Page 3892 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 2011
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Greens supported those changes. The bill before us today retains the valuable industrial manslaughter provisions, and the Greens strongly support that.
This brings me to the point that this legislation primarily maintains the existing laws in the ACT, which are already enacted under our Work Safety Act. This is a position with which we are broadly satisfied. The Work Safety Act was passed by the government in 2008 when it held an Assembly majority. At the time of the 2008 bill the Greens were disappointed with the lack of engagement received on the bill, but broadly pleased conceptually with the approach that the bill took.
It is also our opinion that the 2008 bill has entrenched strong protections for workers in the ACT, which are operating well, and which we wish to retain. I would point out that at the time, the Liberal Party were very vocal about significant negative impacts that the work safety laws would have on businesses in the ACT. I think we can say that the dire situation the Liberals predicted has not emerged.
There are significant benefits to the laws remaining as they are, rather than winding them back and undoing some of the protections that were implemented. I understand that winding back their legislation is what the Liberal Party are looking at doing through their amendments. I find this approach problematic as this would remove existing protections in a way that would put the ACT significantly out of step with other jurisdictions.
They are not just small changes. They are changing major aspects. A lack of harmonisation was stated as an issue for the Liberal Party when they opposed the laws in 2008. Mr Smyth said at the time:
… the ACT is so small that every time we become out of step with other jurisdictions, particularly New South Wales, we simply penalise those businesses, organisations and people who have to work across the boundaries.
The Stanhope government, and the Chief Minister in particular, would not appear to have any idea about the differential adverse impact of this proposal on ACT businesses.
He went on to state that if the ACT has a different work safety regime to other jurisdictions, it:
… imposes additional unnecessary costs on those businesses, as well as reducing their capacity to compete with businesses from other jurisdictions.
I therefore believe that the Liberal Party should consider possible impacts before they propose amendments that are significantly different to the harmonised laws. That 2008 legislation introduced other concepts that the Greens support, and we remain supportive of them. These include improved training requirements for health and safety inspectors, establishment of groups to consult in workplaces and the right for private prosecutions to be taken by unions.
On this issue of private prosecutions, l would like to flag that the Greens will be proposing amendments to this bill. We are disappointed that the bill proposes to remove an existing right. This is the right for unions to prosecute for breaches of
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