Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor opposes the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. Like the government’s extreme industrial relations legislation, this bill has at its heart the stripping away of the terms and conditions of our workforce. We on this side are driven by a desire for genuine improvements in the area of occupational health and safety across Australian workplaces. Unfortunately, this legislation risks diminishing the occupational health and safety conditions in our workplace.

The OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 is the latest in a number of amendments made to occupational health and safety legislation by the Howard government and it follows on from previous occupational health and safety legislation introduced by the government since the election in 2004. These include: the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission (Repeal, Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2005, the Australian Workplace Safety Standards Bill 2005, the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005 and the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment (Promoting Safer Workplaces) Bill 2005. Labor has opposed each of these bills for good reason. Each of these occupational health and safety bills reduced, compromised or put at risk the occupational health and safety conditions of Australian workplaces.

Labor believes that the bill currently before the chamber will have the same effect. The bill before the chamber is the government’s response to recommendations made by the Productivity Commission that changes in this area were needed. It has historically been the case that we have seen through the evolution of OH&S policy in this country the overriding objective of preventing workplace injury and illness. This has been a principle that has historically underpinned both state and federal legislation in this area. Over time, we have seen the evolution of different OH&S regulatory regimes and workers compensation schemes. We accept for those employers with operations around the country that complying with different state based legislative requirements can be a significant cost burden. It is logical that national uniformity in occupational health and safety regulations should be a priority as an objective. Looking at the existing system, it is understandable that change in this area is warranted.

In relation to the detail of this bill, it is worth mentioning the operation of the two acts which this bill seeks to amend. The operation of these two acts in combination with each other provides the grounds through which occupational health and safety conditions in workplaces across the country can be eroded. The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act currently allows for a premium based workers compensation scheme for Commonwealth employees. It also enables former Commonwealth authorities and eligible private sector corporations to obtain a licence to self-insure under the scheme. In the event that a former Commonwealth authority does not obtain a licence for self-insurance purposes, under the current system those organisations currently default to coverage under the relevant state or territory workers compensation legislation. Private corporations can also be licensed currently under the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. The most recent of these was the National Australia Bank, which registered for self-insurance purposes only in the past few weeks. Such businesses are currently not subject to the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act. Occupational health and safety obligations for these corporations are provided by the different state and territory occupational health and safety legislation. In other words, while certain private sector corporations can retain or obtain workers compensation coverage under the Commonwealth scheme through a self-insurance licence, there is no corresponding mechanism for them to obtain coverage under the Commonwealth occupational health and safety scheme.

The Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act provides the legal basis for the protection of the health and safety of Commonwealth employees. It does not, however, apply to former Commonwealth authorities and private sector corporations that became licensed self-insurers on account of the fact that they are not Commonwealth employers. This has therefore created a situation where former Commonwealth authorities and licensed private sector corporations currently operate under the Commonwealth workers compensation regimes but are covered by the relevant state and territory occupational health and safety legislation in the jurisdictions in which they operate.

Under the SRC Act, the minister currently has the ability to declare that corporations carrying on business in competition with an existing or former Commonwealth authority are eligible to apply for a self-insurance licence. We believe this creates the untidy situation where, in the event that competitors were to be licensed under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act for workers compensation purposes, they would still remain covered by state and territory occupational health and safety legislation. The Productivity Commission argues in its inquiry report to which I referred earlier that this situation may place those businesses at a competitive disadvantage where they would be required to comply with up to eight separate sets of state or territory occupational health and safety legislation and associated compliance costs compared to a Commonwealth authority, which is subject to the Commonwealth regulatory framework. In other words, the Commonwealth legislation can be seen as providing a barrier to competitive neutrality for these corporations.

It is little surprise then that in its report No. 27 of June 2004, National Workers’ Compensation and Occupational Health and Safety Frameworks, the Productivity Commission recommended that the Australian government amend the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act to enable these corporations that are licensed under the Australian government’s workers compensation scheme to elect to be covered by the government’s occupational health and safety legislation. The Productivity Commission considers that this would increase the administrative savings from multistate corporations and allow for greater coordination and feedback between the workers compensation and occupational health and safety regimes. Indeed, as the Productivity Commission itself observed in its report in 2004 on the national workers compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks, this can make it difficult for businesses with national operations to develop a national approach to occupational health and safety.

The government’s response to these matters has been to support the Productivity Commission’s recommendation to enable those employers who are licensed to self-insure under the Australian government’s workers compensation scheme to elect to be covered by the Australian government’s occupational health and safety legislation. However, it has done so with a modification that there should be mandatory coverage under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act for non-Commonwealth employers who gain a self-insurance licence under the SRC Act.

The amendment bill before us seeks to extend coverage of the Commonwealth Employment Act, to which I referred earlier, to multistate employers who are licensed under the SRC Act for self-insurance purposes. The bill also seeks to ensure that Commonwealth authorities licensed under the SRC Act but not covered under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act are covered by that act.

This bill makes provision to allow Comcare to charge all Commonwealth authorities an occupational health and safety contribution for the administration of the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act. It would also validate payments purported to have been made under the SRC Act by some licensees and Commonwealth authorities for OH&S contributions in the 2002-03 financial year.

The OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 seeks to allows corporations licensed as self-insured under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to be covered under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991, administered by Comcare.

The government has also sought to make other amendments. Some of those amendments seek to correct a drafting oversight in amendments made in 2001 to both the SRC Act and the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act. Those amendments placed the provisions for regulatory contributions for both acts in the SRC Act. The 2001 amendments also reorganised the licensing arrangements under the SRC Act and introduced one generic licence. As a result, some licensees were charged, and paid, licence fees for the year 2002-03 under the wrong licence provisions. While the amounts were later recalculated under the correct provisions, the amendments will also certify those licence fees as originally paid.

Under the government’s proposal, the costs borne by Comcare to administer the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act in relation to private sector corporations would be covered by an OH&S contribution included in the corporation’s self-insurance licence fee. As such, contribution costs would not be borne by the Commonwealth from revenue.

The government argues that it is preferable to have an integrated approach to workers compensation and occupational health and safety by providing for all organisations covered by the SRC Act, through the licensing arrangements, to be covered concurrently by the Occupational, Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act. The government further argues that the government’s occupational health and safety regime should open up access to give those businesses granted a self-insurance licence under the SRC Act scheme a single set of national occupational health and safety rules.

Taken in isolation, the government’s amendments to seek to create a uniform national occupational health and safety regime may appear to be a sensible housekeeping move. However, as with all things to do with industrial relations, the effect of the government’s changes are double edged. There may be significant merit in introducing a simplified national system for occupational health and safety but, as drafted, the changes before the chamber unreasonably diminish occupational health and safety standards.

To prove this point, any detailed consideration of the bill must be made in conjunction with earlier government amendments made to the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005, which removed the need for employers and government agencies to negotiate occupational health and safety agreements with unions and employees through the introduction of so-called management arrangements.

