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

The Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 is a very important piece of legislation. The Greens believe that robust and effective occupational health and safety laws and practices are vital for the social and economic health of our workplaces and, more importantly, for Australians and their families.

The importance of occupational health and safety is obvious from looking at even just a few key statistics. In 2004 Access Economics estimated that there were 4,900 work related deaths each year in Australia. The ABS calculated that 690,000 employees suffered from a work related injury or illness in 2006. The Productivity Commission found that, in 2004, workplace deaths, injuries and illnesses cost the economy over $30 billion a year. These figures go to the economic and, importantly, the personal and social costs of workplace injuries and deaths. Behind each of those numbers is a person with a family, workmates, friends and a community.

The last time a bill to set up a national OH&S body was before this place, which was three years ago, I said:

… we have a grave responsibility to the Australian people to get this issue right … We do not want to be carrying out our policy experiments when the cost of our errors can be measured in human lives and injury.

The Greens believe that the previous government got it wrong in many ways. It abolished the tripartite and independent National Occupational Health and Safety Commission and replaced it with an executive body, the Australian Safety and Compensation Council—the ASCC. Under the previous government, we saw a systematic attack on the basic principles of occupational health and safety practice—genuine tripartism, independence and involvement of unions at the workplace level. We pointed this out very vigorously at the time, if people will recall. We believe that the current government has a responsibility to rectify the errors of the past and return to the national stage a robust and independent OH&S body. The Greens welcome the commitment of the government and the state ministers to developing a national, harmonised OH&S system.

The Greens have previously supported the development of national OH&S standards. We note the National Review into Model Occupational Health and Safety Laws currently being conducted by a three-person independent panel of experts. We look forward to the initial report of this review, which we understand is due at the end of October. We also acknowledge the intergovernmental agreement for regulatory and operational reform in occupational health and safety. We welcome the commitment of the government and the states to work towards a harmonised OH&S regulatory regime. We note that the provision of this bill in establishing Safe Work Australia is based on the IGA. But we also note that intergovernmental agreements do not take away the primacy of parliament in deciding the laws of the country. We want to work with the government to ensure that there is a replacement for ASCC and that it has as its key focus the development of model laws and regulations, along with other functions. But we also want to make sure that this body works effectively and in the best interests of the community in occupational safety and health matters.

We believe that building on best practice in OH&S in this country and around the world is to implement genuine tripartism and independence. On these criteria, this legislation is too skewed in favour of governments to the detriment of other key stakeholders in OH&S regulation—that is, employees and employers. Safe Work Australia comes as the latest in a line of national OH&S bodies. The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission was established in 1984 by the then Labor government. It explicitly adopted a tripartite and independent structure incorporating the findings of the Robens report. The Robens report fundamentally changed the approach to OH&S in Australia and around the world. In particular, the Robens report recommended an approach focused on general duties of care. The report stated that the problem of health and safety ‘could not be overcome so long as people were encouraged to think that safety and health at work could be ensured by an ever expanding body of legal regulations enforced by an ever increasing army of inspectors’. It went on to recommend that statutory recognition of joint consultative practices—including government, employees and employers—need to underpin the new approach.

If you agree with this approach—and all of Australia’s OH&S laws are based on this concept—then you also have to acknowledge the importance of genuine participation of employers and employees through a representative structure. The NOHS Commission did recognise this and was established as a statutory corporation with a membership structure incorporating employee and employer representatives. Its functions included formulating policies and strategies relating to OH&S matters, reviewing and making recommendations for the making of laws relating to OH&S matters, researching OH&S matters and conducting inquiries into OH&S matters.

In 2004, in its report into national workers compensation and occupational health and safety frameworks, the Productivity Commission made a number of recommendations relevant to the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, including a specific objective of achieving national uniform OH&S regulation and joint funding from the states. We note that this bill does implement these recommendations. The Howard government, however, instead of implementing those recommendations, once it got its chance by taking control of the Senate, abolished the commission. Prior to being able to abolish the commission, the previous government had already reduced its funding significantly. Between 1996 and 2005 the then government slashed the budget by over $4 million. We believe OH&S was never much of a priority for the Howard government.

The replacement body, the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, kept a similar membership structure, including the same number of employee and employer representatives as the previous commission, but it lacked genuine independence from government as it was merely an administrative rather than statutory body. It also took on responsibility for considering workers compensation matters with no consequent increase in funding. It is also worth noting that in 2004 Australia ratified the International Labor Organisation Convention No. 155: Occupational Safety and Health. This convention requires a national health and safety policy to be implemented in consultation with representatives of employers and workers. At the time, the ALP, the Greens and the Democrats opposed the replacement of the NOHSC with the ASCC. Safe Work Australia fits somewhere in the middle of the NOHSC and the ASCC. It continues the practice of being tripartite—although inexplicably downgrading the representation of employee and employer representatives—and, while more independent of government than the ASCC, is significantly less independent than the NOHSC.

The membership of Safe Work Australia and the independence of Safe Work Australia are areas where the Greens have concerns about this bill. We see no justification for downgrading the number of employee and employer representatives from three to two as this bill does. Both NOHSC and ASCC could manage three such representatives. We understand that a great deal of work is involved in adequately consulting employees and employers on the range of issues that come before such bodies. We do not want to see employee and employer representatives at a disadvantage in managing the task of representing their constituents’ interests on such an important body.

We are also concerned about the change in not naming the ACTU and the ACCI as the representative bodies—not necessarily because we have a particular view on these organisations but because the wording of the bill could mean that the union movement in fact has no representation on the SWA. This would be, in our minds, highly undesirable. We are open to further discussion on how the minister’s discretion in nominating an ‘authorising body’ could be tempered—for example, whether there is another formulation which would ensure that the most appropriate representative bodies are authorised. At this stage, we are certainly not convinced by the government’s current approach.

We also believe that there is an unnecessarily high level of ministerial control or direction over the membership of SWA. The minister has unnecessary discretion in the provisions, giving the minister the ability to essentially veto a member nominated by an employer and employee representative body. The minister has no such veto over representatives nominated by the states. This is not only interference in the independence of the body but also contrary to the principles of tripartism. We will be moving amendments to remove this power.

