Page 2566 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 October 1992
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MRS CARNELL: I am not being flippant at all. These are what we are really talking about. These are the accidents that really happen in small operations. Here we are, "Pleurisy"; "Slipped and fell". Obviously, that could be very nasty. It was a slippery area. Unfortunately, in this particular circumstance, the person slipped down a step.
Mr Connolly: Perhaps the step was dangerous. You should have had a safer step.
MRS CARNELL: Perhaps the step was not dangerous. "Tripped on a step ladder"; "Jammed fingers in a drawer". On it goes. "Cut foot when customer dropped bottle on it". Obviously, we are going to make sure that the customers do not do anything nasty. "Dropped a bottle on big toe".
Mr Connolly: Are you going to table that document?
MRS CARNELL: I am very happy to. That is fine. That is not a problem.
Mr Lamont: Mrs Carnell, you might find that somewhat humorous. The workers involved - - -
MRS CARNELL: I do not find it somewhat humorous. I am suggesting that this is what really happens in small business. These are the accidents that actually happen - real accidents, not pretend ones. In Mr Berry's tabled document on the reported accidents, the one - - -
Mr De Domenico: Whose document?
MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry's, the 251 reported accidents. How many of them, Mr Berry, were in businesses that would be covered by your amendment? You do not know. If you do not know, what are you doing it for? Going through them and looking at the ones that could possibly have been in small businesses, we are talking about 20 out of 251. I am taking into account all the ones that could possibly have been in small business - 20 out of 251 - and that is taking into account businesses that are said to be catering, retail, et cetera. They could be any size retail. I have given it a very liberal interpretation. There were 20 out of 251.
Quite honestly, is that any reason to go ahead with this sort of legislation and to take the chance of putting many - and I mean many - young people out of work? If you believe that that is not the case, I will go back to the workplace that I am talking about, the workplace that employs young people to work on Saturday afternoons, on Sunday afternoons, and to handle the new late trading hours. If you people on the opposite side had a business with 12 or 13 casual employees who worked a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there, and if you could save a couple of thousand dollars by giving one person six hours instead of two people three hours, what would you do? I promise you that what will happen is that a number of young people - again it will be young people - will lose their jobs. The other people - - -
Mr Berry: Would you do that to your staff?
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