Labor opposed those amendments. We opposed those amendments because they removed the need for government agencies to negotiate occupational health and safety agreements with unions and employees. The bill removed all references to ‘unions’ and replaced them with ‘employee representatives’—defined as either a registered organisation or a workplace staff association, who must now be invited into the workplace by an employee. The bill further required that an employee invite an ‘employee representative’ to initiate an occupational health and safety investigation, where previously a trade union could make such a request direct to Comcare to investigate a workplace.

The bill required that employee representatives involved in developing these management arrangements be issued with a certificate by the chief executive officer of Comcare, valid only for a period of 12 months. And finally, the bill empowered employers to conduct the election of employee health and safety representatives, a role previously conducted by a trade union or a person specified by the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, a body which the government proposes to abolish.

On top of these concerns, we on this side of the chamber are also concerned about a number of negative implications in the government’s actions. These include that, as a result of the proposed bill, entitlements under Comcare may vary as compared with those which apply in other states and territories; the movement of large multistate employers to the Comcare administered national system could mean that premium revenue could be lost by the states and territories, leaving employers remaining in the state and territory systems to face higher premiums in the future; and reduced premium pools in states and territories would place increased pressure on the entitlements for injured employees.

We are further concerned about privacy considerations of individual employees. Human resource departments of employers who self-insure will have access to information on employees that, under state and territory schemes, only insurance companies would have access to.

Something the Howard government does not like to acknowledge, but which is well known to Australian employees, is the strong track record of Australian trade unions. It is a strong track record in protecting employees from unsafe work practices and unsafe workplaces. Unfortunately, the legislation before us takes the same approach as has been followed in the government’s broader approach to industrial relations changes—to de-legitimise and attack the role of unions in the workplace.

The combination of the bill before us and the 1991 act, as amended in 2005, has serious implications for the future involvement of organised labour in occupational health and safety issues at the workplace level. Taken together with the amendments made to the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991, the bill will extend limits on union participation in occupational health and safety issues to non-Commonwealth multistate employers who successfully apply for a self-insurers licence under Comcare. This is bad news for Australian employees and, ultimately, it is potentially bad news for Australian workplaces. It is clear that health and safety outcomes are often dependent on high levels of worker participation and union support. Put simply, removing the role of unions and replacing them with management driven processes has the potential to lead to less safe and less healthy workplaces.

As I said in this place when we were debating some previous legislation, unions do have a legitimate role to play in the monitoring and enforcement of occupational health and safety matters in the public sector—and it is not just the public sector where that role is important. Despite what the government may wish to think, trade unions do have a legitimate role to play in occupational health and safety matters in the private sector as well. While in many instances the involvement of the union may not be warranted, it is undeniable that trade unions exist as a safeguard for the protection of occupational health and safety terms and conditions. By extending the coverage of the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act to multistate national employers, the government is effectively seeking to bar union involvement in those workplaces covered by this legislation. We believe that is unacceptable, and that is why we oppose the bill.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect to the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006, it is a truism that occupational health and safety affects most Australians on a daily basis and can have a profound effect on the lives of many individuals and families. Australia continues to have an unacceptable record with regard to work related death, injury and illness. A recent study by Access Economics estimated that there are 4,900 work related deaths—and ‘work related deaths’ includes deaths from work related diseases—each year in Australia. This is higher than the national road toll—in fact, it is more than double.

I have often thought that one of the things we ought to start doing with respect to this is to apply the same statistical and media emphasis that is applied to road trauma and produce the weekly maps of how many deaths have occurred through work related injury that you see for road deaths. It would remind people of how prevalent these deaths are and of the continuing need to improve this situation. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that half a million Australians suffer work related injuries or illnesses each year. Approximately 2.8 million Australians have long-term work related conditions. It is also estimated that 3.9 million work related problems and 1.1 million new work related problems are handled each year by general practitioners.

The Productivity Commission report National Workers’ Compensation and Occupational Health and Safety Frameworks noted that workplace injury and illness impose significant social and economic costs on injured workers and their families, employers and the wider community. The report notes that the cost of work related fatalities and illness to the Australian economy is more than $31 billion a year. The Productivity Commission argued that national uniformity in occupational health and safety regulation should be established as a matter of priority.

In essence, all jurisdictions agree with the fundamental principle of duty of care. It is the foundation stone of occupational health and safety regulation and has been found to be sufficiently robust to accommodate the wide range of circumstances and changes facing the various jurisdictions. There are no compelling arguments against a single national occupational health and safety regime, and there are significant benefits from a national approach, particularly for multistate employers and for the increasingly mobile workforce. The Democrats are sympathetic to this argument. The Democrats have been long-term campaigners for harmonisation of workplace relations and occupational health and safety laws and for a single national jurisdiction. The Democrats believe that having different laws across nine jurisdictions with respect to these areas does lead to inequalities and inefficiencies.

The Productivity Commission recommended that governments should address these compliance burdens, costs and inefficiencies and that the Australian government could take steps immediately by allowing qualifying employers to self-insure under its Comcare scheme and be covered by the Australian government’s OH&S regime. The bill aims to implement the Productivity Commission’s recommendation, extending coverage under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991 to eligible corporations which are licensed under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988. The Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, the SRC, allows former Commonwealth authorities and eligible private sector corporations to be self-insured under this act. In principle, the Democrats support this aim.

The Productivity Commission argued in their report:

The lack of a nationally consistent approach appears to have imposed significant compliance costs on business and may have lead to inequities for injured workers in terms of benefits payable and entitlement to benefits.

At present, former Commonwealth authorities and licensed private sector corporations operate under the Commonwealth workers compensation regime—that is, through the SRC—but are also covered by state and territory occupational health and safety legislation in the jurisdiction in which they operate. This makes for unnecessary difficulties for many firms who wish to develop a national and uniform approach to occupational health and safety and may result in the requirement that they comply with eight separate and quite distinct occupational health and safety jurisdictions.

The National Council of Self-Insurers gave the Senate committee an instance of where safety was jeopardised by different regulations:

If you look at the security-sensitive ammonium nitrate regulations which have come in state by state, PACIA, the Plastics and Chemical Industries Association, are really concerned about the different degree of regulations across the states. We have a situation where the ammonium nitrate can be classified differently, the amount you can store is different from state to state, the transport of it is such that you can transport a certain amount in Victoria but you cannot take it into South Australia et cetera. Some national guidelines there, some national regulations, would streamline it and make it a lot safer. That is what it is about. The confusion is really dangerous.

The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, in his second reading speech on this bill, argued that multistate employers:

find it almost impossible to develop a national approach to occupational health and safety and the increased cost of complying with multiple jurisdictions does not lead to improved health and safety outcomes for their employees.

Not surprisingly, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry have expressed support for the bill, citing compliance complexities as a key reason. In their submission to the Senate inquiry into this bill, the ACCI argued that some employers, particularly the larger national employers, derive legitimate benefits from self-insuring for workers compensation purposes. Under certain conditions, these self-insurers can apply to be licensed under the Commonwealth SRC Act rather than being required to participate in and comply with each separate state and territory workers compensation scheme. Licensees able to access such arrangements therefore avoid the administrative and compliance complexities that otherwise arise from participation in several workers compensation systems.

