Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This package of legislation—the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023—delivers on a recommendation of the National Dust Disease Taskforce, established under the former coalition government in 2019, to create a national occupational respiratory disease register in response to the growing incidence of silicosis among Australian workers.

Silicosis is an irreversible fibrotic lung condition caused by inhaling very fine silica dust. While it is preventable, there is currently no cure. The coalition will support this package of legislation because it builds on the important work that the coalition commenced in government to address the worrying issue of occupational dust disease in Australia and respond to the growing incidence of silicosis. The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 will create a legislative framework to establish and manage the national occupational respiratory disease registry, which will collect data on the incidence of respiratory diseases thought to be occupationally caused or exacerbated. The national registry will capture key details, including the place of business, industry, occupation and main job task where the exposures are believed to have occurred. The national registry will collate respiratory health data to assist in the detection of new and emerging threats to workers and respiratory health and inform incidence trend. The registry will also disclose information on occupational respiratory diseases in Australia to state and territory authorities, reflecting their ongoing roles and responsibilities in understanding and responding to occupational respiratory diseases in their jurisdictions.

The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023 makes consequential amendments to existing federal legislation in order to support the effective implementation of the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023. The bill amends the Freedom of Information Act 1982 to exempt protected information included in the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Register from disclosure under the act protecting individuals' privacy or commercial interests.

These bills deliver on the National Dust Disease Taskforce's recommendation to establish a national registry on this very important issue. All Australians, regardless of their occupation or how they are engaged, have a right to a healthy, safe, well-designed workplace. However, it is estimated that one-in-four people who work with silica products will develop silicosis. The rapid emergence of new cases of accelerated silicosis, particularly among those working with engineered stone, is of deep concern. That is why the former coalition government established the National Dust Disease Taskforce on 26 July 2019 as part of our $5 million election commitment. We committed to investigate the growing number of silicosis cases in individuals working in the industry and to develop a national approach for the prevention, early identification, control and management of occupational dust diseases in Australia.

In establishing the task force, the former coalition government committed $5.1 million to support its critical work including funding for research to better understand, prevent and treat preventable occupational lung diseases. This fund also included $1.6 million for the development of a national dust disease registry, and we recognise the government's decision to progress our commitment through the package of bills we are debating. The task force's final report was published on 12 July 2021 following extensive consultation with a broad range of stakeholders.

The former coalition government worked with the states and territories to develop a nationally coordinated all-of-government response to the task force's final report, which was endorsed on 4 April 2022. We also invested $11 million over four years as part of our 2022-23 budget to address key recommendations from the task force's final report. This funding package supported an enhanced focus on prevention activities and improved support for affected workers and their families, and strengthened the evidence base and research capabilities. We also supported upskilling and improving the expertise of medical professions in relation to dust diseases to ensure the right knowledge is available to provide adequate care and support to affected patients.

This package of bills complements all of the work we undertook in government to respond to this important issue, particularly to protect workers at risk from dust diseases across Australia. It is important that we recognise the work of former ministers Greg Hunt and Michaelia Cash.

The coalition remains strongly committed to reducing the incidence of silicosis and other dust diseases amongst workers and increase the quality of life for affected workers and their families. Given our longstanding commitment to this issue and our extensive work undertaken while in government, we recognise the importance of this legislation.

The national occupational respiratory disease register will play a critical role in addressing the growing instance of silicosis and other occupational respiratory dust diseases in Australia. Once again, the coalition will support this package of bills which builds on our work to address the increased incidence of silicosis and other occupational respiratory dust diseases in Australia.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens are supportive of the establishment of a national dust disease registry to 'better protect and support workers and to recognise the incidence and severity of dust disease'. I want to note on the record the recommendations provided by Australia's leading public health organisations as to further amendments which could be made to improve this registry, specifically: that all occupational respiratory diseases found in the Safe Work Australia List of Deemed Diseases in Australia be prescribed and require notification to the registry upon diagnosis; that the annual public reports from the Commonwealth CMO be broadened to include occupation, main job task, industry and state; that, as a matter of priority, the registry be expanded to include, among other things, asbestosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, mesothelioma, work related asthma and occupational lung infections; that the addition of multiple exposures in 'additional notification information' should be included in the 'minimum notification information'; and, finally, to remove the restriction, subject to worker consent and ethical approval, on researchers' access to information contained in section 2 of the bill. The Greens strongly support these initiatives to strengthen the registry.

