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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I rise to speak in favour of the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2]. It beggars belief that the member for Stirling went on about arrogance and about not listening. As the member over here just said to me, they seem to forget about Work Choices and how they steamrolled that through without much consultation. There was a certain amount of arrogance present in that debate. Anyway, moving on, I rise to speak in favour of the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2].

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 each year at work. Many more die as a result of work related disease. Each year over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work. The cost to our economy 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 OHS 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. It is 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, which was 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 (1) develop national policy relating to OHS and workers compensation, (2) prepare, monitor and revise model OHS legislation, (3) develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions, (4) develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements, (5) collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data and undertake and publish research and (6) 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 [No. 2] is to establish Safe Work Australia as an independent Commonwealth statutory body to improve occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia.

The bill will play a pivotal role in realising the government’s commitment to working cooperatively with state and territory governments to improve occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia by empowering Safe Work Australia to (1) develop national policy in respect of OHS and workers compensation, (2) prepare model OHS legislation and model OHS codes of practice for approval by the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and adoption by the Commonwealth, the states and territories, (3) develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure that a nationally consistent approach is taken to compliance and enforcement, (4) 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, (5) build expertise across OHS 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 (6) 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 funded by both the Commonwealth, 50 per cent, and the states and territories, also 50 per cent. 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.

Finally, one of Safe Work Australia’s primary functions will be to develop national policy relating to OHS 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 OHS legislation and consistent enforcement and compliance strategies, and the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements across the Commonwealth, the states and the territories. I conclude by commending this bill to the House.

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

As the shadow small business minister, I rise to speak to the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2], the reintroduction of Labor’s bill with respect to the formation of Safe Work Australia from its original iteration as the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008. The bill, as many speakers in this debate have highlighted, will actually create and establish Safe Work Australia as the national body with responsibility for ensuring safe workplaces. It is, in effect, creating a national occupational health and safety system. Although the bill itself does not go to the framework of the legislation, it does of course establish the agency responsible for it in the form of Safe Work Australia.

Previously, I and other members of the coalition spoke in strong terms against the legislation as it stood at the time because of a number of key concerns that we had about how it would ultimately impact on workplaces all across Australia. Our concerns were supported in various ways by the Greens, Family First and Senator Xenophon in the other chamber. In the other place, the bill was defeated. It was defeated for good reason. It was defeated because the legislation contained a number of myopic attitudes with respect to the nationalisation of Australia’s OH&S system. Nonetheless, the coalition, with the passage of time, take the view that it is time to move forward.

Not everything about the bill is bad—that is for certain. I am happy to put that on the record. There are certainly principles and endeavours contained within the government’s legislation to try to establish a national framework that we are supportive of. In that vein, the coalition will let the legislation go through because, from our perspective, we do need to continue to move forward and not become overly stagnant in our approach to this type of legislation. More importantly, we recognise that, flawed though it may be, this Labor bill needs to go through to ensure that we take some steps towards a nationally harmonised system of occupational health and safety.

I reassert, as I have previously, that OH&S is not something that the Australian Labor Party has a monopoly on. I know those members opposite like to consider themselves the only friends of the worker in Australia—although you would have to question that, given how many fewer people actually have jobs these days than before the Labor Party was elected. Nonetheless, the reality is that the Australian Labor Party likes to hold itself out as having a monopoly when it comes to concern over safe workplaces. But, contrary to that opinion held by the Australian Labor Party, they do not have a monopoly. In fact, employees and employers working together have a dual responsibility to ensure safe workplaces. It is crucial that there is a bipartisan approach from those groups to ensure that workplaces are safe places to work and that Australians do not lose their lives or become in some way disabled as a result of the activities that take place in their workplace. That is especially the case with respect to accidents that unfortunately will occur.

In that respect, nationally consistent legislation does have merit. It has merit because it does provide for productivity gains for those businesses that operate across various jurisdictions. As I have outlined previously, my concern about the quest for nationally consistent legislation is that, outside of the operation of this bill, as part of the push by the Australian Labor Party to develop a nationally consistent framework, we will see the inverse of the lowest common denominator. What I mean by that is that the actual imposition of an OH&S system across workplaces all around Australia means they will effectively adopt a high-water mark when it comes to safe workplaces.