Mr Bernie Ripoll, the Labor member for Oxley, in his second reading remarks on this bill in the House of Representatives, said:

We expect that for those employers with operations around the country, complying with different state based legislative requirements can be a significant cost burden also. It is logical that national uniformity in OH&S regulation should be a priority objective. Looking at the existing system, it is understandable that changes in this area are warranted ...

There appears to be wide-ranging support and evidence for the need for harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws. So I was curious that, in their opposition senators report to the inquiry into this bill, Labor have argued in that Senate report against harmonisation. I quote:

The Opposition believes that the level of confusion arising from different state laws is overstated, and claims of additional compliance costs to employers who have to comply with conflicting OHS state laws lack any evidentiary basis.

I disagree with the ALP’s assertion in the report and I tend to support the way in which Mr Ripoll expressed himself. I do agree with some of the other concerns that the ALP have raised over this bill.

In the terms of reference to the Productivity Commission, Minister Ian Campbell stated:

Ideally, a national framework for workers’ compensation and OHS would encompass a cooperative approach between the Commonwealth and State governments while still leaving primary responsibility for these systems with the States. Moreover, any national frameworks would provide the States with adequate flexibility to address local conditions, encourage competition and facilitate competitive neutrality.

It appears that there has been little consultation with the states on this bill, given that the states expressed overwhelming opposition to the Productivity Commission’s recommendation, which the bill now implements. It concerns me that the federal government is determined to press ahead with this legislation despite a High Court challenge by the Victorian government against the federal government challenging the legitimacy of federal workers compensation insurance licences. The Victorian government is arguing that federal licences which effectively allow large employers to opt out of state schemes and insure through Comcare are not permitted under the Constitution. Victoria’s approach is supported by other state governments, including New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia.

We Democrats are concerned that the government seems to have put too little effort into trying to persuade the states and territories to achieve uniform occupational health and safety codes and standards and to harmonise occupational health and safety laws. The government’s actions with respect to this bill and industrial relations reform in general will only serve to put the states more offside and to slow, if not halt, any chance of uniformity and harmonisation. This is not only bad politics but bad policy.

The Democrats are concerned by accusations that existing compliance obligations and enforcement of these obligations under the Commonwealth occupational health and safety system are poor compared with state and territory acts. It is our view that we should be working towards a national world-class system, taking the best aspects of state, territory and federal law and coming up with a unitary system which is supported by the states and territories.

The unions and Labor have accused the Commonwealth system of being lax in compliance. They submit evidence that compares Comcare figures to Victoria’s WorkSafe figures for 2003 and 2004. It shows that Comcare had only 0.08 workplace interventions per employee, compared to WorkSafe’s 2.07; that Comcare handed out only 0.005 safety prohibition and improvement notices per employee, compared to WorkSafe’s 0.59; and that there had been no prosecutions under Comcare, compared to 0.005 per employee under WorkSafe. Those figures are not just academic. Given the earlier figures as to the quantum of workplace injuries that I raised, it is obviously very important to use both investigation and enforcement to reduce the incidence of negative health and safety occurrences. The differences in these figures are cause for questioning at least. I note that Comcare advised the Senate committee that until legislative changes were made in September 2004 it was unable to initiate civil or criminal prosecutions. I accept that this factor accounts for some of the difference in figures, but it does not account for the difference in intervention and improvement notices. I urge the government to investigate the matter further. The question of resourcing also needs to be considered.

The Senate committee heard concerns about the Commonwealth’s ability to adequately resource the inevitable increase in workload that will result from this bill. It is my understanding that at the moment there are approximately 16 Commonwealth workplace inspectors, with access to an additional 200 state inspectors. I do not know how you can have ‘approximately 16’ so I presume that means full-time equivalents. While this may seem adequate on the face of it, I was alarmed to learn that Comcare openly admitted that it was reluctant to use the services of state and territory inspectors because it was dissatisfied with the quality of their reports. Comcare explained to the committee:

Part of the problem that we experience relates to the fact that we approach investigations quite differently. You even see it with the terminology. The states refer to ‘inspectors’ and we refer to ‘investigations’ and ‘investigation reports’. A lot of the inspectors that do work for us from the states are used to walking into a workplace, spotting hazards—things like cabling, as was mentioned before—writing a notice and leaving, whereas, when we require an investigation report to be done, it is quite a comprehensive forensic examination in response to an incident: what went wrong; who was responsible; what are the elements of the legislation; what are the elements of an offence; what should have been done; what was reasonably practicable; was it done; and, if not, why not?

I am somewhat surprised by these comments because they expose such a difference in methodology and approach. That needs to be resolved. We need to have a uniform method of approaching these issues which produces the optimal outcomes. I note that Comcare did indicate to the committee that they will be expanding the number of investigators, although they did not say by how many. Labor in their opposition senators report on this bill—correctly, in my view—drew attention to the final report of the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. This final report concluded in part:

There is persuasive support for the view that the extent of compliance with occupational health and safety obligations is strongly influenced by a reasonable expectation of the likelihood of being inspected, prosecuted, convicted and having a meaningful penalty imposed. The presence of occupational health and safety inspectors is important.

I agree, and the Democrats agree, with that sentiment. Therefore I find it hard to have confidence in an expanded scheme when the ability to deal with current and expected future workloads is still questionable. But our prime concern with this bill relates to what I would call its partner legislation—the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005. This is scheduled to be dealt with by this chamber tomorrow.

The Commonwealth Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005, broadly speaking, aims to remove the automatic right of unions to provide occupational health and safety representation. The Democrats believe that unions have a legitimate and useful role in occupational health and safety, and the research demonstrates that union representations on health and safety at the workplace are associated with better health and safety outcomes. We will be moving amendments to that bill when it finally comes into the chamber. If those amendments were to be agreed to, we would actually be in a position whereby we could support this bill. However, the government have already indicated that they will not be supporting our amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005. If that is the case, it is difficult for us to support the expansion of workplaces under the Commonwealth occupational health and safety scheme in an environment where unions will have much less participation. As I have said, unions have traditionally had a positive effect on health and safety outcomes.

While the Democrats support the harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws, and we support the idea of a single national scheme—reducing regulatory burden is an important thing to pursue—we have concerns with the lack of involvement of and cooperation with the states and territories with respect to getting common agreement on occupational health and safety; with the enforcement of Commonwealth occupational health and safety rules; and with the government’s wider aim with respect to union involvement in health and safety. For this reason I am caught in a conundrum. I and my party support the intent behind this bill. But when we line this bill up with the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005 in the form in which it will pass, we think the combination of the two is negative rather than positive. Therefore we will oppose this bill.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur with Senator Murray’s comments. Well done, Senator Murray—I cannot pick one argument with your list of reasons there. I rise to speak against the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. Since the Howard government came to office, more than 10 long years ago, we have seen a systematic undermining of work safety standards and conditions in Australia through the changes to Commonwealth legislation. There have been a number of pieces of legislation through which the government has sought to diminish or remove the ability of trade unions to be or remain involved in work safety issues at the workplace.