We note the government's amendments to the explanatory memorandum, which go some way to further clarifying some of these measures. We urge the government to consult with state and territory governments regarding the expansion of the number of prescribed diseases on the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry as a matter of urgency.

On the topic of engineered stone, the Australian Greens have long supported a ban on the use of engineered stone in Australia. The evidence is crystal clear: manufactured stone is the 21st century's asbestos, and the federal parliament should be acting urgently to ban its importation and use. The Greens welcome a previous statement from the Albanese government that it wants to move towards a ban, but this cannot wait 12 months while more young workers are exposed to this deadly dust. Time is a critical factor here. We know that Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Tony Burke and his state and territory counterparts gave Safe Work Australia six months to investigate the prospect of prohibition of the substance. There seems to be a hesitancy to make the results of this report public. This needs to be done now. As assistant secretary Liam O'Brien of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said:

We support governments releasing this report before ministers meet later this year so that there can be appropriate public scrutiny of this significant issue.

There can simply be no justification for this report to be kept hidden.

It is estimated that around 584,000 Australians are currently exposed to the impact of exposure to silica dust, which occurs when products containing this substance, such as stones, rocks, concrete and bricks, are processed by cutting, drilling or, indeed, grinding. A Curtin University study commissioned by the ACTU predicts that up to 103,000 workers will be diagnosed with silicosis and that 10,000 will develop lung cancer directly as a result of their exposure to silica dust—10,000 Australians. This is in a context where we are seeing dust related disease rise and continue to rise ever faster in Australia. This rise coincides with a government led infrastructure boom which includes a record number of multibillion-dollar road and tunnel projects across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland, all contexts in which we can reasonably expect workers may have been exposed.

Here are some devastating examples that have been put into the public arena and that I think are worthy to be placed on the Senate record today. One man speaking to the media, one of the many diagnosed with silicosis, reports now having a lung capacity of 40 per cent. He finds it hard to walk and talk at the same time. Another, just 31 years old, by the name of Josh Hunt, who started as an apprentice stonemason when he was just 15 and who worked at factories in Queensland, Melbourne and Sydney, said that the dust was so bad that he would blow stone out of his nose all weekend. Three years after leaving, he can still taste the dust that he would breathe in every day. He said: 'It has taken its toll; it has taken everything from me. I've got three daughters. Seeing them walk down the aisle or worrying about seeing them at their high school graduations in their dresses—I don't like to talk about that too much because it does make me quite upset.' This is somebody who is now considering the reality of missing those precious moments with his family because of his exposure.

Another worker, by the name of Tran, is dying of silicosis. He refers to his pills as 'waiting in line' to relieve him of some of his pain, and to enable him to interact with his friends. He also now carries an oxygen tank with him. At 56 years old, it takes all of his energy to point to the table next to him. He was told in August last year that he might have eight months to live. It has now been over a year since he was given that news; can you imagine being in that situation—thinking that every day, every moment you have, you're actively counting towards an end that you know is coming quicker than it should? This is an horrendous situation for anybody to be in, let alone somebody that has been exposed to something which is currently still legally usable and importable in Australia.

The Greens first called for a manufactured stone ban in 2020 after the New South Wales parliament inquiry into dust based diseases. Every day of delay is deadly. That's the pure and simple fact, and politicians and decision-makers have a duty to act with urgency. A simple ban needs to be the start of this process. We know that young tradies who have been working with manufactured stone and who get sick need quality medical support, and will likely require, and should justly receive, compensation. The Greens will continue to call on the government to pass legislation implementing a ban on engineered stone this year, in line with the calls of public health experts. I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) it is estimated that around 584,050 Australian workers are currently exposed to respirable crystalline silica, which occurs when products containing crystalline silica, such as stone, rocks, concrete and bricks, are processed via cutting, drilling or grinding;

(ii) Curtin University modelling projects around 10,000 Australians will develop lung cancer directly related to silica dust; and

(b) therefore agrees that the Labor Government should:

(i) urgently consider, in concert with State and Territory governments, a ban on the import and use of engineered stone in this term of Parliament; and

(ii) consult with State and Territory governments regarding the expansion of the number of prescribed diseases on the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry as a priority".

Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 and the related bill. Silicosis is horrific. It's caused by breathing in silica dust, the kind of dust that's produced by engineered stone. Some of the dust particles are so small that they're invisible. You can't see them, but you can still inhale them. And when you do, they go deep into your lungs and can cause irreversible damage—but not right away. For most people, it takes years. Your lungs gradually become inflamed, then scarred and they develop nodules which prevent you from breathing freely. This can lead to complications like tuberculosis, bronchitis, kidney disease or even lung cancer. There's no cure; in some cases you manage with a mechanical breathing device—inn some cases your lungs harden from scarring so much that they simply can't take in enough oxygen.

Silicosis kills people and it's killing people here right now. We just don't have a good way of monitoring it. This bill establishes a national occupational respiratory disease registry. Its role will be to capture and catalogue information on respiratory diseases caused, or made, worse by work. It will measure the incidence of occupational respiratory diseases and where they took place down to a job's task level, up to a business level and all the way up to an industry level. It will monitor health data long-term.

Measuring what matters is a pretty basic standard for how governments should operate: if it matters to you, measure it. That's because without doing the work of collecting data and interpreting the trends it's telling us, we're left saying how terrible things are and how much worse they're getting, but don't really know what we're doing. Without numbers to back up a gut feeling, we end up flying blind. Without numbers, how are we supposed to tell if what we're doing is working to make things better? We have to measure how bad things are right now so we can see if we're making things better down the line.

But it's not just about measuring progress; it's also about detecting new and emerging threats. If we have baseline data that suddenly spikes in a particular industry in a particular state, this registry will be able to tell us at a granular level if that's a bit of random noise or a genuine threat. If you can catch a problem before it becomes a crisis, you end up saving lives. That is what this bill has the potential to do. It does not sit on its own, though, in a little vacuum. It complements a range of other related measures designed to eliminate occupational respiratory diseases altogether.

I support this initiative. I want it to go further, faster. I foreshadow that I will move an amendment to this bill that expands its function in a way that I think government and the opposition would both support. This amendment is government policy, so I think it is pretty uncontroversial. This amendment is simply copying schedule 2 of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill and attaching it to this bill. I see no reason why the government should oppose it. After all, they wrote it. I see no reason for the opposition to oppose it, either. They commissioned the taskforce that came up with the recommendation that my amendment enacts. They accepted the recommendation as part of their official government response to the taskforce. It's their policy, too. My amendment simply enacts policy that the government wants to pass urgently and that the coalition supported when it was in government. It's an olive branch to the government. The question is will they take it?

Schedule 2 of the closing loopholes bill amends the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency Act 2013, as the minister said in his second reading speech, 'to expand the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to eliminate silica related diseases in Australia'. Schedule 2 also expands the membership of the current Asbestos Safety and Eradication Council to include appropriate representation from employee and employer representatives and an expert in asbestosis or silica related matters. These are great measures. I have no issue with them. The government and I are on the same page here. I'd happily pass these measures today, which is what I'm hoping the Senate will do. The need for this amendment right now is because the bill from which it has been extracted is not going to pass this year. The government says it's urgent that the industrial relations changes in the closing loopholes bill be passed quickly to ensure the safety of workers. They point to the amendments made by schedule 2 of that bill as an example of why the bill needs to be passed in its entirety this year. They might be right about the bill needing to be passed in its entirety; we try to keep an open mind. But we on the crossbench haven't had time decide whether we agree. On this particular part of the bill, though, we don't need any more time. We agree. We should pass it today.

With my amendment, I'm giving the Senate an opportunity to do just that. The bills that are before us today, one of which I am seeking to amend, create a registry that will support the identification of the industries, occupations, job tasks and workplaces where there is a risk of exposure to respiratory-disease-causing agents. The national registry will require respiratory and occupational physicians to notify diagnoses of occupationally caused silicosis and will allow for the voluntary notification of other occupational respiratory diseases. Again, I think that these measures are great. I personally know someone who has silicosis from working at a factory in Penguin in Tassie. He's a nice young bloke. It's an awful disease, and I think we should do what can to eliminate it. What I'm doing with this amendment my part in doing just that.

