Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, even if I took the genuineness of your answer at face value, frankly your advice is fundamentally inaccurate because, in the case of the armoured car industry, workers there refuse to follow directions by their employer. In the case of the bus industry, workers there refuse to follow directions from bus employers. In actual fact, they extended actions because of concerns that some workers might feel compelled to go and do work in dangerous areas because of fear of ramifications—for example, casual employees not getting shifts—or, in the case of the armoured car industry, outside work still being delivered to other businesses or continually ratcheting up the unsafe practices. I previously went through the horrific Padstow RSL shooting.

With regard to those matters and the case of the security action, first of all I put to you two things: one is that those matters can be taken to court. The unions can be turned around and found guilty, and they can also lose points as a result of getting to a trigger point. Then, they have to answer those questions in court. Now, all those actions were taken because they disagreed with direction from the employer and disagreed to do alternative work. I will just put you in the scenario. One of your workmates has just been shot dead. There are gangs operating in various parts of the city. You're trying to work out which part of the city the gang's likely to operate in. This is an industry which has inherent risk. The families of those workers are obviously concerned, as are the workers, about what the next assault or attack might be and how imminent that might be—whether it's a matter of days, weeks or months—so the workers stop work and refuse to go to other areas and do other work which could be deemed as being relatively safe and relatively low risk. They are in breach of the act. So I'm putting this to you: if they are found in breach of the act on those matters, will that add to demerit points that can result in deregistration?