Page 2242 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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You could also imagine a situation with an unscrupulous head contractor. I do not believe that there are any such people in the building industry, certainly none that would be members of responsible organisations like AFCC. You would not find such unscrupulous employers in the Territory at this point of time. But what you could find is a head employer who, if this legislation is not approved, could stipulate to his subcontractors that they must keep the number of employees below 20. If they have no more than 19 employees they ensure that the OH&S legislation does not come into effect.
So here are a number of different scenarios that could apply if we do not support this amendment tonight. It is a reasonable proposal. It has the support of the industry as represented by the employers and by the trade unions that are involved, and it will clearly achieve the objective of safety in one of our most potentially dangerous industries.
MR STEFANIAK (8.28): Perhaps the Minister has been speaking recently to different employers from those I have spoken to. In relation to the idea behind his legislation - I do not think anyone would have any huge problem with it, and I will come to that shortly - there are problems with it as it is drafted. Industry, business and some employer organisations certainly have problems with this particular clause. We have faxed it around to a number of them.
I think the history of this goes back to before this current piece of legislation, which is, after all, a second draft. There was a first draft which could have been written by the TLC and which was changed prior to this draft being put out. In that draft there was an attempt for subcontractors to be deemed to be employers, which, thankfully, is not in this legislation. It was about clause 6 in the old draft, and there were various clauses there effectively putting subcontractors in that role, the idea being to effectively get rid of subcontractors and force them into unions. That was a huge problem with that early draft and that is something worth bearing in mind, because one of the possible effects of this particular clause and the way it is drafted is for that effectively to come back into play and be a real possibility.
In the second Bill, the draft which became the Bill which we are now considering, that reference was taken out. During the committee, the members of the committee asked a number of people - I think, most employers and certainly several trade union representatives - about forming one designated work group on a large site, because that idea certainly has a lot of merit and a lot of commonsense. I do not think anyone would quibble with that, and it is certainly true to say that that idea, which was just floated as a good question to ask in the committee, did get support from the majority of people who were asked that question. I do not think anyone should have any problems with that.
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