Page 2241 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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include the AFCC, who have vigorously supported this particular proposal, and the Building Workers Industrial Union. They are examples from each side of those who support it.
On a building site you have a head contractor. Section 38, which is going to be opened with ceremony this week, I understand, was under the control of Civil and Civic. Civil and Civic would in turn have engaged a significant number of subcontractors who would have been engaged in a wide range of activities. It is in this context that I would like to draw attention to the earlier change in the number of employees necessary to justify a designated work group. As a result of the Residents Rally party's support for the doubling of the number from 10 to 20, the effect is quite dramatic.
What happened was that on a job like section 38, which was until recently our largest construction job in the Territory but which is now winding down, you could have found, for example, 200 employees working on that site in what is recognised as potentially quite a dangerous area of activity. The building industry is dangerous but it enjoys a good record because of the vigilance of the trade union movement and those various trade unions that are engaged and, of course, the sense of responsibility of employer organisations like AFCC who do support the introduction of occupational health and safety legislation.
This is what could happen on that particular site as a result of the 20 figure: there would probably be 15 different contractors. You could imagine all of them employing fewer than 20 members - all of them employing somewhere between 10 and 15 employees - and, if this clause is not introduced, as a result of the earlier amendments to the legislation, we would see that on that site there would not be one representative elected in relation to occupational health and safety - not one. So here we could have the biggest construction site in Canberra and in it, because of 20 being the designated work group, there would not be one DWG created there.
On the other hand, you could have the extraordinary situation, if we do not support this legislation, that there could be 15 contractors on the site, each of them with over 20 employees and so we would have 15 separate designated work groups and 15 separate occupational health and safety representatives. You would have the extraordinary situation of 15 safety representatives walking around the site. The potential for conflict could be enormous. The potential for different approaches and different training of the occupational health and safety representatives could make it quite difficult to manage efficiently the operation of the site while maintaining those objectives which are set out in this occupational health and safety legislation.
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