James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Safe Work Australia was established in 2008 to develop national policy relating to work health and safety and workers' compensation.

The bill was informed by the Review of the Role and Functions of Safe Work Australia. Under this Act, a review of the Safe Work Australia Act was required after six years of operation.

The Review was tabled in Parliament on 8th of November 2016.

The Review confirmed that Safe Work Australia plays an important role in facilitating a national focus on work health and safety and workers' compensation.

It provides a strong tripartite framework - that is, representatives from government, employers and employees - for engagement on safety matters.

The Review also identified scope for improvement and recommended the Safe Work Australia Act be amended to:

The bill gives effect to these recommendations.

The bill amends the Safe Work Australia Act to insert an object provision which clearly states that Safe Work Australia's role and purpose is to – among other things – improve national work health and safety and workers' compensation arrangements.

The new object provision also emphasises the importance of collaboration on national work health and safety and workers' compensation matters.

To complement this, the bill provides Safe Work Australia with a specific function to collaborate with the Commonwealth, the states and territories and international bodies to drive further improvements in work health and safety outcomes and workers' compensation arrangements.

There was extensive consultation with stakeholders through both the Review process and the development of this bill.

This bill strengthens Safe Work Australia's ability to respond effectively to the challenges that impact health and safety now and in the future.

A better alignment of its functions, that will remain contemporary into the future and not become outdated, will mean it is better placed to respond effectively to emerging work health and safety issues.

The level of consensus that was achieved throughout the consultation process on the role of Safe Work Australia and its functions was very positive and commendable.

It highlights the value all parties involved place on governments and employee and employer representatives taking concerted action on a national scale to reduce the significant social, human and economic cost of work-related death, injury and disease.

This bill demonstrates the Australian Government's strong commitment to working collaboratively, with states and territories, employee and employer representatives, to improve the safety of Australia's workplaces and its workers' compensation arrangements.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports the bill. The bill implements the recommendations of the review of Safe Work Australia's role and functions. The review was required to start six years after the commencement of the Safe Work Act 2008 and was tabled in parliament on 8 November 2016. Consistent with the review's recommendation, the bill amends the Safe Work Australia Act to include an overarching statement that it provides a context in which the Safe Work Australia Act is to continue to perform its functions and lead the development of national policies and strategies to improve the WHS outcomes and workers' compensation arrangements, and the bill updates and consolidates Safe Work Australia's functions. The bill also replaces outdated terms such as 'occupational health and safety' and 'ministerial council' and clarifies that WHS ministers will continue to approve the model WHS legislation, statements and other key documents.

The former Labor government established Safe Work Australia in 2008 to lead the development of a national policy to improve workers' health and safety, and workers' compensation across Australia, with specific focus on the harmonisation of workers' health and safety laws. The efforts of Safe Work Australia have supported improvements in workers' health and safety outcomes and arrangements in Australia. The six-year review of Safe Work Australia concluded:

There is significant evidence to indicate Safe Work Australia has delivered against its stated role and functions, although there are opportunities for improvement—particularly in relation to the delivery of the workers' compensation, data collection and analysis and awareness raising functions.

…   …   …

WHS has been a focus for successive tripartite bodies for more than 30 years.

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Progress on workers' compensation arrangements has been less pronounced, however this can generally be attributed to external factors beyond the control of Safe Work Australia. These factors include the focus on harmonisation of WHS laws, underlying commercial issues and disparate jurisdictional perspectives and differences across the various workers' compensation schemes. Nevertheless, there have been some achievements in the administration of workers' compensation schemes including the alignment of definitions on deemed diseases, permanent impairment and the benefits cut-off age.

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T he need for Safe Work Australia' s role and functions to be updated

A key theme arising from stakeholder discussions is that the principles embodied in Safe Work Australia's current role and functions largely remain valid. However, the role needs to be further clarified and the functions revised to suit changed circumstances.

Safe Work Australia's functions are clearly identified in the establishing legislation, but its role is not. A clear role helps to define the purpose of the body and sets the expectations and the overall context for how its functions should be performed. The lack of a clear legislative role for Safe Work Australia has resulted in some ambiguity around its purpose and how to perform its functions. This should be addressed, and there is also a need to update the functions to ensure they remain contemporary—for example, removal of specific references to titles and dates. This bill addresses these issues and I commend it to the Senate.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Safe Work Australia Amendment (Role and Functions) Bill 2017 tweaks the functions of a body responsible for regulating workplace health and safety, called Safe Work Australia. I have no objection to the bill. What I do object to is Safe Work Australia itself. Safe Work Australia is a body that is answerable to everyone, so in reality it is answerable to no-one. It reports to ministers not just from the Commonwealth but from every state and territory in Australia, and it enforces regulations that need to be agreed between every government in Australia. This is a recipe for the bureaucrats doing what they want, regardless of how stupid this is.

A recent example relates to the labelling of chemicals used in agriculture. Such labelling is regulated by the Commonwealth's Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. Their labelling requirements are reasonable, internationally consistent, supported by industry and keep everyone safe. Then Safe Work Australia came along and imposed requirements for additional labels to be plastered onto the packs of chemicals used in agriculture—supposedly based on work health and safety criteria, and ignoring the fact that the APVMA already takes this into account. The new labelling requirements are confusing, costly and duplicative, and make those handling the chemicals less, rather than more, safe. Industry objected to the Commonwealth minister, but the Commonwealth minister couldn't stop the madness. The madness would only stop if every state and territory minister from Labor and Liberal governments agreed to rein in the rampant Safe Work Australia. It was all too difficult and the ridiculous double labelling continues.

The Liberal Democrats believe in the Federation, but this is no way to run a federation. If workplace health and safety is to be the responsibility of the Commonwealth government, powers should be referred to the Commonwealth, and then a Commonwealth body would be solely answerable to a Commonwealth minister. If the bureaucrats behave stupidly, the Commonwealth minister could stop them. I support this bill, but I oppose Safe Work Australia. We should abolish this body and start again.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions to this debate. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.