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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 13 Hansard (27 November) . . Page.. 4876 ..

COMMISSIONER'S FUNCTIONS

WorkCover @ Work

In addition to the ongoing site visits and information program, 46 new participants became involved in the use of the Small Business Occupational Health and Safety Toolkit. The WorkCover @ Work service continues to be recognised as a very useful resource for small businesses and other workplaces.

What a fantastic union and interface between WorkCover and businesses! No big sticks or hard and harsh words are being used. I applaud WorkCover for working hard to ensure that businesses are doing the right thing. In addition to WorkCover @ Work, the information that is being sent to clients and the education programs, telephone calls, counter inquiries and presentations, there were a staggering 33,033 contacts with employers and employees this quarter. I applaud the government and WorkCover on that magnificent work.

Whilst the majority of contacts related to questions or to the provision of information about occupational health and safety matters, it is interesting to note that this quarterly statistic includes 1,686 telephone inquiries about the operation of amendments to the Workers Compensation Act 1951. I believe that 162 information packs were sent to employers who wanted to learn about those amendments, which is absolutely fantastic.

I applaud the government and WorkCover on that brilliant approach. Ham-fisted legislation would just be a waste of time and energy. Ms MacDonald, the minister, Ms Gallagher, and I have applauded the occupational health and safety awards. Forty-nine nominations were received for the awards-a significant increase on the nominations that were received last year and an indication of the increasing awareness of workplace safety and the quest for its recognition through those awards.

The government, which apparently wants some sort of medal for the work that it has done, should use that avenue. I think the occupational health and safety awards are wonderful. I applaud the government on the work that it is doing in that area. I think it is a move in the right direction. As I said earlier, businesses in the United States are now quite sceptical about this government's commitment to small business. Is this legislation necessary? Nobody really wants it and nobody thinks that it is necessary.

Why is the government not satisfied with just ramping up occupational health and safety legislation? Ms Gallagher said earlier that she was committed to doing that, and I applaud her for that. We must have safe workplaces. We cannot allow injuries to continue and we do not want people to become maimed or injured. Suffice it to say that ACT WorkCover will ensure that occupational health and safety legislation is implemented in a non-adversarial way-in the way in which the minister wants it implemented.

The government should give WorkCover additional resources and it should toughen up occupational health and safety legislation. This legislation would then be redundant. Is it a matter of pride? The government, having gone down this track, does not appear to want to let go of this legislation, which is silly. We have a really good body of people, and

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