As well as downgrading the number and manner of appointment of employee and employer representatives, there are other provisions which seek to elevate the interests of the Commonwealth and state governments above those of employees and employers. In particular, the bill provides that, when voting on draft legislation, a decision is taken to have been made if there is agreement by two-thirds of the members but also a majority of the members who represent the Commonwealth, states and territories. These provisions also go against the principles of tripartism. The Commonwealth and state governments do not need additional voting rights in the context of Safe Work Australia—they already nominate representatives, and any draft legislation, regulations or codes of practice are required to go to the ministerial council for approval. Furthermore, any such legislation or regulations will need to be passed by the parliaments of the Commonwealth, states and territories. If they do not like something, there is sufficient protection for these governments in these processes, rather than undermining the concept of tripartism in the SWA. We will be moving amendments to restore the representative numbers and remove the additional voting rights of the Commonwealth, state and territory governments.

The other major interference with the independence of the body is the requirement that SWA’s draft strategic and operational powers be approved by the ministerial council and are subject to change on the direction of the ministerial council. Again, these provisions undermine both the tripartite nature and the independence of the SWA. These provisions represent an unnecessary intervention in the independence of the SWA.

I want to reiterate that, while we acknowledge that many of the provisions that the Greens take objection to come from the intergovernmental agreement, that does not put this piece of legislation beyond the normal and appropriate processes of this place. Intergovernmental agreements such as the one dealing with achieving a national harmonised OH&S regulatory system are important in our federation, but these agreements can never take away the role of parliament in making laws. When we believe laws can be improved, particularly when we believe the improvements will increase the probability of the desired outcome, we will argue for those improvements. In this case, we believe the desired outcome is not merely harmonised laws that state governments are happy with but harmonised laws that robustly protect the health and safety of workers. Further, we believe that such laws are best arrived at through a genuinely tripartite process.

The other area where, unfortunately, SWA is borrowing from the Howard government is in its funding. SWA’s initial funding will be $17 million a year. This is Howard-level funding for a body that also has workers compensation issues within its ambit. I note that when in opposition Minister Wong, in commenting on the Howard government’s abolition of NOHSC, said:

Labor believes that ongoing national research into occupational health and safety, something severely compromised by the ongoing funding reductions to the commission in recent years, plays an ongoing important role in the identification and prevention of workplace death and injury in Australia.

Safe Work Australia does have a function of conducting and publishing research, and we agree it is a vital role. We are just not sure how, with its proposed level of funding, Safe Work Australia could take on the essential task of drafting model laws, regulations and codes of practice and engage in the hugely important role of research.

As I mentioned earlier, in the last 10 years we have witnessed the Howard government making a sustained attack on OH&S structures, regulations and rights. The abolition of the NOHS Commission was only one of these. The former government also expanded the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth OH&S laws to non-government businesses.

The Commonwealth OH&S laws are generally seen as being weaker than OH&S regulation at a state level. This was of particular concern for workers in industries with high OH&S risks such as the building and construction and the transport industries. At the time these changes were being made it was noted that, while increasing the numbers of people covered by Commonwealth OH&S regulation, there was a significant lack of sufficient inspectors. There was also an attack on the rights of unions to have active engagement in OH&S matters in the workplace. By dramatically reducing the role of unions, the then government was acting contrary to the national and international evidence which demonstrates that there are much more effective OH&S practices when unions are involved.

The current government, while in opposition, forcefully opposed these measures, as did the Australian Greens. We welcome this government’s stated commitment to occupational health and safety outcomes and look forward to this ALP government introducing as soon as possible legislation to rectify the measures of the previous government, which lessened the rights of employees and the responsibilities of employers in occupational and health and safety matters.

Let us never forget that the paramount reason for occupational health and safety legislation is to protect the health and safety of persons undertaking work or affected by work. We have a duty in this place to get right the processes for developing that legislation and the regulatory framework. Therefore, we will be moving amendments to improve the representation of both employers and employees and to ensure the independence of this very important body. We do support the principle of the legislation but we think it needs improving and we will seek to make those improvements.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the coalition opposition I indicate that we support in general the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and the Safe Work Australia (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2008; however, we do believe that the legislation has a number of flaws in it and we will be seeking to amend the legislation during the committee stages. Adding to the succession of Labor’s botched policies since it came to government, we are now forced to consider the establishment of Safe Work Australia, a body that will be dominated by state representatives making decisions about OH&S policy for employers and employees, who will have no real voice or influence in this process.

The need for this sort of legislation to harmonise occupational health and safety issues in the Australian context results from the failure of successive state governments to in fact get their acts together. So the need for us to have this harmonised approach results from the states not being able to do it by themselves. We as a coalition government sought to show leadership in this area, and I think we achieved a lot with the Australian Safety and Compensation Council. I will possibly say more on that later.

What federal Labor has now introduced is a body that will be dominated by the same state governments that have so abysmally failed their workers and employers in this particular area. The Labor states, after having failed so miserably, are now in effect being given a veto power, given the way that this body is to be structured. With great respect to the Prime Minister, this is not cooperative federalism. But it indicates yet again that this legislation has been introduced as a result of deals with Labor mates in the various state governments.

With this legislation, Labor is seeking to abolish the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, which was established by the coalition whilst in government to facilitate the tripartite coordination and harmonisation of workplace safety and workers compensation laws. Under the coalition, the ASCC was designed to facilitate a national approach to workplace safety and workers compensation utilising a tripartite consultative method to draw on and include employee and employer knowledge and experience in the move towards a national OH&S workers compensation system.

Whilst the coalition is broadly supportive of a harmonised national occupational health and safety system, it would be difficult to imagine a body better designed to fail in achieving this objective than the body proposed under the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 by the Rudd Labor government. Reading the bill, it is quite clear that it was designed by bureaucrats for a bureaucrat, but of course with the additional spin that the Rudd government has now become so famous—or should I say infamous—for putting out into the public arena. Not only does Labor’s bill fail to define the role of Safe Work Australia but someone, somehow, appears to have even forgotten to include the objects of Safe Work Australia and its role in bringing about improved safety outcomes for workplaces. We will be moving amendments in relation to that matter.

