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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2396 ..

context. He discusses the advantages of regional or roving health and safety representatives, in essence union members with an OH&S responsibility across a number of sites. He uses examples, both in Europe and in Victoria, which show that the system has real benefits. Clearly, however, it would only work well where the one employer has a number of work sites and the workforce is well enough organised to elect a representative to work across those sites. He also discusses the general difficulty in ensuring that health and safety representatives are appointed in all workplaces.

Mr Maxwell also discusses the New South Wales right of entry experience in some detail. He makes the point that, in New South Wales, the right of entry has been used conservatively. There have only been four instances where employers have applied for revocation of the right of entry authority and only one instance of that being upheld. Only one allegation in those cases has been made that an authorised official had misused that right for other industrial purposes. That would appear to address the fear expressed to us by employer advocates that unions here are likely to frequently misuse the right of entry powers the legislation establishes.

Maxwell quotes examples both at the big end of employment, where employers are on the record as inviting union representatives back on site after their initial contact and contribution, and at the smallest work sites, such as sweatshops, where OH&S legislation can otherwise mean nothing to people unable to speak English and working alone. He also argues that the right of entry will contribute to the momentum of change towards a more collaborative culture of workplace safety.

A more general discussion from Professor David Walters from Cardiff University, first given at the Australian OHS Regulation for the 21st Century conference last year, puts the same arguments in a broader context. He argues that the shift away from much more structured employment, the labour market fracturing and the increase in practices such as outsourcing, subcontracting and employing on a temporary and casual basis, all contribute to a structure of vulnerability that sees workplace injury and death more likely in these diverse settings. In these situations, formal workplace representation is limited and diminishing.

He also identifies the most positive developments across Europe and the UK as being managed through the presence of external union representatives. For those who argue that the role of inspection really should rest with the regulator, as Professor Walters points out, government resources for OH&S enforcement have never been enough.

A recent Canberra example puts this broader debate in context. It concerns the recent tragic death of a worker at the airport who appears to have fallen from the roof of a container. I understand it has been fairly common practice to use the roofs of containers as storage places, despite the fact that the relevant legislation requires a safety barrier at any work site where a fall of more than six feet is possible. The union, after this tragic accident, very promptly faxed out an alert to the construction industry, calling for an end to the practice.

I went driving and saw an example of this on Canberra Avenue, where there was a container used as a storage space for a lot of pipes. I rang the WorkCover commissioner and asked what WorkCover was doing, having noted that the union was taking a very proactive and immediate action in response to this tragedy. WorkCover has said that it

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