It would be staggering if the government decided to vote against its own legislation. They can't say they need more time to consider it, because it's their own words. They can't say they oppose it, because it's their own policy. They can't say that they want to delay it, because we have all been told how important it is that this pass urgently. I imagine they would prefer it was never dealt with at all, and so they might argue that it's not possible to deal with it. They may say that this amendment isn't relevant or that it's not constitutional. What I'd say about constitutionality is that there's substantial precedent for the both the Labor Party and the coalition to increase the number of paid members appointed to panels or councils via amendments made in the Senate. If they think it's not relevant, I'd just say that it's enacting the recommendation made by the taskforce that the previous government commissioned and that this government has adopted. It's literally the recommendation directly underneath the one these bills are enacting. It's the same taskforce looking at the same issue on the same subject. If the government think that's irrelevant, they can make that case.

I want these bills to pass. I want my amendment to pass as well. If the government decide to not pass this bill because of this amendment, it will be because they prefer that neither passes. That is a decision for them to make. I cannot control how the Labor Party feels about this issue. I can only control how I feel about it. I feel like my amendment is worth passing. It's worth passing right now. I feel like the bill it seeks to amend is also worth passing. This is not an attempt to block or delay this bill from becoming law. If my amendment fails, I will support the bill. If my amendment succeeds, I will support the bill. So this bill is guaranteed to pass. The only way it could not is if my amendment were successful and the government decided they would rather do nothing than do more. I hope my amendment is successful. I hope the government decides to do more. I hope they take this opportunity to do it now.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nobody should die for a shiny benchtop. That's what the Greens believe. Tragically, across this country, there are thousands of people working in the trades who are being exposed to manufactured stone. We know, as certainly as night follows day, that cutting the product, with its high silica content, will kill a proportion of those workers. Since 2019, the Greens have been calling for a ban on manufactured stone, a product that is very much the asbestos of the 21st century. Since 2019, one of the reasons we haven't got a ban on manufactured stone is the behaviour of Safe Work Australia, which has dragged the chain on setting national standards to keep the people working in this industry safe.

Time after time, Safe Work Australia has tried to come up with ways of safely handling a product that everybody knows is inherently lethal. If you look at the way in which you should deal with a hazard in the workplace—this is work health and safety legislation that Safe Work responsible for—the first response to a hazard in the workplace is, if it's possible, to remove the hazard. Don't put on PPE; don't come up with other safe-handling measures. If you can remove the hazard from the workplace, that's what the legal responsibility is—to remove the hazard. Why hasn't Safe Work led a national move to remove this hazardous product from our workplaces? It is because they simply haven't had the political direction from the previous government or from this government to do what's right. I've had some people suggest that Safe Work can't put a ban on manufactured stone because of constitutional limitations on what the federal parliament can do.

Ninety-nine per cent or more of this product is imported. It's imported from a handful of producers around the world, who are themselves involved in litigation with their workers and consumers and installers all across the globe. Many of them aren't able to get product liability insurance because insurers see this as the asbestos of the 21st century. They see another James Hardie coming down the line. Overwhelmingly, this product is imported. We know, when it comes onshore, this product is going to be cut in workshops where workers are going to be exposed to high silica dust. It's going to be installed in construction sites around the country and shaped and moulded where workers are going to be exposed to silica dust. We know that silica dust is going to gather in their lungs and, in hundreds or thousands of cases, lead to silicosis, which can literally be a death sentence for those workers. They choke on their own lungs.

What should the Commonwealth be doing? By all means, let's pass the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 and get a register and find out across the nation where workers have been exposed to silicosis and where they've had diagnoses of silicosis. Let's do that. But the real thing the Commonwealth parliament should be doing—the real thing the Labor Party should be doing if it cares about working people—is immediately passing an importation ban on high-silica manufactured stone, and we could do that tomorrow. But, instead, we have Safe Work saying, 'Oh, no, let's have better tests to measure to a finer micron level the amount of silica dust in a workplace.' That won't work. We know it won't work because you can't measure down to the level of silica dust that is needed to create a safe workplace. They also say, 'You should only cut it using wet-cut technology.' We know that that is not going to work because there will always be workplaces that will cut corners and not have that technology on site. Once you cut it using wet-cutting technology, the dust dries out and can then be spread in the workplace anyhow.

