Page 2266 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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89.(1) A person shall not, without reasonable excuse, interfere with equipment at or near a workplace, being equipment that the person knows, or ought reasonably to know, is provided in the interests of the health or safety of persons at work.
Penalty:
(a) if the offender is a natural person - $5,000 or imprisonment for one year, or both; or
(b) if the offender is a body corporate - $25,000.
(2) In subsection (1), "interfere" means do any act or thing that is calculated or likely to inhibit or prevent the effective operation of the equipment.
What they are talking about here, Mr Speaker, is deliberately interfering with safety equipment, deliberately putting at risk the lives of the workers and everyone else who might enter that workplace as a result. "Sabotage", perhaps, is one word that springs to mind. It has the potential, if people do interfere with such equipment, to lead to deaths in the workplace as a result - deaths due to deliberate acts. Indeed, if a court proved that it was a deliberate act, I would think the person would be facing a charge of murder rather than just this. So it is a very, very serious offence indeed.
Let us just compare it with clause 84, notice of accidents. That states:
Where, at or near a workplace at which an undertaking is being conducted by an employer, there is, arising out of the conduct of the undertaking -
(a) an accident that causes -
(i) the death of a person;
(ii) an injury ... or
(iii) an injury to an employee ... or
(b) a dangerous occurrence;
the employer shall ... give to the Registrar notice of the accident or dangerous occurrence, as the case may be.
If a person, without reasonable excuse, contravenes that clause (1) he can be fined $10,000 or two years' imprisonment or, if it is a body corporate, $50,000. Indeed, these are the penalties I am suggesting for clause 89. I think no-one could logically argue that 84 is a more serious offence than 89. I am suggesting a penalty for 89 the same as for 84.
Perhaps there is a good argument - we can deal with this later - for the penalties in 84 to be reduced. Certainly, I would submit that 89 should carry the same penalty as 84 because the offence created there and the action that is aimed at countering it are much more serious than 84. Accordingly, it should carry that more serious penalty. A
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