Page 3501 - Week 11 - Thursday, 15 November 2007
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to be conducting activities independently. Secondly, there is a need for ministerial directions to be made in a structured way and rendered public.
… In New Zealand the States Services Commission concluded that [r]egulation is the main function where legal separation from the Crown may be desirable.”
… Similarly, the 2004 Uhrig review of statutory authorities undertaken by the Commonwealth concluded that one reason for creating a statutory authority is where the role or function of the authority includes monitoring other government bodies.
This may even be an appropriate area for the strongest independence model, namely one that sees the OH&S regulator and reviewer reporting directly to parliament rather than to the government.
Mr Corbell’s bill runs contrary to the OH&S Council’s recommendation. One of the key requirements of OH&S is the need for regulators to be independent, particularly of employers. By placing the regulatory duties of the commissioner under the control of the Chief Executive of JACS, this independence is jeopardised as the CEO of JACS is not as independent from the minister as is the OH&S Commissioner. JACS, and the current as well as all future ACT governments, is an employer. As an employer a government may—and I am not saying they will or they have—feel less inclined to impartially and diligently manage OH&S requirements, knowing that they are the ones with the power to regulate and they are the ones who will pay the compensation or rectification costs. And, of course, one should never disregard the possibility that the matter will not be pursued with appropriate vigour because the decision maker is scared of creating and bearing bad news which will cause political pain for their employer, the government. In this case, the commissioner may never learn of an unsatisfactory situation which they would invariably be aware of if they were both regulator and reviewer.
There is always the possibility that a government may be influenced by the views of its corporate sponsors, one of which is the development lobby, who are responsible for a disproportionate percentage of OH&S claims from builders. Conversely, a government could be unduly influenced by employee or union groups. Both outcomes could work to the detriment of public and employee safety.
While I am mindful of sounding like a pessimistic doomsayer and conspiracy theorist, I should point out that part of our job is to imagine the worst-case scenario that needs to be accounted for when drafting legislative instruments. None of the scenarios I have outlined is so far fetched that we should feel comfortable discounting and ignoring it. I am not saying that these things will occur, but we are creating a governance and institutional structure that is conducive to such pressures and outcomes.
Minister Barr touched on the importance of work-life balance in this morning’s Work Choices debate. High OH&S standards are similarly essential for the attraction and retention of good staff in the ACT public sector. We cannot compete on cost with a cashed-up commonwealth, so such non-monetary incentives and features are essential.
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