Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

One of the arguments that was raised is one which was dealt with in the committee stage. I will reiterate it, although I do not have the notes that I had at the time. I will paraphrase what I said then. If anyone compares it, hopefully I will be pretty close. One of the main arguments is really about process. It seems a trite argument to run, but it goes like this. It is extremely difficult, not only in my experience but from what I understand, to reach an intergovernmental agreement such as this one in such a broad area. The states acknowledge that we do need Safe Work Australia, we do need overarching OH&S legislation, we do need an outcome which is focused across Australia to ensure that we do have a plan and a strategy in place to reduce occupational health and safety incidents at workplaces across Australia and that the same outcomes can be continuous across all states and territories.

In reaching agreement, one of the challenges is always how you ensure that each state will reflect within the various parliaments the same legislation. This is not just a mild issue; it confounds and confronts states and territories. One of the experiences I can relate is the one where there were two model laws. One related to the Criminal Code. The second related to how you govern the solicitors and barristers across Australia. Both of those had their gestation period—the Model Criminal Code was much earlier—in the nineties, though I may stand corrected. I know that the first time I saw the green paper for the solicitors and barristers legislation was, as I recall, in the early nineties, and it took a long time for that to get across both states and territories. You would think it was pretty easy to have model laws that applied, but it took that long. In the outcomes, we ended up with various disagreements between the states and territories and the Commonwealth and, ultimately, variations in the legislation that were reflected in states and territories across the land. With the Model Criminal Code there was a similar experience. The federal government and the opposition were arguing for getting Model Criminal Code laws across, but we ended up with state variation.

State variation ultimately means that you do not have harmonisation because, once you have separate iterations in various states and territories, you have the capacity for people to depart and for arguments to create differences once they are litigated—or even without litigation sometimes. You then have a breakdown. What we are trying to do here is avoid that right at the start by saying: ‘They’ve signed up to an intergovernmental agreement. We then want this progressed and harmonised throughout the various states and territories. They have agreed to do suchlike.’ It is so important that we achieve it at this point because, if we start to break out with amendments and variations to the intergovernmental agreement, I suspect that other states and territories will not feel as signed up to the intergovernmental agreement as they may have and may also want to gabble on it as they reflect on their jurisdiction. They may not be able to argue, like I am arguing to the Senate today, that the intergovernmental agreement be reflected in legislation. They may simply accept that there are going to be variations and that ultimately we do not end up with harmonised occupational health and safety laws.

We would perhaps argue and end up with a position slightly improved over what we currently have but not with the historic agreement that I have indicated. That is what concerns me most. I am speaking from personal experience. I hope this agreement is not the last, that there are many more that come forward to demonstrate how states and territories can agree to work through these issues by signing up to intergovernmental agreements and that they can provide outcomes that are beneficial to both workers and employers. BCA provided a short snapshot of what the beneficial employer outcomes would be, but the employee outcomes of course are reduced injuries at the workplace and longer contact with workplace rehabilitation to be able to come back to the workforce. All of those thing are necessary. If this means that, for that outcome, I have to ask the Senate to accept the position we put forward, I do so unhesitatingly. I do so with conviction because it is one of those areas that I strongly believe we need.