Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

That is a very important issue because OH&S is something that the government is working on across the board and cooperatively with the states. There are national requirements for occupational health and safety and there is accreditation that must be in place. As all senators know, the stimulus package was undertaken in the middle of a global recession. There was a need for urgency to ensure that infrastructure was put in place to support jobs and small business.

We received numerous representations from small business at the time saying that under the national OH&S regulations they would be excluded from undertaking work. The Labor Party and the Rudd government has always and will always support small business, and there were changes made to ensure that small businesses were not disadvantaged in the purchasing and tendering arrangements from the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. I am proud of the decision we made to undertake that.

Occupational health and safety is still in place under state legislation. It is still in place in each state and each project, but at the same time we have ensured that small businesses, the same small businesses that the coalition would deny work to, the same small businesses that the Liberal Party would be happy to close down by withdrawing the stimulus, are getting support through thousands and thousands of projects. I have told the Senate on numerous occasions that there are 35,000 projects getting under way over the next 14 months. That is what the Rudd government is about. Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party have had one year in office and there is still no jobs plan.