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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Thursday, 4 March 2004) . . Page.. 798 ..

training of people working in industries where dangerous substances are handled. This could impose very onerous liabilities on government without a clear accountability framework as to what it is actually obliged to do. It would be most unfortunate, for example, if someone were able to claim that they were unable to meet their obligations or obtain a licence under the act because the government has not been running enough training programs.

I reiterate that the government is a regulator, not a trainer. The obligation to provide training fundamentally sits with other parties. It is very important that the respective roles of regulators and businesses are not confused with the obligation to inform, guide, educate and train. Mr Pratt’s amendment would entrench this confusion. For this reason, the government will not support Mr Pratt’s amendment.

MR PRATT (6.04): The minister is quite right: there cannot be an open-ended exercise by government on how far it takes training. If training programs are not carefully regulated they may give the impression that the state must look after everybody, no matter what. We don’t believe in that principle. However, we certainly do believe that peak organisations have a major responsibility to undertake training.

Ms Gallagher: Put that in the clause then.

MR PRATT: It is a given. We all know that peak organisations intrinsically have that role. We expect them to carry out orientation and training activities on behalf of their constituent organisations. That is a given. We would not want to see them abrogate that responsibility and look for the nanny-state option. However, we do think that, in complicated legislation such as this, there is a very important role for the government to play in the implementation of a training program. An agreement could be put in place to limit the level of responsibility. I am sure we don’t need to legislate here for that. A memorandum could be established between government and peak organisations to share the responsibility, to share the load.

I again stress the importance of this amendment. We believe that a partnership could be struck between ACT WorkCover and the peak organisations. Together they can make sure that our businesses in the ACT are well equipped, well briefed and entirely oriented to take up this complicated piece of legislation. There is a raft of penalties if they don’t comply, not to mention the safety aspects that we are also concerned about.

Amendment negatived.

Clauses 206 to 210, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 211.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (6.07): I move amendment No 29 circulated in my name [see schedule1 at page 816].

Clause 211 protects commercial-in-confidence information that inspectors may become aware of while they were investigating compliance with the act. Inspectors are not allowed to divulge this information unless they have the consent of the person for whom

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