Unlike the ASCC, established under the coalition, Labor has purposely, at the behest of its state Labor governments, agreed to give excessive control of Safe Work Australia to the state ministers and reduce—and this is important—employer and union representation by 33 per cent; that is, from three to two for each category. Those that are impacted by occupational health and safety standards, those that pay for it and administer it on a workplace level, have been sidelined in favour of Labor state government bureaucrats. It seems as though the Prime Minister must have had his personal hand in this, because his great claim to fame was, of course, that he was coming to Canberra as the chief state bureaucrat from Queensland. Can I just say to the Prime Minister that the business of running Australia is a bit more than just trying to appease the odd state Labor bureaucrat. It is a lot more important to get this right.

The key partners in this should not be seen as the state Labor governments that have so abysmally failed over the years; the key partners are in fact those who have to deal with these laws, namely the workers themselves and the employers. By reducing the representation of the social partners and compromising their capacity to effectively represent the interests of both industry and employees, Labor is destroying the tripartite approach traditionally required for occupational health and safety regulation to effectively operate in workplaces. Labor’s proposed structure for Safe Work Australia will create an imbalance whereby workplaces directly impacted by the development and formulation of occupational health and safety will be denied the opportunity to genuinely participate in the forum where such regulation is developed.

The bill highlights the hypocrisy of Labor, who prior to the election spoke often of their commitment to occupational health and safety while regularly criticising the coalition—yet now, after the election, Labor have conveniently forgotten about workers and forgotten about industry and do not appear to understand that a process that does not seek to actively engage employers and workers in a meaningful way will not produce the improvements in workplace health and safety that are necessary for Australian workers. Even worse, we have a bill before us today that throws out previous reforms and an accepted understanding from both Labor and coalition governments that, when it comes to occupational health and safety, consultation is a proven mechanism for improving health and safety in workplaces.

When it comes to effective safety in the workplace, there can be no contest that improving and sustaining OH&S performance in the workplace from both an employer and an employee perspective is achieved by doing with the people and not by doing to the people involved. This is particularly the case where achieving outcomes involves significant changes. Some are costly changes or changes to culture in the workplace. Once again, Labor have failed Australian workers and workplaces in the proposed establishment of Safe Work Australia. The reason Labor have failed is quite frankly, I think, that they do not get it. Labor simply do not understand some of these issues because they do not have the real experience of either having been at the workplace themselves or having been an employer.

The current composition of Safe Work Australia fails to have proper regard for the views of industry and employees, which will undermine its credibility, and the outcomes it seeks to achieve, prior to the bill even being passed. We have a situation here now where there is rare unity between the ACTU and the ACCI. They are jointly complaining about some of these measures. We as a coalition agree with their concerns. When we have a situation where the coalition, the ACTU, ACCI and, I think—reading some of his suggestions—Senator Xenophon are all on a unity ticket in relation to some of these issues, you have to ask the question: why is it that Mr Rudd knows best? It is typical of this arrogant Labor government that it knows best and of course Mr Rudd, if he is in any doubt, will always give in to state Labor bureaucrats—and it is quite clear that Safe Work Australia has been largely designed by them. That is why we believe there are substantial flaws in this legislation.

We invite Mr Rudd to reconsider some of these issues and not be the arrogant ‘I know best’ Prime Minister that he has so quickly become. It seems that he can go overseas to tell the US congress how to vote and consider legislation, but he does not have the time to sit down with my good friend Senator Xenophon and others to encourage them to vote for certain pieces of legislation. It is just yet again indicative of the picture that Mr Rudd is painting of himself of an out-of-touch Prime Minister, arrogant enough to fly out of the country to tell the US congress how to vote but not interested in Australian senators and how they might exercise their vote—more interested in US senators than in Australian senators. It is that attitude that permeates this legislation in virtually every clause.

In the case of Safe Work Australia we are now witnessing a common Labor trait, where they cross their fingers behind their backs and tell Australian workers and business that they are doing one thing but instead make decisions and create ineffective regulations that create more problems than they solve. Labor’s limitation on the involvement of social partners—representatives of both employers and employees—will, without a doubt, lead to a situation where government representatives will be able to repeatedly override legitimate concerns raised by social partners during OH&S harmonisation discussions, including concerns relating to increased costs or impractical safety proposals for workplaces, or genuine proposals that may be lobbied against by a small sector in a few states. The proposed voting procedures under Labor’s bill are also unbalanced, giving state governments veto powers and simultaneously marginalising the role of what are called the social partners—I would say, the real players.

With limited capacity to oppose various proposals, there is no doubt that Safe Work Australia will be used by the government to develop other codes, policies and regulations, under the guise of safety, to achieve certain industrial outcomes on behalf of minority interests that would otherwise need to be discussed with stakeholders at a state level. Clearly the government has borrowed this approach from its Labor counterparts on a state level, where workplaces in many cases are already overwhelmed with impractical and unworkable occupational health and safety laws. Now Labor wants to introduce a body to achieve harmonisation which will be dominated by those same Labor governments and their advisers who have already failed to establish, in many cases, workplace occupational health and safety and workers compensation systems in their own states. Remarkably, Minister Gillard is determined not to listen to stakeholders and instead has chosen to reduce their representation and rely on state representatives who have already so abysmally failed in their own backyards.

The foundation upon which Safe Work Australia has been established is fundamentally flawed, with the direction and success of Safe Work Australia being contingent on the cooperation and participation of the ministerial council to which it is required to report. Members of the ministerial council have repeatedly failed to attend and/or cooperate with the Commonwealth in these meetings, which raises some legitimate concerns about just how effective Safe Work Australia will be in an environment where state Labor governments have been unwilling to cooperate and genuinely contribute to discussions about the harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws across Australia—particularly the New South Wales state government, which has been reported by some as having the very worst OH&S system in the country. Where the ministerial council fails to meet or refuses to cooperate and consider Safe Work Australia issues, then the work of Safe Work Australia comes to a halt—end of story. Just last year, we had the then New South Wales minister for industrial relations—I understand that was the minister of ‘Iguana’ fame—refusing to cooperate in a national discussion on occupational health and safety. If anything, Labor is now making it easier for uncooperative state governments to undermine the occupational health and safety harmonisation process for their own political gain.

