Page 1055 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 2 May 2006
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Unfortunately, there are many cleaners that have unfair working conditions and OH&S issues that are barely worth mentioning. Cleaning is a task that lots of women take on as primary or secondary employment and is therefore an area which is fraught with unfairness in conditions and income. It is an area that supports a high level of employment for women as it allows them to be home for their children as well as earn some money to contribute to the family income.
Cleaning also tends to attract people from non-English-speaking backgrounds, as there is very little need for conversation in some of those lonely buildings in the late or early hours of the day. That causes a great deal of inequity also as it is easier to rip off those with limited use of the English language.
To help combat these and other issues arising from the inequity in the cleaning industry and to assist in the positive challenges of working Canberra families, the LHMU—the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union—launched its clean start campaign late last month. On Thursday, 20 April there was a gathering of many members of the cleaning industry, as well as Bishop Pat Power of the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Minister Andrew Barr, the newly-elected Minister for Industrial Relations, the captain of the Canberra Raiders, Mr Clinton Schifcofske, and many of my Labor colleagues from the Assembly.
The clean start campaign is about ensuring a fair deal for cleaners and maintaining a positive influence on Canberra families. It is just the start of many of these types of campaigns now being supported by government and industry not only across the ACT but also across the rest of the country to protect the rights of working families to receive fair wages and conditions and to work in a safe environment.
Over the last five years, the Stanhope Labor government has introduced many new pieces of legislation to assistant Canberra’s working families to be better protected in their places of work. It remains imperative for the ACT government that there be fairness in the regulation of workplace safety. Among the areas that have been included are the stringent occupational health and safety policies that have been implemented in many ACT workplaces and the industrial manslaughter legislation that was introduced to seek to protect workers and maintain their access to a safer workplace. OH&S and having safer workplaces are becoming areas in which the ACT is set to excel.
With the introduction of these key pieces of legislation, we are guaranteeing our working families a right to a happy, safe and a prosperous future. These conditions of safety have become increasingly apparent over the last week with the collapse of a mine in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. As we have heard, three miners were trapped nearly a kilometre underground after an earthquake caused a rock fall into the mine shaft.
On Thursday of last week, the small mining community of Beaconsfield in Tasmania was grieving over the death of Larry Knight. Larry was one of the three men trapped in the Beaconsfield mine. All fathers, these men were members of an industry that saw 229 deaths in 10 years. But on Sunday evening, the same community of Beaconsfield was rejoicing. Two of its sons, Brant Webb and Todd Russell, had been found alive after surviving five days trapped one kilometre underground.
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