Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk interjects and says 'Shame'. You know what, Mr Deputy President, I fully agree with her. But do you know why New South Wales did that? Because members of Senators Bilyk's party in the upper house of the parliament of New South Wales voted to put amendments to the harmonised bill that made it inconsistent with that which is before us today. It was the ALP, with the Australian Greens and, might I add, the shooters party, that would continue to allow trade unions to bring actions against employers when there is an independent, for want of a better term, police force or an independent bureaucracy to do these things. It is highly unwise for the unions to be involved in this. Indeed, having unions involved was specifically rejected by the ministerial council. It was put up and specifically rejected. Yet we have unharmonised laws courtesy of the power of the trade union movement over the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales.

The Prime Minister said:

Thirty years—on the day we delivered it—there were some public servants that had tears in their eyes because they spent all their working life waiting for someone to deliver that reform. Wasn't easy, but I got it done.

You can just imagine the TV coverage of all these assertions by the Prime Minister as a go-get-'em type Prime Minister achieving something after 30 years, when she had not at all. But it seems that she was willing to say any words that came into her mind at any time if she thought that might help her win the odd vote during that election campaign. She went on to say:

And what I think that shows is if you believe in something passionately, then you will work through.

So we are told that the Prime Minister got it all done, signed, sealed and delivered. Perhaps Senator Evans might believe that—we do not know—but we do know that in some areas it is unravelling. The harmonisation of the nation's numerous occupational health and safety laws in general terms in principle is a good thing. It was started by the Howard government, in fact, in October 2006. Yet, of course, we were told that some people had been working on this for 30 years and were starting to cry—and if they did sobeit, but it was first started on the official level in October 2006.

The arguments for harmonisation appear compelling to many, and I must say that I am one of those who is compelled by those arguments. But I am also very disappointed that the government has sought to bring on this legislation for debate when the regulations are yet to be finalised. The coalition believes that, in fairness to all sides of the chamber, the government should have provided a copy of the final regulations and the final regulatory impact statement. This legislation is what is now being described as 'coathanger legislation', where you have just got the wire frame of the coathanger but it is what you hang on it by way of regulations that actually counts, that actually makes the difference. So what this government is yet again seeking to do is to introduce a scheme whereby the Australian people, and more importantly their representatives in this place, are unable to fully judge that which is going to come into being.

Indeed, I recall some draft regulations in one of the areas which would have all building sites that have the potential of a worker to fall more than two metres to be fully safety fenced. That therefore means every single domestic residence, every unit that is being built in the broadacre allotments, would need to be individually fenced off. And we wonder in Australia why we are dealing with cost increases in housing and issues of housing affordability and young people who are not able to get into houses. If these regulations come to pass under this coathanger legislation, every house building site will need to have such a safety fence erected around it. That will simply add to the cost of housing. Of course you want safety on every worksite. Of course you want the minimisation of injuries. I must say I am not sure that this bill itself will deliver that but it will at least develop as much as possible a harmonised scheme.

There are some issues that are of concern to the coalition and we have amendments and will deal with those through the committee stage. Training in occupational health and safety is always an important issue. At this time of transition to new arrangements the availability of courses is vital, and unfortunately the availability of accredited courses has been reduced by 26 per cent since restrictive changes were introduced by the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission in 2010 in order to facilitate transition—so called—and ensure the availability of training courses.

I will put forward an amendment to the transitional bill enabling the continuance of courses accredited under the 2006-07 regime. The change made supports union training at the expense of a private provider with no beneficial outcomes. Many an hour, as you know, Mr Acting Deputy President Back, has been spent at the Senate estimates asking Safe Work Australia as to the reason for this change. Was there any problem with the service delivery? Was there any problem with the outcome of the safety training? All we ever get from the bureaucracy, with great respect, is, 'Well, it was a decision and that decision is the decision and therefore that is the decision.' As to the rationale, we are never told why that decision was made. We are never told why 26 per cent of the service providers should be knocked out of the ring, service providers that have been employed by Commonwealth departments and agencies, to whom Commonwealth departments and agencies have written letters of commendation saying how good the training was. But you know what the fault was, don't you, Mr Acting Deputy President. It was not union authorised training. That was the great difficulty with it and that is why they had to be pushed aside—no fault with the training, no fault with the outcome, but deliberately disallowed. And no answers have been given at Senate estimates. Indeed, one of the bureaucrats said in relation to this issue that I think they have now answered over 200 written questions on notice from me on this issue. The reason they got so many is that they cannot come up with a plausible argument as to why this form of training, which has been so exceptionally good, endorsed by Commonwealth agencies and departments, is now no longer allowed.

There are also matters on the major bill that I will be dealing with in the committee stage dealing with the failure to include the term 'control' in identification of duties of care, removal of the right to silence and protection from self-incrimination. Also in relation to the time frame there are certain issues that need to be dealt with. So, whilst the coalition will not oppose this bill, we will put forward some commonsense amendments. It is, as I said before, important to point out that this is coathanger legislation. The regulations will be determinative of the benefit of this change. Model regulations were circulated and I must say they are exceptionally restrictive, with the one example that I gave. The final regulations still have not been released, nor has the regulatory impact statement. If the minister's timetable is to be adopted, these regulations will come out over the next few weeks, one hopes. Indeed, in one area I understand they will be coming out the week before Christmas and then they will have to be applied as of the commencement of the following year. So the decision regulatory impact statement that is currently floating around offers some very real concerns.

I note that in answers in Senate estimates the department could not clearly say that the harmonisation will be achieving the clear goals that were laid out from the outset. The clear goals and the so-called modelling and the savings that would be made in this area will clearly no longer be made because of the fact that we will no longer have genuinely harmonised legislation since a number of states will be going their own way. I look forward to the committee stage, where I will be able to pursue some further remarks.