Page 212 - Week 01 - Thursday, 16 February 2006
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union to increase its influence and bargaining clout. I do not believe an employee organisation should have that level of access to that particular material.
We in the opposition do not condone employers that fail to adhere to their obligations in terms of coverage but we believe there are adequate mechanisms in place to ensure that these matters are drawn to the attention of the appropriate authorities. There are adequate provisions to take steps now. I think the system has worked quite well. I do not accept that there is any convincing case for union officials to review this data. However, another agenda is being pursued, which I suggest is probably the real reason to differentiate between contractors and employees, and this is one of the main areas of interest in the industrial movement today. I would suggest that the government is being partisan on this element of the legislation. This should not be happening.
Accordingly, I foreshadow that the opposition will move amendment No 1 circulated in my name to delete clause 161 (4) (c). This amendment clarifies that a union representative will not be an authorised person to receive information contained in certificates of currency. I have no doubt that this will be opposed because I do not think the government would be game to make a stand on such a position. But as I indicated, the opposition would not see it as a role of employee organisations to be intervening in this area, especially given the level of systems that are in place to protect the interests of workers in this territory against recalcitrant employers who may default. There can be no persuasive argument except for an industrial objective to which I have alluded.
The cost of workers compensation in the ACT is a major problem for business and effectively it serves as a tax on employment. A survey commissioned by Australian Business Ltd in August 2005 revealed that in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, finance and insurance, and personal and other services the cost of workers compensation per employee in the ACT is higher than in New South Wales. In all of those industry categories the cost of workers compensation per employee is the highest in Australia, except for personal and other services in Victoria. This puts the ACT at a serious disadvantage against its competitor states. It discredits the claim that we are trying to make this city more business friendly, it discredits the claim that the ACT is committed to attracting business and industry here and it underlines the fact that we have the balance out of whack with what is reasonable and what ought to be done here to encourage a positive economic environment.
A fundamental problem with the way workers compensation is structured and the major cause of high and rising costs is the prevailing culture of presumed employer guilt at the workplace. Both OH&S and workers compensation take as their starting point the elements of an imbalance of control which is presumed to be embedded in the employer/employee legal relationship. The implicit but false, I suggest, assumption contained within the legal relationship is that the employer is all powerful in the work relationship and, in contrast, that the employees in most respects are witless and powerless.
As a legacy of history, the legislative structures of occupational health and safety and workers compensation are both predicated upon the existence of the employment relationship and this has therefore come to dominate the cultures and administration of the institutions that administer the laws. This results in a number of assumptions being built into the design of regulations that are highly suspect when it comes to practical
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