There might be many Australians who will say, ‘What is wrong with that? Why would we be concerned about having workplaces that might be considered’—for lack of a better term—‘too safe?’ Of course, you cannot have a workplace that is too safe. But what you can have is a workplace so shackled by red tape and bureaucratic requirements in the quest to develop safe workplaces that there is in fact a crimp in productivity, employment and the profitability of businesses all around Australia. As the shadow small business minister, that is at the core of my concern with respect to the ultimate framework that is laid out as part of a national OH&S system.

Unfortunately, the Labor Party just does not understand that, or if they do understand it they are not willing to concede it. It manifests itself in a number of ways in the legislation, We have seen a reduction in the membership of Safe Work Australia of private employer bodies like, for example, ACCI. This was a view that was also shared by those on the other side of the coin in terms of the trade union movement. Both these groups have something valuable to contribute as part of the discussion about what will take Australian workplaces forward to ensure that they are safe environments, yet both have largely been sidelined, in my view, as a result of this legislation that is before the House. It does require some panelbeating, and I look forward to being part of a coalition government that will ensure that we do apply an appropriate panelbeating technique to get this legislation—and ultimately Safe Work Australia and the national OH&S system—into a better form than is currently before the House.

The coalition have said that we are prepared to be pragmatic with respect to this piece of legislation. We want to ensure that we do not require the House to look at the amendments that were previously adopted by the Senate during the debate on the original bill. As I said, recently we were heartened by the response of the Workplace Relations Ministerial Council to the recommendations as part of the national review into model OH&S laws that concluded in January this year. This review had the challenging task of recommending a framework upon which a nationally consistent OH&S will be based. There are a number of recommendations which, in the coalition’s view, represent a balanced and reasonable approach to OH&S. Through the WRMC, the nation’s workplace relations ministers have assured their agreement on a number of the recommended principles for the new national OH&S laws. This consistency is certainly to be applauded in that respect. Modelling the laws broadly on the Victorian style OH&S laws, and not those of New South Wales, was a big step forward. That lay at the core of some of my concerns when I spoke about having an overly bureaucratic approach to ensuring a safe workplace.

As I travel around Australia, New South Wales is consistently cited as being the very worst example of what can happen when OH&S laws get out of control. New South Wales OH&S laws have certainly been a major impediment to the creation of employment in that state. One small business person after another has raised that concern with me. Their concern was that the OH&S system imposed by the state—not to mention the reversal of proof—was so onerous that it put a crimp in employment. At a time when cash-flow is a concern for 93 per cent of small businesses, when they are making decisions on a marginal basis about whether to employ someone or even to hang on to the employees they have got, this approach could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. So I welcome the decision of the WRMC in that respect.

We continue to have some concerns with this bill, as I have outlined. The objects of the new body would certainly be an improvement to the bill. Restoring effective levels of representation to employee and employer representatives, the so-called social partners that I outlined previously, in the form of the trade union movement and ACCI, would be an improvement. Introducing a more balanced voting process that is designed to engage and that actually includes those people in our community who are directly affected by safety laws—that is, workers and their employers—would be an improvement. Ensuring that we do not have ministerial interference when appointing social representatives would be another step forward, as well as ensuring that workers and industry are effectively and ably represented by the peak representative groups that this bill refers to. I also believe—and this is the position of the coalition—that the CEO of Safe Work Australia needs to be able to operate without interference by the minister with respect to the management of Safe Work Australia. Finally, as has been outlined, an audit committee should be put in place to examine the finances and expenditure of Safe Work Australia. These are all sensible amendments that are designed to facilitate a move towards a fairer and more effective OH&S system, and we believe the government would be well advised to look very closely at incorporating these amendments into the legislation.

I make no apology for the fact that the coalition continue to harbour concerns about the approach that the Labor Party have taken. As much as they window-dress this legislation and try to say that it is purely and simply focused on safe workplaces, the reality is that we all know about that. We are all concerned about safe workplaces. But this side of the House is also concerned about good laws and ensuring that safe workplaces are developed in partnership with the goal of creating employment opportunities for young Australians and ensuring that we do not in any way threaten the viability or, indeed, the appetite of businesses, especially small businesses, to employ more Australians.

