Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Work Health and Safety Bill 2011. The purpose of this bill is to help bring about harmonisation of the nation's occupational health and safety laws. Via COAG and the Intergovernmental Agreement for Regulatory and Operational Reform in Occupational Health and Safety, the Commonwealth and each of the states and territories have made a commitment to implement by December 2011 the model health and safety laws contained in this bill. The Work Health and Safety Bill 2011 seeks to implement the model laws within the Commonwealth's jurisdiction. It is intended that separate bills will be introduced in each of the other jurisdictions in order to give national effect to the model laws. However, not all jurisdictions will meet the December 2011 deadline.

The Greens accept that this legislation will be a significant step towards delivering a nationally consistent legal framework on work health and safety, bringing clarity and certainty to the legal obligations that we all have in delivering safer, healthier workplaces across the country. However, we have also maintained that the harmonisation process must not reduce occupational health and safety standards in any workplace or weaken the rights of employees and their representatives with respect to OH&S regulation. Our aim should be to pursue the highest possible safety standards so that every worker might return home from work in the same level of health as when they left. Indeed, as a young lawyer acting for workers in the 1980s, it did not take me long to understand the devastating impact of workplace injuries on my clients. Clearly, an employer has the right to expect an honest day's work for an honest day's wage, but workers should not have to put their health and safety on the line just to do their job and earn a wage.

Debate interrupted.