The minister claimed that this bill seeks to create a uniform national OH&S regime. At one level this appears to be a sensible housekeeping measure, but, seen in the context of the anti-union measures contained in the OH&S Commonwealth employees bill, it becomes clear that this bill seeks to extend those anti-union measures to private employers with operations in multiple jurisdictions. With this bill the Howard government is seeking to take over the occupational health and safety laws of this country by stealth. At present, former Commonwealth authorities and licensed private sector corporations operate under the Commonwealth workers compensation regime but are covered by state and territory occupational health and safety legislation in the jurisdictions in which they operate. This bill will allow these licensed private sector corporations to self-insure under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act, which is administered by Comcare. That means that under this bill any company that used to be a Commonwealth authority or that is in competition with a Commonwealth authority—or ex Commonwealth authority—can apply to become part of Comcare and thereby opt out of the coverage of state OH&S laws.

For my former industry, the transport industry, this bill will have significant shockwaves. It is a blue-collar industry that does have a lot of workers compensation claims and issues. In transport nearly all general transport operators would be able to apply to opt out of state OH&S coverage because they are in competition with the likes of Australia Post. To name a couple of companies, Linfox and K&S Freighters—two major employers of transport workers in this country—already have Comcare authority. So when this bill comes into effect they will be beyond the reach of state OH&S laws. This is of concern because state OH&S laws are clearly superior to Comcare. The very recent chain of responsibility regulation for trucking in the NSW OH&S regime, for example, has no counterpart in the Comcare system. Major employers covering thousands and thousands of transport workers will be exempt. Unfortunately, most companies have very poor records when dealing with workers comp claims and issues. While this may be a shock to those on the other side of the chamber, most of union officials’ time is taken up with OH&S and workers compensation issues.

The ideas contained in this bill were discussed in the last session of parliament, but the small business community had severe reservations about it. If large multistate employers opt out of state workers compensation regimes, the likelihood is that premiums will need to rise for those businesses that remain in the schemes. That would have two consequences. Firstly—an obvious consequence for smaller businesses—premiums will go up and, secondly, it would put pressure on those state schemes to reduce the compensation paid to those unfortunate enough to suffer injury or illness in their occupations. If the premium pools are smaller, that puts more pressure on those funds and, as a result, state governments will come under greater pressure to reduce compensation to those workers who are injured or who suffer illnesses in the workplace.

From my experience, the majority of small businesses comprise decent hardworking men and women who have put everything on the line to give their children a better future and to build an asset for them in their retirement. In my experience out there dealing with small businesses, I can honestly say that those employers want their employees to be safe. They want their employees to go home each and every night with everything still intact. They want them to go home to their families and they want them to come back to work next day, healthy, fit and ready to do it again. In talking about small businesses, where is Mr Peter Hendy from the ACCI? Where is Ms Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group? Normally, they are screaming from the roofs of the tallest buildings about any law, regulation or amendment that will assist business. I must say the silence is deafening—there is nothing coming from those two institutions or from the two leaders of those employer bodies. I put it to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that they do look after the big end of town and only the big end of town.

We know that the government cannot get on with the states, so they want to take control of them. Where state systems can be harmonised through cooperation and negotiation, they should be. That would achieve what the Productivity Commission has sought to achieve: reduced compliance and administration costs. The answer to the problem should be sought through the harmonisation of state arrangements, rather than through the Howard government seizing control. You will not get the best ideas or the best practice from each jurisdiction; instead, the Commonwealth will say, ‘We know best.’ This will be to the detriment of the state systems, to the detriment of small businesses and to the detriment of injured workers. Workers compensation schemes and occupational health and safety regulations have been developed over many years by various state and territory governments in a manner that reflects the industry mix, the economic activity, the population and the various legal structures that operate in a particular jurisdiction.

We need to look at this bill in relation to other amendments that the Howard government has made to the Commonwealth occupational health and safety laws. Amendments have already been made to the Commonwealth’s occupational health and safety laws that remove all reference to unions. These changes to the Commonwealth occupational health and safety laws also require the individual employee to invite employee representatives into the workplace. While unions were previously allowed to request, for instance, a visit from Comcare to investigate a matter, it now falls on an individual employee to initiate such requests. These changes are aimed at creating an environment in which it is particularly difficult to get people who have a degree of expertise in considering occupational health and safety issues in the workplace.

Just by way of example, when I was an organiser with that fantastic blue-collar workers union, the Transport Workers Union, I received a phone call one day from a worker on a work site as I was travelling to another work site whose organiser was on leave. They said, ‘Can we bug you for a second?’ I said, ‘Sure, what is it?’ They said, ‘If we’re handling stuff with a skull and crossbones on it, do we get paid any more money?’ I was—I am not anymore—a licensed dangerous goods driver and that licence expired some 15 years ago, but it did not take long for me to work out that, if stuff had a skull and crossbones on it, the chances of it being a poison were pretty close to the mark. So I went straight round to that site and these guys were in a container—it was a stinking hot day in the middle of summer in Perth, in our state of Western Australia, as you would know, Mr Acting Deputy President Lightfoot—unloading a container full of bags of chemicals. There were split bags, dust and powder everywhere with a skull and crossbones on them. They had their water bottles in the container and there was a lunchbox. They told me that, halfway through unloading the container, they had sat down, had their lunch and drunk the water. Immediately, as a union organiser, who had the care of workers foremost in my mind, I contacted my union, which had some 20,000 material safety data sheets on file. They could give me a run-down of exactly what they were handling. If this is interference that the Howard government believes that unions contribute to in the workplace, it is a very sad day going forward from here.

We found out, once we received the material safety data sheet, that these guys had no idea. All they were worried about was whether they would get paid any extra money. They were handling a class 2B carcinogen. It had gone from a class A, a possible cause of cancer, to a probable cause of cancer. The leading hand of the transport company was a gentleman who had the company’s interest at heart, and no doubt he knew how to instruct men how to unload containers, put the load on trucks and then redistribute it around the Perth metropolitan area. But he had absolutely no idea about occupational health and safety. He knew that in the lunchroom there was a silver cabinet—he did not know where the key was—and that there was some form of protective personal equipment in there but he had no idea what it was to be used for. That is a classic example of what union officials do from day to day. They are out there, they know all about occupational health and safety, they are all trained in occupational health and safety. These changes are aimed at creating an environment in which it is particularly difficult to get people who have a degree of expertise in considering occupational health and safety issues in the workplace.

These laws are also aimed at making it as difficult as possible for union representatives to bring concerns to the attention of the relevant authorities. They are aimed at ensuring that individual employees have to take sole responsibility for initiating everything, a change probably developed with the secret hope that no individual employee would run the risk of jeopardising their future employment by raising occupational health and safety concerns. Employee representatives involved in developing OH&S management arrangements must be issued with a certificate by the CEO of Comcare, which is valid for only 12 months. Also, employers are allowed to conduct the election of employee health and safety representatives, a role previously conducted by a union or a person specified by the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission.

