Page 252 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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of contention. Indeed, the disparity and unreality of the penalties was accepted by all parties in the Assembly during the lengthy debate on this legislation, and that also has to be reviewed. That also applies to certain other points, such as whether there was a need for involved employer bodies to be included, as indeed involved unions have been included in the legislation.
There are other problems some groups had with the Bill, including whether there should be any legislation at all, but there was a consensus that some occupation health and safety legislation was required.
The Alliance Government has agreed that now that the Act has been passed implementation should proceed at this time without immediate amendment. The reasons for this view are, firstly the ACT is the only state or territory without such general occupational health and safety legislation. Such legislation is an important first step in developing an integrated injury prevention, compensation and rehabilitation strategy, which has the potential to generate economic benefits through the significant reduction of labour oncosts in the ACT as well as having social benefits for workers and their families by reducing the incidence and severity of occupational accidents and diseases.
All other states of the Commonwealth have undertaken such reviews and have implemented or are implementing major changes to their occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation legislation - and I wish the Victorians good luck with theirs. Some have obviously been more effective than others.
After considering the matter, the Alliance Government has decided to proceed with the implementation of the legislation as passed, with some provisos. In essence, the Government endorses the Minister for Finance and Urban Services proceeding to implement the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1989, including gazettal of the remainder of the Act, appointment of a registrar and appointment of a tripartite occupational health and safety council. However, the Government has decided that the industrial relations advisory council, when it is established, will be required to advise the Government on the Occupational Health and Safety Act, including the effectiveness of the Act, and on the coordination of our preventive strategy with our compensation and rehabilitation strategies.
Implementation action now required to make the Occupational Health and Safety Act operative includes a staged gazettal by the Minister of the remainder of the legislation over the next three months, geared to setting in place the appropriate mechanisms and resources to give effect to the provisions of the Act, that is, appointment of a registrar, an ASO 8 level, a pivotal position in the ACT.
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