Further, the proposed structure creates an unjustifiable imbalance. Improving occupational health and safety performance is critically dependent on a collaborative effort and the buy-in of all stakeholders. A process that does not seek to engage workers and employers in a meaningful way does not necessarily lead to improvements in workplace health and safety. In relation to these stakeholders, we will be moving amendments to ensure that the appropriate peak bodies are chosen to represent the stakeholders and that it is not, as is the case in the legislation at the moment, at the whim of the minister so that she can play favourites and approve those that she would like.

Labor’s duplicity is further highlighted by its unwillingness to review its processes and report back to parliament on the progress of Safe Work Australia. The bill currently proposes an inadequate process of reporting back to parliament every six years. It is incomprehensible that Labor wants to introduce a state-dominated, independent authority that has no requirement to report to parliament for six years in relation to its operations. Sure, under clause 70(2) there is the provision for an annual report, but there are only two sections dealing with what the annual report needs to cover. Can I respectfully suggest to the government that they should consider amending that further, to allow or to specifically state that they must also report on the operation of Safe Work Australia in relation to the legislation—what the faults are, what the benefits are—so that, if there are actual issues to be addressed, those issues can be addressed immediately. Occupational health and safety happens to be a very important issue—something that I would have thought everybody in this chamber would be absolutely agreed upon. Therefore, if an issue arises urgently then this body should be able to report to the parliament on those issues and have them dealt with, with amending legislation, as matter of extreme importance.

In brief, Safe Work Australia is, unfortunately, just another botched policy on top of the failed Fuelwatch, GroceryWatch, the proposed abolition of the ABCC and, in the last months, the failure of the award modernisation process, which industry says could potentially lead to significant job losses and inflationary outcomes. There is one common thread running through all of these botched Labor policies: the Labor government does not have a plan and is incapable of listening to Australians and delivering credible and acceptable policy solutions.

In brief, the opposition will support this legislation, but we will be pursuing a number of amendments during the committee stage to ensure that occupational health and safety in this country is properly addressed. If Labor want to now have a different body to that which the coalition had in the ASCC, so be it. They can make that their own and give it their own name—Safe Work Australia—but what it should have been is a genuine evolution of that which we had initiated. Unfortunately, a lot of the proposals are in fact regressive. Worst of all is the diminution of the union and employer roles in this vital area. I would have thought everybody would be agreed that, if anything, these social partners are a vital part of the cog and for Labor to overlook them is inexplicable. I look forward to the committee stage. (Time expired)

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008. In doing so I commend the government, and particularly the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, for the timely introduction of this bill, a bill that meets an important election commitment made by the Labor Party at the 2007 election.

This bill establishes a new independent Commonwealth statutory body, Safe Work Australia, to improve occupational health and safety and workers compensation outcomes for Australian workers. Labor’s platform for the 2007 election contained an important commitment:

Labor will work with the States and Territories to achieve a nationally consistent occupational health and safety framework which reflects best safety practice within Australia, and which is consistent with the best international standards. This framework should be clear and capable of enforcement at the workplace level.

This bill represents the government’s fulfilment of that very important commitment.

Safe Work Australia will be a cooperative body representing the Commonwealth, the states and territories, and employees and employers. It will be a reform-focused body with the power to make recommendations directly to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, which includes the Commonwealth, state and territory workplace relations ministers. Safe Work Australia will have a number of important responsibilities. These responsibilities include developing national policy on occupational health and safety and workers compensation; preparing model occupational health and safety legislation and codes of practice for adoption by the Commonwealth, the states and territories; developing a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure that a nationally consistent approach is taken; developing proposals for the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements across all jurisdictions; and reducing the complexity and costs for businesses. Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, an entity that was set up by the Howard government as a purely advisory body. In contrast to the ASCC, Safe Work Australia will play the central role in occupational health and safety and workers compensation reform.

Senator Abetz spoke moments ago about botched policy. Frankly, the other side is in a good position to recognise botched policy when it sees it—because, of course, it had custody of and inspiration for such policy over the past 11 years. Senator Abetz called for evolution, and evolution is what this bill represents as we go from the coalition stone age to a far more effective and just system under the Rudd Labor government. The Liberal and National parties had custody of our occupational health and safety law for 11 years. As a result, if I may quote the Deputy Prime Minister from her second reading speech in the other place:

Our health, safety and compensation systems are in a sorry state—unnecessarily complex and costly. Inconsistencies between jurisdictions mean that some workers are at risk of poorer safety standards than their counterparts in other states. At the same time, these inconsistencies increase the complexity, paperwork and costs for the 39,000 Australian businesses that operate across state boundaries.

Under the previous government, the Commonwealth’s own occupational health and safety body, Comcare, was developed into a backdoor way of allowing employers to escape the jurisdiction of the states and territories. Because the Commonwealth’s rules were less rigorous than those of the states and territories, employers tried to shift from state jurisdictions into the federal jurisdiction—that is, into Comcare—and the Howard government was happy to enable them to do so. In fact, this was a deliberate and calculated device to circumvent state laws. Senator Abetz has called upon this house to have regard for harmonisation, but of course it was nothing more than a rush to the bottom under the previous government. In the last days of the Howard government the then minister, Mr Hockey, granted an additional seven Australian companies eligibility to apply to move to Comcare. Given that this was a privilege initially granted to only 19 companies in the country, this represented a significant expansion. Senator Abetz has spoken mischievously about potential deals with Labor mates in state governments but, in consideration of Mr Hockey’s deeds in the dying days of the Howard government, one might just as easily speculate about deals between the Howard government and its mates in some of these major Australian businesses. This is why the current minister announced very shortly after she took office that she was imposing a moratorium on employees transferring into Comcare’s jurisdiction. She pointed out, very properly, that many questions had been asked about the protections available to workers in the Comcare scheme compared with those available under state and territory laws. There was deep concern about the capacity of Comcare to have the expertise and the resources to deal with many of these companies that have transferred into its jurisdiction.