In my great state of Western Australia it is clearly stated in the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 that, if a secret ballot is conducted to elect a health and safety representative on a site, within 12 months of their election they must receive training to be an occupational health and safety officer and the employer must also be allowed to choose whom they want to train them. If there is any fear that the baddies from the union will teach the occupational health and safety officers all the wrong things which can bring an employer undone, the employer can send the elected representative to their choice of training arrangements.

Under Work Choices, the onus has now shifted from the employer to the employee to prove that there is a risk to his or her health in the workplace. Part 9, division 1, section 420(4) of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 places the burden of proof on an employee to prove that any industrial action taken was because of a reasonable concern about an imminent risk to his or her health or safety. And, in a further slap to the legitimate concerns of employees about their workplace safety, they can be hit with a $6,600 fine if they are unable to prove what that work safety concern was.

I have yet to see a legitimate argument that the number of injuries and deaths will be reduced as a result of changing to a national regime, particularly a noncompulsory, opt-in national regime. I have yet to see any real argument that safety conditions on the job will be improved by bringing the various state regimes into a single national arrangement, particularly when those arrangements are of a voluntary, opt-in nature.

Trade unions and their officials do have, and should have, a central role to play in workplace safety in this country. It is through the tireless work of the trade union movement that we are today able to enjoy safer workplaces than would otherwise have been the case. That is why Labor will always support the role of trade unions in helping to ensure that our workplaces are safe.

Judith Troeth (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak on the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006, which was the subject of an inquiry by the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee. Productivity Commission report No. 27, National workers’ compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks, recommended that the Australian government amend the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991 to enable those employers who are licensed to self-insure under the Comcare scheme to elect to be covered by the Australian government’s OHS legislation. This bill will implement the government’s response to the Productivity Commission report. Those corporations which are licensed under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, the SRC Act, will also be covered under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991. The bill ensures that all SRC Act licensees—both corporations and Commonwealth authorities—are covered by the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991 for OHS purposes.

At present, those former Commonwealth authorities and licensed private sector corporations that operate under the Commonwealth workers compensation scheme are covered by state and territory occupational health and safety legislation in the jurisdictions in which they operate. That makes it unnecessarily difficult for many firms to develop a national approach to occupational health and safety, and it may result in the requirement that they comply with eight separate, and quite distinct, OHS jurisdictions. The amendments in this bill will provide all licensees under the SRC Act with the benefits of operating under one occupational health and safety scheme, together with integrated prevention, compensation and rehabilitation arrangements. This will produce better health and safety outcomes all round, including for the employers of the affected bodies. The amendments will enable much greater coordination and feedback between the workers compensation and OHS arrangements. The time and resources which are currently expended in addressing jurisdictional and boundary disputes caused by multiple compliance regimes can be redirected to achieve greater overall efficiencies and, importantly, savings can be devoted to further improving health and safety in the workplace.

It is very important that this bill be introduced in order to, firstly, provide certainty to Telstra in the event that they are fully privatised. The Telstra (Transition to Full Private Ownership) Bill 2003 removed Telstra from schedule 1 of the OHS Act so that it is no longer deemed to be a government business enterprise for the purposes of the OHS Act. It is important that this bill now be put through in order to, secondly, provide coverage for Optus who, although self-insured under the Comcare scheme, do not have coverage under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991 because they do not fit the definition of a Commonwealth authority or government business enterprise.

Recent campaigns against the Work Choices bill, such as those exemplified by Senator Sterle, have incorrectly asserted that workplace safety will be compromised by promoting greater flexibility in the workplace. It is true that the Work Choices bill will result in more workers moving to the federal industrial relations system, but these reforms will not impact on state and territory jurisdiction over workers compensation and occupational health and safety. All OHS legislation imposes a duty of care on employers to protect the health and safety of their employees. The duty of care includes providing a safe working environment and safe systems of work, and it encompasses risks associated with fatigue. As is currently the case, both employers and employees will need to be conscious of their responsibilities under OHS legislation in negotiating any changes to working hours arrangements, including overtime and rest breaks.

The economic cost of workplace accidents to workers, employers and the community is huge. It is estimated to be in excess of $30 billion annually, or some five per cent of gross domestic product. The responsibility for this must be shared by all stakeholders, and we must all act to make continual improvements. The answer is not to introduce laws that are punitive and punish the employer above all else—particularly given the example that Senator Sterle used. You would have thought that those workers, working under a skull and crossbones signal, would have deduced that there was some requirement for them to take responsibility for not eating their lunch anywhere near the vicinity of that particular chemical.

The best way to address this issue is to promote a culture where there is greater cooperation between employer and employee. In this respect, I am very pleased to say the Commonwealth is leading the way in promoting an environment in which employers and employees are encouraged to take a cooperative approach to identifying and eliminating hazards that may cause injury or death. The Australian government is strongly committed to improving occupational health and safety outcomes in all Australian workplaces. Those improvements can be achieved through governments, employers and employees taking a cooperative and non-adversarial approach to workplace health and safety issues. It is no use various sectors of the working environment sitting around saying to the other sector ‘This is your fault,’ while these dreadful accidents continue to happen.

The coalition has a proud record in its commitment to improving occupational health and safety in every Australian workplace. We initiated the development of the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy in 2002, and I remind those opposite that the signatories to this strategy include the Australian government, all the state and territory governments including the ACT, the ACTU and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. So every part of the workplace is committed to making this strategy work. We want to improve Australia’s performance over the next decade and we want to foster sustainable, safe and healthy enterprises that prevent work related death, injury and disease.

There are five national priorities in this strategy: (1) reducing the high incidence and severity of risks; (2) improving the capacity of business and workers to manage occupational health and safety; (3) preventing occupational disease more effectively; (4) eliminating workplace hazards at the design stage; and (5) strengthening the capacity of governments to influence better OH&S outcomes. And that is why we have moved to establish the Australian Safety and Compensation Council.

In a country with 10 million workers, many employers ask why there are eight different and quite separate OH&S and workers compensation jurisdictions, as exist at the moment. This is made worse by the fact that there appears to be very little in the way of consistency and uniformity across the various schemes. A number of major national corporations have made their frustrations known with this situation. For instance, the National Australia Bank has previously complained about the fact that the current state based systems result in the bank dealing with eight different legislations, which provide eight different levels of benefits, eight different definitions of injury, and so on.

So, in order to improve the national frameworks, the government undertook to establish the Australian Safety and Compensation Council. That has representatives from Commonwealth, state and territory governments, as well as employer and employee groups. It provides a new opportunity to coordinate workers compensation on a national level. Unlike the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, which it replaces, the ASCC will consider both occupational health and safety and workers compensation matters.

The ASCC’s main role will be to coordinate research and provide policy advice to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, which obviously comprises the federal workplace relations minister and the state and territory counterparts. The ASCC met for the first time in October last year to discuss the council’s future priorities for moving Australia towards a more nationally consistent workers compensation framework.

