Safe work Australia Bill
Thursday, 14 May 2009 02:24
Mr Speaker, this Bill brings together two core themes of the Rudd Labor Government.
There’s the issue of reform of the Australian federation through Cooperative Federalism.
And there’s the issue of better workplace laws, of which perhaps the most important is worker safety.
Mr Speaker Co-operative Federalism is one of our major reform areas.
Co-operative Federalism is about reducing duplication.
It is a way we can improve consistency.
It is a way we can improve efficiency.
It is a way we can improve national productivity.
It is a way we can simplify rules, and improve public knowledge and understanding of rules.
This Bill – the Safe Work Australia Bill - is about exactly that.
This Bill is good for workers in it will establish better national safety standards.
It is good for workers in that it will establish simpler, standardised, better understood, workplace safety rules.
Safe Work Australia as an independent national body, whose role will be to improve occupational health and safety.
And to improve safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia as a whole.
Both these aims will also be good for business, and good for government.
These reforms are a part of the Rudd Labor Government’s goal of creating a seamless national economy that isn’t being dragged down by duplications and border disputes.
Mr Speaker, of course there is more to this than economic efficiencies.
More than 300 Australians are killed each year at work.
Many more die as a result of work related diseases.
Each year over 140,000 Australians are seriously injured at work.
The cost to our economy has been estimated at $34 billion per year.
The cost to those injured and to their families, workmates and friends cannot be measured.
My view is that 300 Australians dieing each year is totally unacceptable.
We should not accept it.
We should never accept that it is the way of the world that some fathers and mothers every year will walk out the front door off to work, wave goodbye to the kids, and never come home.
My view is that we have to;
• raise the bar on workplace safety rules,
• raise the bar on knowledge of workplace safety procedures, and
• raise the bar on adherence to them.
Mr Speaker let’s look at this comparatively.
No, we are not the worst-off country in the world work safety-wise. Not by a long shot.
We have indeed built a workplace system, thanks in no large part to the efforts of the Australian union movement, that is one of the best in the world.
Our workplace safety systems are some of the most advanced in the world.
We have come a long way.
But Mr Speaker, we have a long way to go.
Let’s think of where Australia is today, broadly speaking.
Our workers compensation schemes are still very problematic.
Workers compensation has been the source of major disputes between government, business and unions.
They are very complex and often costly.
There are all sorts of inconsistencies between jurisdictions.
There is a long way to go in this area of workers compensation.
Then there are safety standards.
Safety rules and regulations are a mish mash from one state to another.
There are different rules and different standards.
Workers who move from one state to another are often confused or ignorant about workplace standards and procedures, leading to non-compliance and then accidents.
Mr Speaker, there are many reasons workplace accidents occur.
Two central reasons are lack of knowledge of, and or a lack of adherence to, workplace safety procedures.
If you have 6 different systems, of course you are going to have;
* more confusion,
* a lack of knowledge,
* an indifference,
* a reduced inclination towards compliance.
As they say, knowledge leads to action. Confusion leads to inaction.
In the workplace, confusion leads to accidents.
The establishment of Safe Work Australia will ultimately lead to simpler, universal rules, and a better understanding of rules by workers and employers.
And that will lead to action.
Mr Speaker, Australia today, has the opportunity to set a whole new standard in workplace safety.
The establishment of Safe Work Australia is an essential part of the government’s strategy to facilitate improvements to safety outcomes and workers compensation arrangements across Australia.
Since coming to office the Rudd Labor Government has :
Undertaken a review of the Comcare scheme
Set up an independent panel of experts to conduct a national occupational health and safety review, and
Developed a landmark intergovernmental agreement with our state and territory counterparts to
harmonise occupational health and safety legislation nationally.
This Bill, along with the intergovernmental agreement, brings a new era of cooperation between state governments and the Commonweath.
It addresses another key area of co-operative Federalism that will save lives, simplify rules and reduce the cost of doing business.
Safe Work Australia will replace the Australian Safety and Compensation Council, established by the Howard government as a narrowly focused body with limited powers.
Safe Work Australia will provide new benchmarks.
It will be yet another example of why Labor is the party of reform.
Mr. Speaker, Safe Work Australia is being tasked with some important jobs.
Safe Work Australia will:
develop national policy relating to occupational health and safety and workers compensation
prepare, monitor and revise model occupational health and safety legislation and model codes of practice
develop a compliance and enforcement policy to ensure nationally consistent regulatory approaches across all jurisdictions
develop proposals relating to the harmonisation of workers compensation arrangements
collect, analyse and publish occupational health and safety and workers compensation data and undertake and publish research
drive national communications strategies to raise awareness of health and safety at work
further develop the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy 2002-2012, and
advise WRMC on occupational health and safety and workers compensation matters.
It’s a big job.
When this is achieved, it will be seen as one of the great reforms within Australian workplaces and Australian industry.
Mr Speaker, Safe Work Australia, in short, will be a big step forward for workers and for employers.
It will be the body which takes Australian workplace safety laws to the next level.
To simplify safety laws and make them more effective.
To make them more efficient.
Mr Speaker, I would ask all members to think about this.
There are 4 Shires in my electorate.
In just one shire - one of the smallest shires - the Colac Otway Shire, has had more than 900 work-related injuries in the past five years, costing more than $18 million in rehabilitation and compensation payouts.
That’s a cost to local families.
A cost to local business.
And a cost to Government.
Mr Speaker, of course we always need to put things into some sort of absolute perspective.
When the industrial world first came to Australia, there were no workplace safety laws at all.
In bits and pieces each colony, then state, put in place their own rules.
These rules and regulations developed in their complexity in different ways in different states.
Today, for the first time in Australian history, the states are committing to harmonising occupational health and safety legislation.
This is an essential and very productive reform, and I commend it to the House.
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