The minister also pointed out that the Howard government failed to work cooperatively with the states and territories to achieve consistent workers compensation and occupational health and safety laws. The Howard government was not interested in consistency; it was simply interested in facilitating the movement of employers into an inferior scheme. In fact, I would go further—I would say it refused to consult with employers, employees or the state governments in seeking a genuine harmonisation. The Howard government was notorious for its refusal to work cooperatively with the states on issues like this. It always preferred to act in a unilateral and high-handed way, grabbing all the credit for itself and never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

In January this year, the minister announced a review of the appropriateness of self-insurance under Comcare, with the aim of determining, among other things, whether Comcare provides appropriate occupational health and safety and workers compensation coverage, whether Comcare has the capacity to ensure that employers under its jurisdiction provide safe workplaces, and what arrangements are required to ensure that all workers working at workplaces under Comcare’s jurisdiction have their health and safety protected. This review is very welcome and I look forward to seeing its recommendations.

It is important to note that those opposite had their chance to get this issue right but, as was so often the case, they dropped the ball. In 2004, the Productivity Commission conducted an inquiry into workers compensation and occupational health and safety. The commission’s report recommended that all Australian jurisdictions adopt uniform occupational health and safety regulations, it recommended a national workers compensation scheme and it recommended nationally consistent standards for workers compensation. We might very well ask: what happened to those recommendations? The then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Kevin Andrews, rejected them. He rejected recommendations from Australia’s principal advisory body on microeconomic policy and regulation, the Productivity Commission. Why did he do that? I can only surmise that it was due to deference by the minister and the then Prime Minister to what they saw as the interests of some employers—although I am sure the sensible majority of employers would have welcomed a uniform national occupational health and safety scheme. The then minister also rejected the Productivity Commission’s recommendation for an expert body to develop a national scheme. Instead we got a weak, toothless advisory body, the ASCC—which the other side are now trying to turn into a virtuous body.

In contrast to this sorry record of neglect, the Rudd government and the Deputy Prime Minister, whose commitment to the rights of Australian workers is well known, are determined to create a national occupational health and safety regime free from inconsistencies, unnecessary duplications and overlaps. This is an important national project and a good example of the Rudd government’s determination to make Australia’s federal system work better through cooperation between the Commonwealth and the states and territories.

It is true, of course, that there have been some differences of opinion among the states, and between the states and the Commonwealth, about the provisions of the legislation abolishing the ASCC and establishing Safe Work Australia. That is to be expected. The states naturally have their own points of view, and some states have expressed the desire to retain various aspects of their own state-specific occupational health and safety regimes rather than to immediately agree to a uniform national scheme. That is part and parcel of a project of this nature. Despite these differences, the Commonwealth and the states and territories have an important shared objective, and that is to create a system which will improve Australia’s occupational health and safety performance, leading to greater workplace safety for all Australian employees. This is not a government that is interested in facilitating a race to the bottom, to the lowest common denominator, as our predecessors were.

Why is this question of such great importance to Australian workers and to Australian employers? It is because each year, over the past 10 years, between 250 and 350 Australian workers have been killed in workplace accidents. In other words, between 1997 and 2005 nearly 2,400 workers were killed in such accidents. And, in each of the last 10 years, many thousands have been injured—some very seriously indeed. It is estimated that there is some $30 billion per annum in economic loss due to workplace accidents across the country. In each of the last 10 years, between 146,000 and 153,000 workers made serious compensation claims. In other words, each year between one and two per cent of all Australian workers receive a work related injury or suffer a work related illness serious enough to make a compensation claim. It is worth pointing out that these are minimum figures. They do not cover all workplace deaths and accidents. They do not include cases in which no-one made a claim for compensation; they do not include injuries resulting in absences from work of less than a week; they do not include many transport related injuries and deaths, since these are often not classified as workplace related; they do not include deaths and injuries among ADF personnel or members of police services; and they do not include asbestos related cases, which are compensated through other mechanisms.

I am pleased to note that the number of workplace fatalities and work related compensation claims has been slowly declining over the past 10 years. This is partly due to more effective workplace safety legislation in the states and territories, but it is also due to changes in the structure of the Australian workforce. The number of workers engaged in dangerous physical work in places such as mines and factories is declining. The number working in relatively safer white-collar jobs is increasing. The workforce is slowly ageing, and older workers are less likely than younger workers to be killed or injured at work. On the other hand, the number and incidence of workplace deaths and injuries among women are increasing as the gender balance in all areas of the workforce continues to shift towards women. The proportion of all serious claims where the employee was female increased from 28 per cent in 1997-98 to 33 per cent in 2004-05.

As we would expect, different industry sectors have very different incidences of workplace fatalities and injuries. The highest incidence of fatalities is in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, followed by the transport and storage sector. These two sectors each have an average annual fatality rate of more than 10 per 100,000 workers. Everyone would agree that that is unacceptable. The mining and construction sectors both have an average annual fatality rate of more than five per 100,000 workers. The agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector, the transport and storage sector, the mining sector and the construction sector also have the highest rates of compensation claims for work related injuries and illnesses. All four sectors have an average annual rate of more than 20 serious claims per 1,000 workers. In other words, each year more than two per cent of all workers in these sectors make a serious compensation claim. These figures show that there is an unacceptably high rate of fatality, injury and illness in these industry sectors in particular.

If we look at absolute numbers rather than incidence rates, the two sectors which produce the largest numbers of serious compensation claims are the manufacturing sector and the health and community services sector. Australian factories are safer places to work in than was once the case, but they are still far from being as safe as they should be and could be. It is apparent that our hospitals and health centres, a rapidly expanding sector of employment in this country, are also not as safe as they should be in terms of the health and safety of the people who work there.

I do not wish to suggest that all Australian employers act without regard to the health and safety of their employees. Of course that is not the case. I do not suggest that the majority of employers act in such a way. But it nonetheless remains a fact that there are some employers, unfortunately, who put the interests of their business ahead of the wellbeing of their employees in the scale of their priorities. This attitude leads to the health and safety of employees, and on some occasions the very lives of those employees, being put at risk. If that were not the case, we would not need an occupational health and safety regime at all.

As well as an effective, uniform, national occupational health and safety and workers compensation scheme, we need recognition of the vital role the trade unions play in the protection of the health and safety of Australian workers and in the maintenance of workplace standards. Government agencies, no matter how well intentioned or well funded, and no matter how extensive their powers, cannot be in every workplace every hour of the day, and nor is that desirable.

