can be considered work related.

That is one of the reasons that I have exercised a lot of time in this House talking in support of the widening of the F5 freeway. The Hume Highway, which passes through my electorate, sees about 365,000 movements of freight per year involving heavy vehicles. For the people involved in driving these heavy vehicles there is a risk of work related injuries due to tiredness, fatigue or speed related accidents. That is why I supported, earlier this week, the AusLink bill, which contains provisions for this government to invest in rest and decoupling areas for heavy vehicle drivers, to ensure that when they are on the roads they are at a maximum level of alertness.

I should acknowledge that I have just had lunch and a meeting with Barry Dawson and Gerry Ping-Nam from the National Electrical and Communications Association, NECA. This group spearheads the training of apprentices. In New South Wales alone there are 350 apprentices who go through this training agency. As a matter of fact my son Nicholas, whom I referred to a little earlier, was a product of their training regime. He became an electrician’s apprentice after leaving school and went on to become an electrician. NECA does a fabulous job in training our apprentices.

One thing that Barry Dawson and Gerry Ping-Nam indicated to me today was the time and effort they put into ensuring that these young people develop not only a work ethic but a safety ethic, which they take to any job they go to. It is not one based on one employer being more vigilant about safety than another. Every graduate of the NECA training system has ingrained in them right from the outset the need to be specifically engaged in looking out for the safety not only of themselves but of their work colleagues. I congratulate Gerry Ping-Nam and Barry Dawson on what they are doing for young people in New South Wales in advancing a training regime and agenda which has the issue of safety front and centre.

A recent report of the Australian Safety and Compensation Council shows that workplace fatalities were 16 per cent higher in 2006-07 than they were in 2003-04. I know many will put that down to the fact that there were more people in the workforce. But we are talking an overall percentage, which is something that is critical to the way in which we advance training and safety procedures in workplaces. We do not want to have a regime that simply produces work at any cost. The value of life and the value of safety in the workplace are things that just cannot be compromised.

The ABS survey Work-Related Injuries, Australia, 2005-06 indicates that 689,500 workers experienced a work related injury or illness, a 44 per cent increase from the year 2000. That is an extraordinary increase. These are not just statistics; these are mums and dads or kids like my own or yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, who go to work each day. We should never look at these numbers as just statistics. They represent real people and they underpin our commitment to a safe, efficient and practical workplace. This fight, I understand, can never totally be won, but there are things that we must stay fixed on if we are ever going to reasonably address what should be a fundamental fairness in the workplace.

Monday fortnight, 29 September, is National Police Remembrance Day. This is a day on which to remember all those police officers who have lost their lives during the course of their employment. They too are workers. They too deserve safe workplaces. We expect the police to be the thin blue line that protects society from anarchy, but at the end of the day we have responsibilities to them. For that reason I have given notice that in the House next Monday I will move that we support and recognise the role of our police and recognise that many of their number put themselves in life-threatening positions on a daily basis and that many, unfortunately, have lost their lives in just causes on our behalf.

Reducing work related deaths and injuries is a formidable task. What we are looking for is a seamless transition to incorporating safe practices through education, through monitoring the way in which employers run workplaces and through people simply being able to do their jobs in a fair and safe manner. One thing that should be apparent to everyone in this place is that there have been numerous inconsistencies between the various state and territory jurisdictions on issues of work related health. These inconsistencies unfortunately lead to poorer safety standards in the various states and territories.

There is also an economic cost—if I could appeal to the economists amongst those on the other side—to doing this and getting it right. These inconsistencies and complexities increase the paperwork and costs of some 39,000 Australian businesses that operate in more than one state or territory. The estimated cost to our community is $34 billion per year. When you add to that the costs of injuries or deaths—including the cost to their families, friends and work colleagues—the figure is incalculable, and one that needs to be addressed. If anyone here has been unlucky enough to experience losing someone in the workplace they will know what I am talking about. As I said, my own son lost a work colleague. I know how it impacted on him. For those reasons we should stay fixed on this. Safe Work Australia is a critical first step in improving safety outcomes for all Australian workers.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member for Werriwa will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.