Safe Work is not doing its job of keeping people safe. For three years, it's not been doing its job. In 2019, I was on a New South Wales inquiry that heard from unions. I particularly want to credit the work of the CFMEU, who have been consistent in this space. At a New South Wales, federal level and ACT level, the CFMEU has said its members should not be exposed to this dangerous product because it is killing them. The union has said to the New South Wales government 'put a ban on it' and the New South Wales government has failed. It said to the federal Labor government 'put a ban on it' and the federal Labor government has failed. Instead, we get this weak bill about finding out where the workers who are dying of silicosis are. That is Labor's response, not banning the importation of it but finding out where the young workers who are dying of silicosis are, so that different state compensation schemes can give them a payment and maybe pay their widows and their kids an ongoing payment. That's Labor's response and it is criminal.

I remember sitting in two distinct state inquiries into this when I was a state parliamentarian. I remember the young workers in their late 20s and early 30s who came to the inquiries and told us about their diagnoses, some assisted by oxygen, told us about their young families—their kids—and told us they had a terminal diagnosis because they had been exposed to high-silica manufactured stone.

When the Greens heard that evidence, we supported the call from the construction union, the CFMEU, for an immediate ban and we were shut down by the New South Wales government, which said, 'Safe Work Australia can handle that; they have an ongoing process in place.' We said 'Good luck with that; we want a ban.' What has Safe Work done? Now, 3½ years later, bugger all. They come up with this bill to have a register so we can see where the workers who are dying of silicosis are.

The Greens won't oppose this bill. We will support the bill. I commend the work of my colleague Senator Steele-John for making the bill a little bit better. But the CFMEU has said loud and clear that, if the federal government doesn't move and put the ban on by the middle of next year, it will move and put a national ban on using this deadly product. What's the federal government going to do then? Clamp down on the CFMEU for taking unlawful industrial action because it is trying to save the lives of its members? A national ban by the union on working with this dangerous product is coming 1 July next year, because the union knows what the Albanese government doesn't—that this is a dangerous lethal product.

I say, again, nobody should be dying for a shiny benchtop. No young worker should be dying for a shiny benchtop. This product has only been available since 2000 or 2001 in this country. We had kitchens before then. We had commercial fit-outs before then. This is an indulgence for a small handful of people who want a slightly cheaper shiny benchtop, and who are willing to see the people who shape it, work it and install it die for that. Why do we have a federal Labor government if not to heed the call of the CFMEU and ban this bloody product?

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank senators for their contributions to the debate on the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill 2023 and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023. The National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry will aid the detection of new and emerging threats to workers' respiratory health, inform incidence trends, help inform actions to be taken to reduce further workplace exposure, support research into occupational respiratory diseases and assist in targeting and monitoring the effectiveness of interventions and prevention strategies. The national registry achieves this by capturing and sharing data, where appropriate, on the incidence of occupational respiratory diseases and their respiratory-disease-causing agents; the last and main exposures to agents that can cause respiratory disease, including the place of business, industry, occupation and job task; and respiratory health data.

Initially, silicosis will be the only prescribed occupational respiratory disease; however, the bill provides for other occupationally caused or exacerbated respiratory diseases to be prescribed occupational respiratory diseases by the minister after consultation with the Commonwealth Chief Medical Officer and state and territory authorities. This ability to prescribe occupational respiratory diseases further to silicosis will allow the national registry to evolve to cater for new and emerging risks to the respiratory health of workers.

The creation of the national registry will better protect workers from silicosis and complement a wide range of other actions being taken by the government. A review of the operation of the registry will be undertaken within 12 months of its operation, including an evaluation of the privacy implications of the scheme in practice. I thank all senators for their participation in the debate, and I commend the bills to the Senate. I also table an addendum to the explanatory memorandum relating to the bills. The addendum responds to matters raised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills.

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

Bills read a second time.