But when employees join trade unions, and when those unions have the legally protected right to check on the safety of their members and on whether the law is being observed at work, they do represent an extraordinary resource for government and regulators in this very important area. That is why this government works cooperatively with both business and unions to improve the safety of Australian workplaces, rather than treating the unions as enemies, as the previous coalition government did. We have just heard a speech from Senator Abetz in which he referred to the trade unions as ‘social partners’. This represents a magnificent elevation in their status from the 11 years of victimisation that they enjoyed under the previous government. But those weasel words do not change the fact that the trade union movement in particular has been shunned as a participant in this area for the past decade, and that is something that has now changed.

This is a very important piece of legislation. It will benefit both employers and employees. It will reduce the number of workplace fatalities and injuries and work related illnesses. In doing so, it will save lives. It is a very serious attempt to deal with a very serious issue and it is building on a very sorry legacy from the previous government. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also like to speak on the government’s Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 and related bill. This bill claims to establish Safe Work Australia as an independent Commonwealth statutory body with the aims of improving occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia. As Senator Abetz outlined, the opposition supports this bill but has some very strong reservations about some aspects of it as it currently stands and will seek to amend those.

According to the explanatory memorandum that accompanies the Safe Work Australia Bill, the organisation will be:

… an inclusive, tripartite body representing the interests of the Commonwealth, the States and Territories as well as workers and employers in Australia. SWA will be a reform-focussed body with the power to make recommendations directly to the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council (WRMC).

This new statutory body will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council which our government established, which was also designed as a tripartite organisation to coordinate and harmonise workplace safety and workers compensation laws across all Australian jurisdictions. Senator Feeney somewhat derisively referred to the Australian Safety and Compensation Council as an ‘advisory body’ and described it as ‘weak and toothless’. Could I please take you back to the great powerhouse of the proposed new body, Safe Work Australia. It will have the power to make recommendations. Wow! That is a really big change. My God! People will be quivering in their boots at the idea of a new body that can make recommendations to a ministerial council. What a novel change. The new government body is in effect simply a rebranding of the coalition’s Australian Safety and Compensation Council, albeit in a way that actually compromises the tripartite approach that our government took to workplace health and safety regulation to operate effectively in workplaces.

The coalition were and remain very aware of the need to have greater harmonisation in business regulation across Australia, and we are very supportive of any sensible approach to achieving better workplace safety arrangements across Australia. But we are also extremely concerned that the government’s proposed body will actually have less rather than more representation from the various stakeholders that were involved in the Australian Safety and Compensation Council. Safe Work Australia, in replacing the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, will actually reduce the number of representatives from industry and unions. They have been referred to both by Senator Abetz and by the shadow Treasurer, Ms Julie Bishop, as the social partners in the program to develop coherent workplace health and safety regulations across Australia. The industry and union representatives are each to be reduced from three to two. So in fact we will have four representatives from industry and from unions instead of the six that were on the Australian Safety and Compensation Council—a reduction of a third in the number of people who actually know what the jobs involve and who actually understand what happens in the workplace in something other than an abstract way.

This aspect of the reduction of representation for both unions and employers very much concerns the coalition. We need, in the area of workplace safety and health, to proceed with policy development in a calm, considered and experienced way that involves all the interested parties in developing viable solutions. What we do not need here is a board of directors, albeit with no power except to make recommendations, telling a ministerial council what the latest academic view or the latest bureaucratic view of workplace health and safety is. We need input from people who actually do the jobs and understand how the jobs can be done. The shadow Treasurer, Ms Julie Bishop, in the second reading debate on this bill in the other house said:

Labor talks—often—about its commitment to occupational health and safety, yet Labor does not appear to understand that a process that does not seek to actively engage employers and workers in a meaningful way will not produce the improvement in workplace health and safety that are necessary—

and meaningful, on the ground for employers and—

for Australian workers. When it comes to effective safety in the workplace there can be no contest that improving and sustaining OH&S performance in the workplace from both an employer and an employee perspective is achieved by doing things—

by developing policy, by talking through issues—

‘with’ people, not by doing ‘to’ people.

Our primary concerns hinge around the fact that the government’s new body limits the involvement of social partners in the development of new ideas and of sensible reforms. It must be asked, why would Labor want to do that, why would they want to limit the number of employer and employee representatives? We have already heard the concerns of Senator Siewert that this makes no provision for the peak bodies such as the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the ACTU to be involved in the Safe Work Australia body.

As in many other areas, the proposed solution by the Rudd Labor government is simply a public servant style answer. Their proposal for a body with less representation of effective stakeholders will lead to a situation where the government representatives will be able to repeatedly override the legitimate concerns and issues raised by the employers and the union representatives during OH&S harmonisation discussions, including concerns relating to increased costs or, at the very worst, to impractical safety proposals in the workplace.

We all know what happens in practice when you have poor law or poor regulation: it is ignored by citizens. People recognise it for the foolishness that it is and proceed to develop their own ways around it. We will end up with more and more industrial police forcing people into ways of going about their jobs and achieving in their businesses that are not sustainable and have no respect within the community that they are best meant to serve if we do not involve closely the people whose jobs are, in the end, what we are talking about. How those jobs are done is best sorted by the people who actually do the jobs.

Under Labor’s proposed body, Safe Work Australia, we will have the bureaucrats outnumbering those who are actually working in the workplaces across Australia. There will be very limited capacity to oppose this apparently very powerful body—remember it can make recommendations. So, under the guise of safety, various proposals will come up to be further developed and there will be further changes made to codes, policies and regulations. But they will really be aimed at producing the sort of industrial outcomes that the Rudd Labor government wants to achieve on the behalf of minority interests that otherwise would not have gotten to the table with the current stakeholders at state level.

I heard Senator Feeney earlier express surprise that the Liberal government had a concern about unions and regarded them as a social partner in this. I find that ridiculously offensive but I must admit I did listen with some surprise to his new-found concern and respect for employers as a spokesperson for the Rudd Labor government. The only way that good, safe work practices happen is when employers and employees work together to achieve them. That is certainly something that the previous government set out to do despite the number of times that the state ministers refused to come to the table, refused to get involved.

