Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cash, what I'm advised is that strictly speaking a failure by a business or payroll provider to comply with this obligation would amount to a breach of the act, but, in practice, should the employer or payroll provider take speedy action to rectify the situation, that would be taken into account by the commission. It certainly is not the intention to go around fining employers or payroll providers who may inadvertently fail to comply. On that—you asked about this earlier as well—it's certainly the department's intention to provide substantial information to small businesses to assist them to comply. We want this to work. We want people to understand the obligations.

You raised workplace health and safety laws. I don't know if this is exactly addressing your query, but the bill does not create any additional workplace health and safety obligations. It doesn't alter the existing interactions between the Fair Work Act and workplace health and safety laws. Employers, of course, have a duty under workplace health and safety laws to ensure the health and safety of workers so far as is reasonably practicable while they are at work, and this includes actively managing the risk of family and domestic violence happening at the workplace.