Page 3447 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 September 1990
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of a significant occupational health and safety hazard within a period specified by the inspector. In the six-week period from 1 August to 13 September, that is the end of last week, the ACT Occupational Health and Safety Office has conducted 294 OH and S safety inspections, 304 inspections under the Scaffolding and Lifts Acts, and a further 304 inspections under the Machinery Act. Fifty-nine persons have been examined as to their competency to perform tasks with major safety components, and 1,482 general inquiries have been handled.
Mr Speaker, the OH and S Office is fully committed to implementing the Act as it is, and to commence amending the Act in any way at this time would in my view be premature and counter-productive. Action is also in hand to update other existing legislation relating to safety in the workplace and to bring it under the umbrella of the OH and S Act. Mr Speaker, small business should be given time to get used to the current and new OH and S requirements. We should not be moving so soon to allow for the Act to be even more intrusive into the operations of smaller business. It is a time for consolidation. It is not a time for ad hoc changes such as those proposed by this Bill.
Mr Speaker, the Bill under debate proposes only the one change: a reduction from 20 to 10 in the designated work group. I believe that that change should be made only in the context of other change that may be required to the Act after it has been in force for a reasonable time. I oppose the proposed amendment of the Act at this time, Mr Speaker.
MR DUBY (Minister For Finance and Urban Services) (12.15): Well, Mr Speaker, I shall not take up much of the time of the Assembly. I think the case against this amendment to the Act was put quite capably by the Chief Minister. As he said, the crux of this amendment is to vary the size of a designated work group from 20 to 10. He outlined the role of the committee that is currently looking at all the options and operations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act in the ACT and the Occupational Health and Safety Council. It is a tripartite council; it has representatives from government, employers and unions on it. It is very representative across the range of industry in the ACT. It has met several times but it has not yet addressed the issue of the size of the designated work group. I think it is best left for that council to meet that very issue. That is not inappropriate as employers, employees and the unions are still getting used to the legislation being in place in the ACT. It is only comparatively new legislation.
The Government will be looking to the Occupational Health and Safety Council, after a time, to advise on the appropriateness of the provisions of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Included among the things that it will be giving advice to the Government on is the size of designated work groups in the ACT. In our view, that is
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