The inconsistency we have spoken about within state regulations is costing business money. Yes, sure it does if you have to have a workplace health and safety officer who understands the intricacies often irrelevant to actual safety but just relevant to ticking the right boxes. If you need to have a workplace health and safety officer who can understand the rules of seven different jurisdictions, seven different sets of policies, seven different ways of applying them often—despite what the rules say—there is always room, as I think everyone here knows, for their interpretation. How they are applied by different workplace inspectors can vary radically from state to state. So, yes, there is a cost to business in doing that. But there is another cost to inconsistency in policy and that is the cost to employees who may injure themselves because they are working under one set of rules that are not appropriate to the area that they are working in because those rules have been made a long way away from the workplace and from where the job actually happens and it is not understood by those people.

I note that this bill says that Safe Work Australia will report to a ministerial council and again this is an area of concern given the previous performances of ministerial councils in the workplace relations area. Senator Abetz referred to people refusing even to attend ministerial council meetings. So, I have no high hopes that we will get any quick action out of this when we look at a body that is not dominated by people in the industry who have a vested interest in getting quick solutions to problems that may be seen or reforming policy when that is an issue but dominated by a public servant mentality that makes recommendations to a ministerial council. I do not think that anyone would suggest that a ministerial council is the way to get a quick decision. They are certainly powerful decisions when they are made, but they are not quick decisions. Again, we have some serious concerns here.

I would also like to follow up Senator Feeney’s comments regarding the previous government’s development of Comcare, which did allow some organisations to function under a coherent, unitary system of workplace health and workplace relations policies. As the shadow Treasurer has already commented, this saved millions and millions of dollars for some of those companies involved by not having to go through little extra hoops, by not having to have seven sets of instructions on how to do exactly the same job in exactly the same factory. I think that one of the things that we hope will come out of this harmonisation is a realisation that, in many cases now, we have national companies doing the same work in every state but doing the same work differently because there is no coherence to the state workplace health and relations policies or programs. So, yes, there is a saving there.

Senator Feeney appeared to imply that there was something rather sneaky and scary about the fact that there was a way that companies could save this money and get a uniform outcome. I notice that Senator Feeney was not able to give us any figures on workplace health and safety in those organisations. So I presume, on that basis, that they were positive and that, therefore, he did not want to tell anyone how they had actually succeeded in assisting companies not only to save money but also to improve their workplace health and safety record. Senator Feeney also noted that the workplace health and safety record of Australia has been slowly improving over the past 10 years. It could have improved a lot faster if the previous Howard-Costello government had had the cooperation of the states in bringing together issues such as the harmonisation of workplace health and safety regulations. Nevertheless, the intent of this legislation to produce harmonisation, to get cooperation, is supported by the opposition.

It is quite interesting that, in the current economic climate, when building in Australia has basically hit the wall, we have the other efforts of the Labor government to assist in the workplace. Their attempts to destroy the Australian Building and Construction Commission is just one example of this. It is worth noting that last year the construction industry in Australia contributed 6.7 per cent to Australia’s GDP and employed about 940,000 workers. That is nine per cent of the Australian work force.

Coalition government efforts in the past to reform the lawlessness and the corruption within the building and construction industry actually had a direct and positive effect in improving that industry and giving us the result that we got last year: a significant reduction in the number and cost of strikes and increased output and productivity. It is rather ominous to think about where the building industry might be now if it were not for the reforms that were forced through by the Howard-Costello government despite the outcries and lack of cooperation across the board that came from state Labor governments who were more intent on building up debt than they were in building their states or in building infrastructure in their states.

I also note with interest that next week—19 to 25 October—will be Safe Work Australia Week and there will be various celebrations going on around the country, as there rightly should be, to highlight and create awareness about what safe work involves and how everyone can contribute to improve the record that we have in occupational health and safety. I was somewhat bemused to note that in New South Wales—which of course probably has the record for being the most intransigent of the states and having the most confused of the regulatory bodies in this area—the Safe Work Australia Week will be launched at the Lismore City Hall, and they will have a big celebration. They will be celebrating not a reduction in workplace health and safety incidents and not a streamlining of regulation; they will be celebrating the 1000th workplace advisory visit. This is where someone turns up on your doorstep at your factory and attempts to tell you and your staff how to do your job better than you currently are. I think this is probably the sort of thing that we can look forward to a lot more under the proposed legislation. As I said, we will be seeking to amend certain aspects of it.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008. This bill is very near and dear to my heart, as I am not only a former union official but also a former union official who did copious amounts of training with regard to occupational health and safety in the workplace. The purpose of this bill is to establish Safe Work Australia, an independent Commonwealth statutory body to improve occupational health and safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements in Australia.

Safety in the workplace is of paramount importance. It is important to ensure the health, safety and welfare of workers while they are at their places of work. There are rights and responsibilities for both employees and employers in maintaining a safe workplace. In my previous role as a union official I saw the results of accidents and incidents and the on-costs that these events caused not only to the worker and their family but also to the employer and to the community. Safe Work Australia will be a reform focused body with the power to make recommendations directly to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council. It will be empowered to develop national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation. It will be empowered to prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety legislation and model codes of practice. It will be empowered to develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions. It will be empowered to develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements. It will be empowered to collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data and to undertake and publish research. It will also be empowered to drive national communication strategies to raise awareness of health and safety at work, further develop the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy for 2002-2012 and advise the Workplace Relations Ministers Council on occupational health and safety and workers compensation matters.

Safe Work Australia will comprise 15 members, including an independent chair: nine members representing the Commonwealth and each state and territory, two members representing the interests of workers, two members representing the interests of employers and the chief executive officer. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations will make appointments to Safe Work Australia based on nominations from each body. The tripartite nature of Safe Work Australia’s membership ensures that this body will have input from major stakeholders in Australia’s occupational health and safety systems. It means that employers, employees and government can work together to pursue their common interest in improving occupational health and safety. But if we are serious about occupational health and safety, there is a real need for government to lead on this issue.

Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, commonly known as the ASCC, which was established by the Howard government to advise on the development of policies relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation matters. The ASCC has been badly in need of reform for some time. As an advisory rather than a statutory body, it has no requirement to report publicly. In other words, it essentially has no teeth. The ASCC has effectively been contained to coordinating, monitoring and promoting national efforts in respect of occupational health and safety issues. Its advice could easily be ignored by the government of the day.

