Page 2246 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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When we are talking about designated work groups, then we must be talking about 20 people. If those 20 people form the designated work group at a construction site, then this will apply. If there are 20 people working at Mr Duby's house, or my house, or anybody else's house, as indeed we saw the other day when we went to Narrabundah to look at the women's refuge, when you have that number of people working, clearly a construction site is a relatively potentially dangerous site.
If you are dealing with a situation of domestic construction, which appears to be the main concern, then you are probably looking at one of the most dangerous construction sites around the place because they are not very well controlled. When those sites have a large number of workers on them - now it is 20 workers - even if the Rally does see the light and comes to the party in the next three months or six months and changes it to 10 workers, if you have 10 workers on those sites then it is appropriate to ensure that you have the best possible range of safety available to those workers.
It is on those very sites that I personally have seen some rather dangerous work practices, including bricklayers who believe that work boots are the Chinese-style rubber thongs. I have seen that sort of thing. I have seen them operating in those sites. I believe it is appropriate to bring this amendment in. I believe, as the Minister suggested, that in the rush of that particular committee, that first committee of the Assembly, looking at occupational health and safety, this particular aspect was inadvertently left out. It was a very kind way to put it. I accept that this is the appropriate way to put it in.
We did expect Mr Stefaniak and the Liberals to oppose this, of course, because they will oppose whatever comes up as far as this goes. They seem to believe that a risk to workers' health is not a major consideration for employers. But most employers that I have met and the ones we spoke to are actually very concerned about employees' health and would like to think that they are. So they ought not to consider this as a penalty. In fact, it may have some quite significant financial gains to them as far as some of their workers compensation goes and factors like that.
So I would say that this particular amendment that has been put by the Government is a very positive amendment. It deals with a particular situation that requires rationalisation on major work sites, and it also has a place on smaller work sites and domestic-style construction. For that reason I will be supporting it.
MR DUBY (8.43): This amendment to clause 38 is dealing with designated work groups. Mr Kaine, that point must be remembered at all times. What we are talking about is the formation of designated work groups. It is clearly quite possible that any construction site which has more than 20 people working at it is a place which requires a designated
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