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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2392 ..

safety laws. I have always been an advocate of that. I said that in relation to the industrial manslaughter issue. I said there are areas where we probably needed to increase penalties. You can see that in the report before the committee.

There are bits and pieces of this legislation that I do not have a problem with because they include some significant penalties for people who do the wrong thing. However, I think it is absolutely wrong, it is absolutely biased and it sends all the wrong messages to have division 4.3A here and to have authorised representatives, members of the union, able to go onto premises if they suspect, on reasonable grounds, that there might be a contravention of the act.

The members may not even be a part of their organisation but may be simply people who are eligible to become members. Does that mean that they are after new members for the union? What concerns me about that, apart from the fact that it might be just an easy way for them to get more people to join the union, is the actual test that they have to apply. It is a test that has a very low threshold compared with some others. It applies if:

an authorised representative of an employee organisation suspects on reasonable grounds that—

(a) a contravention of this Act may have happened, may be happening or is likely to happen…

Remember those words “suspects on reasonable grounds”. Let’s look at the Crimes Act and an organisation whose members are highly trained not only in the law but in upholding the law, doing searches, entering premises and exercising on behalf of society rights including rights of arrest. I am referring to the Australian Federal Police. That organisation and its members, I would submit to this Assembly, are far better trained in these things, and able to use any discretion they have far better than virtually any other government employees in similar situations, or anyone else, simply because of the very detailed nature of their training and all the checks and balances the law imposes on them.

One would think that, if you are giving powers of entry, the group you should give those powers to, which should be able to exercise those powers on reasonable grounds, would be the police because they are better trained to exercise those powers than anyone else. But no. Let’s have a look at section 188 of the Crimes Act—police powers of entry—and the clause in this bill, 57B. If Joe Blow or Mary Smith, unionist, wants to go in there, he or she only needs to have a suspicion, on reasonable grounds, that something is amiss. If a police officer wanted to go in there, under section 188:

A police officer may enter premises, and may take the action that is necessary and reasonable to prevent the commission or repetition of an offence or of a breach of the peace or to protect life or property—

(a) when invited onto the premises by a person who is or is reasonably believed to be a resident…for the purpose of giving assistance to a person on the premises who has suffered, or is in imminent danger of suffering, physical injury at the hands of some other person.

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