Unlike the previous government, the Rudd Labor government has taken a serious approach to improving Australia’s occupational health and safety arrangements. That is why we are undertaking a review of the Comcare scheme and setting up an independent panel of experts to conduct a national occupational health and safety review, as we have already heard from previous speakers. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, announced the review on 4 April 2008 and tasked the expert panel with developing model occupational health and safety laws. That three-person panel will review occupational health and safety legislation in each state, territory and Commonwealth jurisdiction and make recommendations on the best structure and content for a model occupational health and safety act. The model act will be capable of being adopted in all jurisdictions. When the panel’s report is handed down, Safe Work Australia will be responsible for developing national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation. It will prepare model occupational health and safety legislation, model regulations and model codes of practice based on the findings and recommendations of the review report.

This is a first in Australia’s history. The Rudd government has taken the unprecedented step of entering into an intergovernmental agreement to harmonise occupational health and safety arrangements throughout the Commonwealth, states and territories. The intergovernmental agreement on harmonising occupational health and safety arrangements is a demonstration of the Rudd government’s commitment to cooperative federalism. It is also a great example of what the aspiration towards cooperative federalism can achieve. The Howard government, by contrast, never believed in cooperation with state and territory governments. Their approach to dealing with the states was about dictating policy to them and then threatening to deny funding if the states did not follow their way of doing things. Of course, the states and territories were never asked for their input on national measures, even though they were expected to provide matching funding. It was usually a case of: if we want your opinion we will give it to you.

It was convenient for the Howard government to take a big stick to the state and territory governments because they happened to be of a different political persuasion. They never saw it as being in their political interests to seek the adoption of consistent, nationwide regulations for occupational health and safety. For Labor, it is at the very core of our philosophy that the best outcomes can be achieved for Australia when Commonwealth, state and territory governments all work together in the common interests of the nation. That is why we have entered into an intergovernmental agreement, and with this legislation we are setting about implementing that agreement. The establishment of Safe Work Australia is a product of this agreement. The states and territories have agreed to provide 50 per cent of the funding, with the remaining 50 per cent to be provided by the Commonwealth. The total contribution from the parties will be $17 million in the first year, increasing each year by, at a minimum, the consumer price index. For the Commonwealth, that is $8.5 million in 2008-09.

The result of our approach to harmonising occupational health and safety arrangements will be to reduce regulation. This will free up businesses to focus on the important business of making real improvements to occupational health and safety. There is no more compelling reason to make sure we get our occupational health and safety systems right than the potential costs of getting it wrong. Workplace accidents and injuries result in phenomenal costs to businesses, workers and society. In the 2005-06 financial year there were 139,630 serious workers compensation claims. These claims involved either a death, a permanent incapacity or a temporary incapacity with an absence from work of one working week or more. Compensation claims do not account for the full extent of work related illnesses, since many work related diseases do not result in a claim.

A more recent report by the Productivity Commission estimated the number of serious injuries to be more than 140,000 per year. Tragically, more than 300 Australian workers are killed each year. According to an Access Economics report, 8,000 Australians die each year as a result of work related incidents or illnesses. These figures are staggering when we start to consider what these incidents and illnesses cost Australia. A 2004 report by the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission identified the direct and indirect costs of work related illness and injury for employers, workers and the community. It found that the total costs of work related illness and injury were roughly four times the indirect costs. The costs of a work related injury or illness include such items as lost productivity; the cost of overtime and overemployment; employer excess payments; loss of current income; recruitment, training and staff turnover costs; loss of future earnings; medical and rehabilitation costs; investigation costs; legal fines and penalties; legal costs and overheads; travel expenses for attending courts or tribunals; social welfare payments; and loss of government tax revenue. The report estimated that the total cost of work related illness and injury was $20 billion in 1992-93, rising to $31 billion in 2000-01.

The Productivity Commission’s report now estimates the direct cost of supporting work related injuries and illnesses to be $34 billion a year. In addition to these financial costs there is the cost of the personal pain and distress caused to the injured worker as well as to their family and coworkers. In my home state of Tasmania, statistics from WorkCover Tasmania show that there were 9,873 reported workplace injuries in 2007, or 27 Tasmanians injured per day. The most common types of injuries in 2007 were soft-tissue disorders due to trauma, which accounted for 3,428 of the injuries reported, followed by wounds, lacerations, amputations and internal organ damage, which accounted for 2,355 injuries. The majority of these injuries were caused by body strains—3,336 injuries; falls, trips and slips—1,863 injuries; and being hit by moving objects—1,825 injuries. Just to give you some idea of the cost of these injuries, WorkCover reported that, in the 2006-07 financial year, $99.5 million was paid in compensable claims for workplace injuries. For the same period, four workplace fatalities were reported in Tasmania.

I want to give some sense of perspective on these figures, because we are talking about people’s lives and livelihoods. For example, the 300 or more work related deaths each year mean that, almost every day in Australia, someone heads off to work and does not return home. For each of these deaths there are many more injuries that affect workers for life. Imagine being in an accident at work that did not kill you but left you crippled for life. Imagine dealing with the daily trauma of the accident and the pain of its lasting effects. Imagine the mounting medical expenses and the legal struggle you would have to go through to obtain reasonable compensation. Imagine losing not only your job but also your future career as the accident causes you never to be able to work again. This is why it is vital to have a cooperative approach between the Commonwealth, states and territories on occupational health and safety arrangements.

This issue is too important to be treated as a political football. That is why I support this bill. Implementing these arrangements is about improving people’s lives. It is about making sure that the workplace hazards that threaten the quality of life and the livelihoods of ordinary Australian workers are minimised. It is about Commonwealth, state and territory governments working together and doing their utmost to make our workplaces injury and illness free. Every avoidable injury and every avoidable disease that occurs costs us. It costs us in lost productivity, in medical and legal expenses and in the pain and suffering caused to those affected. It costs our economy, it costs our society and it costs our families. However, this bill is not just about improving lives and it is not just about minimising the incidence of illness and injuries. The most important thing this bill is about is saving lives. I reiterate that this bill is about making sure that ordinary Australian workers are safe. This bill will save lives. I urge all senators to support this very important bill.

Debate interrupted.