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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1598 ..

MS GALLAGHER (continuing):

Australia has rates of industrial deaths that are higher than the average for Canada, Iceland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The estimated rate for industrial deaths in the European Union is 5.89 workers for every 100,000 workers, while in Australia 7.5 workers per every 100,000 die because of work-related accident or disease.

If we introduce legislation that would provide for the prosecution of a corporation and its directors if that company was responsible for the death of one of its employees, it would send a message to the corporate world that industrial deaths are not acceptable. This would not increase the liability of employers. It would simply make them more accountable.

Corporations and directors currently have the ability to escape criminal liability, because it is difficult to apply existing manslaughter law to corporate entities or individuals that hide behind complicated corporate structures. The fines arising from occupational health and safety legislation have failed to deter corporations from unsafe and negligent workplace practices and conditions, and until criminal sanctions are brought to bear, directors will continue to be able to hide behind the corporate veil and corporations will absorb the fines.

Laws to create an offence of industrial manslaughter or similar moves would not only act as a deterrent but also send a message to workers that their lives are valuable, that workplace deaths are never anything but tragic and that corporations cannot and should not escape responsibility for their actions should they be grossly negligent.

A change to introduce or recognise the crime of industrial manslaughter would give the ACT the opportunity to be part of a unified approach from many states and recognise that liability should lie with those who exercise the authority at work sites, the employers. It should be a coordinated, national approach. Unfortunately, the federal government seems unable to recognise the seriousness of this issue. But we do need to have comprehensive legislation to ensure a number of issues are clearly and explicitly addressed.

Those in control of workplaces must be held responsible for acts or omissions which result in death or serious injury.

Courts must have the ability to look at the aggregated conduct of any number of employees, agents or officers of the body corporate in determining guilt.

Liquidation of a corporation should not result in directors escaping liability.

And there must be a capacity to impose criminal liability on directors and senior managers of a body corporate, so that their liability is attached to the appropriate level of management.

Proposed Victorian legislation has explored a number of different forms of sentencing, including jail, fines, custodial sentences, community service orders and the disbarring or disqualifying of employees from conducting similar business.

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