What has been Labor’s position up till now? Certainly I should acknowledge, on the opposition’s side, that unions have played an important role in the promotion of health and safety in the workplace. They always have and one would hope that they always will. The ACTU, as I have said, played a central role in the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission and, through its membership of the ASCC, I would imagine it would continue to do so. So it is very disappointing to note that the union movement has attempted to cynically exploit the grief and misfortune of those people who are killed or injured in workplace accidents. For instance, last year, on the ABC’s Lateline, the President of the ACTU, Ms Sharan Burrow, was filmed at an ACTU campaign meeting saying:

I need a mum or a dad of someone who’s been seriously injured or killed. That would be fantastic.

That is a terrible statement to make. And, indeed, at the hearings on the Work Choices bill which I conducted in November last year, I challenged Ms Burrow about that statement that she made on the ABC’s Lateline and asked her if she regretted that in any way. And she said, virtually, no, she did not. This demonstrates that the ACTU’s disregard for workers’ wellbeing even extends to taking advantage of family tragedies. What does it say about the union movement’s concern for workers and their families when its president states that a grieving family would be ‘fantastic’ for her campaign?

What has been the attitude of the states and territories? The New South Wales government has recently passed the New South Wales Occupational Health and Safety Amendment (Workplace Deaths) Bill, where employers face up to five years jail and a $165,000 fine if they are convicted of causing an employee’s death through recklessness. It is of considerable concern that breaches of such serious and punitive laws, be they civil or criminal, are dealt with by the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission and not a court. And this state of affairs will continue, given that the New South Wales Court of Appeal recently found that there was nothing to prevent the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission from hearing such matters.

It is very disturbing that, in a future where we hope we would have a harmonious industrial relations atmosphere, under those New South Wales occupational health and safety laws unions could actually prosecute employers for workplace occupational health and safety breaches and, if successful in their action, could receive up to half the fines awarded and also have their legal bill paid by the employer. The New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission has fined the ANZ Bank over armed robberies at their branches after action brought by the Finance Sector Union. Patrick Stevedores were subject to an MUA prosecution for work practices that risked repetitive strain injury. New South Wales coalminers have been hit for using misleading maps prepared by the New South Wales government.

The New South Wales Labor Party is financially beholden to the union movement and relies on substantial donations from unions. It is no coincidence that the Finance Sector Union and the MUA have donated over $350,000 to New South Wales Labor since 1995. This situation exists only in New South Wales. In every other jurisdiction, only the relevant workers compensation authorities can prosecute for alleged breaches of work safety laws. This creates a perverse incentive for unions to abuse such processes and to prosecute employers for purely financial gain.

The Victorian government has also introduced the offence of reckless endangerment under the Victorian Occupational Health and Safety Act, carrying a potential prison sentence and large financial penalties. So the Victorian and New South Wales laws are essentially using occupational health and safety legislation to introduce industrial manslaughter laws by stealth. The ACT has been more upfront in its intentions. It has introduced the criminal offence of industrial manslaughter, which singles out employers for punishment despite the fact that some factors influencing occupational heath and safety may be outside the employer’s control. That sort of approach, which is adversarial to say the least, will serve only to discourage employers and employees from being closely involved in safety issues. Employers and employees will focus on defending themselves rather than progressively moving ahead to cooperatively ensure safer workplaces.

Governments at the Commonwealth, state and territory levels must be wary of seeking to amend or impose legislation which only serves to create uncertainties for employers and in many instances will only discourage employers and employees from being closely involved in those sorts of issues. The Australian government has introduced the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment (Promoting Safer Workplaces) Bill 2005 to exclude Commonwealth employers and employees from the application of the ACT industrial manslaughter laws or similar laws enacted in the future by other states and territories.

To sum up, this bill further reinforces the Australian government’s approach to workplace health and safety to ensure that the main focus is on preventing workplace injuries, rather than punishment after the event.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens oppose the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006 as we believe this is yet another attack on Australian workers. In the past 12 months, the Howard government has fundamentally changed the way Australians are employed and now, to our eyes, it wants to water down safety standards. This is another in a long list of bills relating to safety that are already before this chamber or that will be coming in the next few days. For example, the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Amendment Bill 2005, we believe, has the effect of watering down safety standards by substantially reducing or removing union involvement when unions play such a key part in promoting safety and improving safety standards in the workplace. This is despite Senator Abetz saying in June during the debate on the motion for disallowance of the Workplace Relations Regulations 2006:

In relation to occupational health and safety, a matter of great concern to every Australian, whose jurisdiction is it? Everybody knows, or should know, that it falls fairly and squarely within the jurisdiction of the states and territories.

At that stage he was attempting to wash his hands of some level of responsibility about the particular issue we were debating. However, when one looks at this bill and other like bills, it is quite obvious that the Commonwealth is trying to gain control of health and safety in the workplace and at the same time reduce employers’ responsibilities and undermine health and safety in the workplace. Under this bill in particular, more workers will come under the Commonwealth provisions which, we believe, offer less protection and less requirement for compliance by employers and, as I said, aim to take more Commonwealth control and undermine the better protection that is offered by the states and territories. If we look at the impact on our community of the short-changing of safety, I believe it will cost us dearly and we will rue the day that we have further undermined the health and safety of our workplaces with this string of legislation.

International research and experience clearly shows that, when employers manage occupational health and safety without worker representation, the results are much worse: it costs the employers in lost time and productivity and ultimately increased payouts for disability and damages; it also costs the workers and their families—I will go into a bit more detail on the added dangers that workers face in their workplaces and the consequences on their health, wellbeing and livelihood—and it costs the nation in terms of the productivity of our economy, the burden of caring for those made sick or disabled in the workplace and a decreased international reputation.

In fact, on my perusal of the figures, which I think I have highlighted in this place before, the impact on the economy of time lost to health and safety problems versus time lost to industrial action is 20 to one. The very minor gains the government may hope to make through their wider Work Choices agenda in supposedly increasing productivity will definitely be lost to health and safety if our current health and safety regime is undermined. As has already been highlighted in this place, the situation in Australia, although getting better, still needs to improve significantly. There are still far too many Australians dying in industrial accidents and suffering long-term—sometimes short-term—health effects. Workplace injury and illness has been estimated to cost the Australian economy over $34.3 billion a year, or five per cent of GDP. There are more deaths in the workplace than on the roads. Best estimates are that workers compensation insurance covers only about 25 per cent of the overall economic cost. The AMP estimates that $8 billion of Australian corporate profits are lost to occupational health and safety costs each year. They are pretty significant impacts that lax health and safety procedures result in.

As I have said, I believe the aim of this legislation is to reduce the responsibilities of employers for occupational health and safety by putting it under the Commonwealth provisions rather than the stricter state and territory provisions. But there is no evidence to suggest that health and safety will improve and that death, injuries and disease will decrease if a company’s compliance obligations are reduced. In fact, the evidence suggests that occupational health and safety accidents, injuries, disease and deaths may increase if employer obligations are reduced. I will quote from a statement by the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry, which concluded, in part:

There is persuasive support for the view that the extent of compliance with occupational health and safety obligations is strongly influenced by a reasonable expectation of the likelihood of being inspected, prosecuted, convicted and having a meaningful penalty imposed. The presence of occupational health and safety inspectors is important.

