Page 1993 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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legislation, the Bill is both draconian and unnecessary. It is our view that Common Law provisions which place a duty of care on employers and employees have, with some notable exceptions, worked well in the ACT.
It is doubtful whether the imposition of a union-led occupational health and safety system is likely to facilitate further change. It is likely, however, that such a system will add significantly to on-costs at a time when efforts are being made to attract new business investment to the Territory.
They are legitimate concerns by the major employer groups in the ACT, and I think we must take heed of them. Mr Speaker, I am not going to go into a detailed discussion of various parts of this Bill; we have most of Thursday to do that, when all the amendments have been tabled and are put before this Assembly.
There are some problem areas that I will highlight. I completely disagree with what the Deputy Chief Minister says in relation to involved unions and registered unions. There is no provision in this Bill for involved employer organisations. Unions will be involved where they have members in various areas of the workplace. Where they do not, or indeed where they may have some members but an arrangement is made on the shop floor, surely that is more desirable than getting a union to come in when it is not wanted. If they are involved they will have the safety representatives. That occurs at present in industries which are heavily unionised and, indeed, some which are not so heavily unionised.
In relation to registered unions, there is a provision there which seems to be completely contrary to Federal legislation and which would run contrary to such things as the deregistration of the BLF. It deems certain bodies to be unions for the purpose of the legislation. That is one of the points highlighted by the committee which certainly I would commend to the members of this Assembly.
There is another potential problem, but I certainly hope it does not become a problem. We have the tripartite council - three members of government, three members of unions, three members from the business community. Let us hope that body is very wise in its deliberations because, under whatever system we end up getting as a result of further discussions on Thursday, it will have a lot of responsibility, and basically that body can either make or break this legislation.
There are some other provisions, too. There are provisions in part III of the Bill for looking after the welfare of workers at the workplace. This seems to be completely separate from their health and their safety in the workplace and envisages something that is far greater. Again, I think that is something that should be looked at.
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