At its core, this legislation will not face any frustration from the opposition, but we certainly urge the government to be apprised of the fact that there are a number of deficiencies in the legislation as it currently rests. Although the ultimate goal is worthy of support—and that is why we will provide that support—there should be more done to ensure that this legislation more appropriately takes into account the very genuine and sincerely held view of many small business owners across this country that there are ways to improve this legislation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 [No. 2] is important legislation. In the Australian workplace today the harmonisation of the rules under which it operates are always to be commended. The problem is that so often, to achieve that, central government is forced to accept what one might term the lowest common denominator, and in the case of occupational health and safety we are talking about the most draconian type of proposal. I am encouraged by the advice I have received from our shadow minister that in this case the disastrous legislation that exists in New South Wales will not be the format considered by Safe Work Australia. Safe Work Australia will not be the administrator. Safe Work Australia will just be the oversighting agency, obviously with an expectation that there will be cooperation between the state agencies in the harmonisation process.

New South Wales is, of course, the economic basket case of Australia. It enjoys the largest population and some of the largest agricultural areas and has many other attributes, including considerable mineral reserves in the case of coal, and yet it is broke. The case arose of a New Zealand based company being charged with a crime and found guilty because they had to prove their own innocence. A board of directors sitting in New Zealand I presume was no longer able to visit Australia for fear of arrest because one of their employees in Australia had been injured at work. That must be identified as the highest degree of farce, but it is a very clear message: if you want to start a business, do not start it in New South Wales because you might go to jail for something of which you did not even have any knowledge. Quite clearly in the decentralised and national type businesses of today the thought that a director or a managing director who might occupy an office in one state could be found to be criminally negligent in another state, without the opportunity of defence, is ridiculous. It just goes too far, and one can only anticipate that those appointed to this board will take the view that the Australian legal principle of innocent until proved guilty must be a substantial component of any such legislation.

It will also be a challenge for this new body to ensure that occupational health and safety is policed by officers of the Crown and not by trade unions. Again in New South Wales it was virtually a sport: if you could get somebody convicted you got half the fine. There was a profit in occupational health and safety and the protection of workers. The major profit for the trade union movement around Australia has been canvassing for members. I have no belief whatsoever in the likes of Joe McDonald of the CFMEU in Western Australia, who wants to walk onto worksites and abuse people and threaten them with physical violence and all sorts of other things because he is there for their personal safety. I guess if you get a bunch of fives in the mouth from McDonald or one of the heavies who follow him around that is an occupational health and safety issue you are supposed to cop. But the reality is that trade unions are there primarily to look after the wages and conditions of workers, and if government is to legislate for the occupational health and safety of people as it should, it must provide the inspectorate services and they must be exclusive. A union, of course, as with any individual, has the responsibility, as they have with other events where there is a breach of the law, to report that to the appropriate authority. But it will be a very sad day if this legislation is used for the purpose of giving trade unionists access for the purpose of canvassing membership on the device that they are of the view that there is some form of breach of safety standards. That is why these matters have got to be put on the record.

The member for Corangamite, who has gone, listed in the area of work related injury the forestry industry—or what is left of it, as it has been demolished by green activists. Funnily enough, an issue of considerable improved safety for workers, be it in a plantation or in a native forest, is the process of clear-felling. Clear-felling leaves the worker on clear ground. Historically, when one had selective felling, you went through and you put a ribbon of some nature on tree X and then walked through the scrub to another tree and put another thing on that. Workers then went in there on foot, surrounded by scrub, and had to use a chainsaw to cut down a single tree. The fact of life was that it was extremely dangerous. When, as I said, they work from clear ground it is not nearly as dangerous. It was one of the most basic reasons for the clear-felling so criticised by green activists. In fact, there are excellent reasons to do so from an environmental perspective because when you clear-fell an area the regrowth is representative of the entire forestry infrastructure as compared to going through and cutting down the best trees and letting lesser quality material take over because it is left standing. I thought it was worth making that point.

The reality is that some quite sensible amendments to this legislation were proposed previously by the coalition. They were rejected notwithstanding the fact that most other senators also saw their merit, as I understand did the trade union movement and the employer organisations. They have been rejected, and in the interest of achieving the fundamental outcome, which is the harmonisation of an occupational health and safety standard around Australia, the coalition is not this time making such amendments. We will concede that the bill is going to be necessary. It appears that the only people to lose from the failure of these amendments are the very people that matter most, the people that will be controlled by this matter, and that is workers as employees. But that will be dealt with presumably over time.

There is not much else to say about this legislation other than that I hope that putting together the policies of the future Safe Work Australia will create a circumstance where the responsibility to protect yourself resides as much with you as it does with your employer. I was an employer for many years and as such was astounded on occasions at how little respect the average worker had for their own safety. It is now the case that if an injury occurs on a worksite the employer somehow or other is always considered responsible. These are issues that I hope will be taken into account when this body has formed.

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 will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.