This is, of course, very important to this debate because putting even more workers who will be affected by this bill under Commonwealth regimes will put them into a situation where there are fewer inspectors and less compliance reporting and checking than under the state systems. A number of figures have been quoted. Figures were quoted in the opposition senators’ dissenting report to the inquiry on this bill, and other figures quote that the Commonwealth has a very small occupational health and safety inspectorate of 20 inspectors, while Victoria, for example—and there is a slight difference between some of the figures, but the variations are about the same—has 236 inspectors. That is a significant, tenfold difference in the number of inspectors. I have already highlighted that the number of inspectors is important to ensure compliance.

Let us look at the number of workplace interventions. Under Comcare there have been 245 and under, for example, Victoria’s WorkSafe there have been 43,719. The number of safety prohibition and improvement notices is 17 under Comcare and 12,492 under Victoria’s workplace safety provisions. The number of prosecutions under Comcare is none and the number under Victoria’s process is 110. You can see that there is a significant gap between what happens at a state level and what happens at a Commonwealth level. I know that the union movement and a number of other organisations are severely concerned about the impact of moving those numbers of workers from the state process to the Commonwealth process and the implications of that for inspection and compliance and for occupational health and safety.

Then we come to the fact that this series of bills also undermines union movement involvement in the provision of occupational health and safety. During another debate in this place recently over occupational health and safety changes I quoted a number of international studies that show the link between stronger occupational health and safety and worker representation. There are very clear links between improved occupational health and safety standards and reduced injury and death rates where joint arrangements are in place with trade union representatives and worker representation. Study after study shows this, yet what is the Commonwealth doing? It is moving to reduce union involvement and worker organisation representation in occupational health and safety. Clearly, again, this is part of the government’s agenda to weaken occupational health and safety, to weaken union representation and to bring the state and territory system, which is in fact the stronger system, under Commonwealth control, despite the fact, as I have said, that in the debate Senator Abetz said that occupational health and safety is the jurisdiction of the states and territories.

This is not the way to go about providing better occupational health and safety in Australia. If this government is truly interested in improving occupational health and safety, a philosophy I would strongly support, this is not the way to go about it. The way to improve occupational health and safety is not to bring in a system with fewer inspectorates, a reduced level of compliance and ability to check it, and a reduced level of worker involvement in occupational health and safety. The Greens oppose this bill and urge the Senate to oppose it too.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006. Each and every one of us privileged to serve in this place is very proud of the states and territories that we represent. We are particularly privileged to represent the people, communities and businesses that collectively make up our states and territories. Our role is to do all we can in this place to best represent the interests of those people in their communities. Many of those businesses do not operate in isolation; they do not operate in single-town scenarios. Many of the people in the businesses that we represent have a network of presence not just in a particular region or across a state or territory but right across this great nation.

An unfortunate 21st-century consequence of Federation is that businesses which operate on a national basis are forced in the case of occupational health and safety legislation to operate in eight separate and distinct jurisdictions. Such a situation indeed presents an impediment for many businesses who are trying to do the right thing by their workforce and develop a national approach to OH&S. Why is this an impediment? It is because these businesses are required to comply with the laws of those eight various jurisdictions—very separate and very distinct jurisdictions. The Productivity Commission inquiry report No. 27, National workers compensation and OH&S frameworks, recommended that this government amend the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act to enable those employers who are licensed to self-insure under the Comcare scheme to elect to be covered by the Australian government’s OH&S legislation.

This bill will implement the Liberal-National government’s response to the Productivity Commission. Those corporations licensed under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, the SRC Act, will also be covered under the Occupational Health and Safety (Commonwealth Employment) Act 1991. There has been some comment that the desire of this federal government is to weaken OH&S. That is just a nonsense. We have heard that a couple of times in here tonight. Nothing could be further from the truth and those who are saying that are simply trying to scaremonger when the government has a very strong and very good track record in OH&S.

The OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill proposes to deliver something that state and territory governments should have done some time ago, which is to ensure that there is harmony in OH&S requirements. This is particularly important for those businesses that operate on a national scale. Quite frankly, if the states had moved down that track, if they had been committed to ensuring there was harmonisation, then this government would not be having to move these amendments.

I noted earlier that Senator Wong said—and I hope I am not misunderstanding her; it certainly seemed very clear—that lack of uniformity can be a significant cost burden and that uniformity should be a priority. We could not agree more; it is just a little unfortunate when we have the New South Wales minister John Della Bosca leaving the Australian Safety and Compensation Commission meeting only a matter of a few weeks ago. What kind of commitment to ensuring that we get this harmonisation is walking out of a meeting that is designed purely to pull people together and to try to find a way forward? If that is the Labor state government’s approach to trying to find harmonisation then it is sadly lacking.

The amendments that the government is putting forward deliver a common-sense outcome for those businesses who become licensees operating under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. These amendments are all about common sense. Section 100 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 gives the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations the power to declare certain corporations as eligible to apply for a workers compensation self-insurance licence under the SRC Act. Licensees under the SRC Act will include Commonwealth authorities and non-Commonwealth authorities. These licensees will benefit from operating under one OH&S scheme, which will produce better health and safety outcomes for employees. This amendment will deliver overall efficiencies that currently cannot be realised because of the OH&S requirements of eight separate and quite distinct jurisdictions.

This amendment is not rocket science; it is an amendment that just makes good common sense. The efficiencies to be realised by not having to comply with eight separate and quite distinct jurisdictions have the potential to deliver real savings which licensees could devote to improving health and safety in the workplace, which is an outcome we all want: the best health and safety in the workplace that we can possibly have.

OH&S legislation imposes a duty of care on employers to protect the health and safety of their employees. It certainly does appear that the state run workers compensation and OH&S schemes are a monopoly. We need to change that environment so that businesses can grow and we get the best outcomes for employers and employees. I ask the question: why are the states opposing the federal government on this front in the High Court? Why are they opposing a sensible national approach for employers to participate in a federal workers compensation scheme? Could it be that the Labor states are scared of competition? Surely not. The Labor state and territory governments are not possibly scared of competition. If they are not, why are they so determined not to see these amendments go forward?

Surely if those state governments were confident that their workers compensation, OH&S schemes and environment were the best possible ones to deliver, they would not be concerned about the federal government’s arrangements. Let’s face it: a lack of competition equals a lack of performance. We on this side of the chamber know that only too well. We on the government side of the chamber believe in competition and the benefits it delivers. Indeed, it is the failure by the states to get on and harmonise the occupational health state legislation that has forced the hand of this government to introduce these very sensible amendments to the legislation.

