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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2407 ..

This is absolute crud. This is ridiculous. All this is going to do is set employer against employee, employee against employee and employer against employer. It means that the unions will use unsuspecting workers to promote unionism. Basically, that is all it is, and that is absolutely disgraceful. Some of the penalties that are going to be used as that stick to threaten people with are unbelievable.

I draw your attention to new section 57C. The explanatory statement reads:

New section 57C permits entry to premises without written notice. However, if an authorised representative does enter without notice, they must tell the occupier they are on the premises as soon as is reasonably practicable to do so—

But in the same sentence, a shifty little word here and there says:

An authorised representative is not required to advise the occupier that they are on the premises if the occupier had been given written notice, or if doing so would defeat the purpose of entering.

This is draconian. This is ridiculous. The minister and the minister for business must think that all business owners out there are right ratbags. Let’s start off from the lowest base first and assume that they are all rotters, and then we will move up. You are obviously agreeing to that, Mr Quinlan. Tell that to the business community of Canberra. It goes on and on.

You may have some problems on your hands when it comes to section 57G—compensation. I would like to see what happens there. Many people have asked, about 57E and the privacy issues in regard to a business operating from home: how are you going to allow the authorised person to walk through the home taking pictures? In the explanatory statement it says that this person can “take measurements, photos, or drawings, and can examine or copy documents relating to occupational health and safety.” So, if an office is right the way through the house, you are going to toddle through this person’s house to get where you want to get. You will fly in the face of your human rights bill, if you are not careful.

I have probably said enough. I certainly will not be supporting this. Like the human rights bill, we have got this wonderful lot of words, the full implications of which the government has not thought through. Nobody in the business community is against safe practices. I, for one, applaud the efforts of WorkCover and always have done, and I have said it in this place time and over.

This is a draconian step; it is a step backwards. It is not taking us forwards, and it is not going to encourage people to comply. People are going to be fearful. People are going to be worried. Is that what we want? We live in an era of what should be cooperation, conciliation and talking to people, not wielding a stick to make them comply. So, along with my colleagues—I presume—I will not be supporting this bill.

MR CORNWELL (11.16): I will not speak long. I really have a question to the minister, which she may like to answer in due course. I refer to the “Publication by chief executive of convictions et cetera.” I do not quite know what the “et cetera” means, and I am concerned about this. Subsection 93C (2) reads:

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