The state governments are even opposing the right of national employers to join the federal workers compensation scheme. What the states should be doing is abandoning their self-interest objections and focusing on the challenges of running a modern business. By their approach, it seems that the Labor states are stuck in the Dark Ages. As the Australian Financial Review said in its editorial on 4 August:

There is no logical reason for workers’ compensation to be exempted from national competition reform and no reason why firms operating nationally should have to deal with the eight separate compensation schemes run by states and territories.

The government recognises the real impediments that are put in front of businesses operating on a national scale as a result of this environment. I am told that about a dozen businesses, including the national transport operator Linfox and the National Australia Bank, have quit state run schemes to self-insure under the Commonwealth authority Comcare. I listened with interest earlier when Senator Sterle talked about his previous life in the transport industry.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that right? You’ve met a truck driver, haven’t you?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have met several truck drivers. I am glad you are noting my movements, Senator Conroy. I did not think you would have such an interest.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you’ve met two.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Quite interestingly, more than that.

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferris interjecting—

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed. But in listening to the skull and crossbones explanation, I did note with interest that, to my knowledge, there has been no complaint whatsoever about Linfox’s change of arrangements. It is unfortunate that those who sit on the other side choose to scaremonger instead of trying to contribute to taking this nation forward in the interests of those employees who work so very hard around this nation.

Unlike those opposite, who will oppose this very sensible piece of legislation just for the sake of opposition, this government has a plan to take OH&S forward in this nation. Those on the other side have nada—nothing. The best way to address the very serious issue of OH&S is to promote a culture where there is greater cooperation between employers and employees, and that is what this government is doing. We need to have an environment where everyone is acting in the best interests of the workforce. We do not need the environment that exists in some jurisdictions where we are introducing laws that are punitive and that punish the employer above all else.

This government—the Howard-Vaile government—is leading the way in which Australians approach OH&S by taking a cooperative approach to identifying and eliminating hazards that may cause injury or death. Through the National OHS Strategy, which my colleague Senator Troeth referred to before and which was developed in 2002, there are five national priorities for OH&S. They include reducing high incidence and severity risks, improving the capacity of business and workers to manage OH&S, preventing occupational disease more effectively, eliminating workplace hazards at the design stage and strengthening the capacity of governments to influence better OH&S outcomes.

I would like to acknowledge the important role Australia’s trade unions have played in the promotion of health and safety in the workplace. Senator Wong referred to the track record of Australian trade unions. But occupational health and safety is not the sole province of the unions. Some of the amendments to the bill involve removing the mandated right of ‘involved unions’ to intervene in OH&S matters to the exclusion of other employees and their representatives. This government believes it is imperative that Commonwealth employers be required to consult with all employees—not just unions—about the development and implementation of OH&S arrangements.

It is vitally important that we get this right for the future of this nation. The amendments in this bill are a very positive step forward. I refer to my earlier remarks: if the companies that are working nationally right across this country have to deal with eight separate and distinct jurisdictions when it comes to OH&S and their ability to comply, their ability to be productive is severely lessened. We need to ensure that there is an environment where those businesses and those companies can operate in the best possible manner while at the same time ensuring that employees are protected and that the OH&S requirements are being met so that we can have the most productive, safe workplace in this nation that we are able to have.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank all honourable senators for their contributions in this debate on the OHS and SRC Legislation Amendment Bill 2006, and I especially thank Senator Nash for her contribution. The bill will ensure that all licensees under the SRC Act—that is, Commonwealth authorities and eligible corporations—will have the benefits of operating under one occupational health and safety scheme together with integrated prevention, compensation and rehabilitation arrangements. Integration of workers compensation and occupational health and safety schemes will promote greater coordination and feedback between the schemes and will produce better health and safety outcomes all around.

The bill does not introduce a new mechanism for private sector employers to move from the state workers compensation schemes into the Commonwealth scheme. Such a mechanism has been a feature of the SRC Act since its introduction by Labor in 1988. The amendment to section 4 will clarify the legislative requirements for employers and employees covered by the Commonwealth act. Without this amendment, those employers and employees can be subject to both Commonwealth and state and territory OH&S laws on the same subject matter.

The amendments are supported by licensees as they will remove a significant impediment to business profitability and efficiency—namely, the costs of administering and complying with as many as eight separate and different state and territory occupational health and safety requirements. As a result of the amendments, employees of the same organisation will no longer be treated differently merely on the basis of their geographical location. Employees will have the opportunity to acquire a better understanding of their occupational health and safety rights and obligations because these will remain the same regardless of where they work.

The government considers that, until the states can achieve national consistency in occupational health and safety regulation, SRC Act licensees operating in more than one jurisdiction should not be subject to the complexities and costs involved in complying with myriad different requirements. The argument that state workers compensation premium pools would be adversely affected because employers would seek to enter the Commonwealth scheme is spurious. Actuarial studies undertaken by the Productivity Commission two years ago in 2004 support the conclusion that state premium pools will not be significantly affected by employers leaving the state schemes. In fact, Victoria has recently announced that it has reduced its premiums. Other states could follow Victoria’s lead and revise the profit-making focus of their workers compensation schemes. Victoria and its state and territory counterparts could further avoid employers voting with their feet and leaving these schemes by working with the federal government to introduce greater uniformity and consistency across all jurisdictions. However, this would require the states to shift the emphasis of their workers compensation schemes away from profit making.

The amendment will not diminish OH&S protection for employees covered by the Commonwealth act. Under the Commonwealth act, all OH&S incidents can be enforced by Comcare through the general duties of care in the act. These are supported by the existing regulations, codes of practice and guidance material to assist employers to discharge their duty of care. However, where sanctions are necessary, the Commonwealth scheme includes a strong, comprehensive and effective enforcement regime based on a wide range of civil and criminal sanctions, including tough penalties for breaches of the act. The opposition has again attempted to complicate debate by linking this bill to other unrelated OH&S measures that have been proposed for a number of years.

The emphasis of the Commonwealth scheme is on prevention of workplace injury rather than punishment after the event. Comcare therefore now has a complement of full-time investigators in similar ratios of investigators to employees that other jurisdictions provide. This is in addition to other expert and state inspectors it can access if needed. I am pleased to see Senator Murray in the chamber because I will briefly respond to some of the matters that he raised. The honourable senator expressed concerns about Comcare’s enforcement capacity—in particular, the number of investigators at its disposal. Senator Murray quoted figures that suggest that Comcare has only 16 investigators. This was the case in 2004 but it is not the case now. Comcare has 33 staff investigators. I am reliably told that that is a 106 per cent increase on the 2004 figures that were quoted by Senator Murray. In addition, Comcare has access to a further 199 inspectors from state and territory OH&S authorities and 47 skilled and qualified people from a panel of private sector organisations. In other words, Comcare currently has access to—if my maths is correct—279 investigators. This is, with respect, more than enough to cope with the probable increase in the number of workers that may come within the Commonwealth jurisdiction as a result of these changes—that is, up to approximately 40,000 extra workers. I freely acknowledge that the chances are that those figures were not known to Senator Murray when he made his contribution and I am pleased that I am able to put those figures on the record. Having said that, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.