Page 802 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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So we are expecting, and we will shortly see, I understand, significant movement in this area from work that has already been triggered over the last couple of years in recognition of these issues.
When it comes to the safety of construction sites—and again Mr Corbell has already spoken about this—the Getting home safely report on the inquiry into compliance with work health and safety requirements came out in late 2012. It looked at what was happening in the construction industry here in the ACT. The government has been working through these issues ever since. I think it is fair to say that this was a very serious and comprehensive inquiry and report conducted by Lynelle Briggs and Mark McCabe, the Work Safety Commissioner. The government accepted all of the recommendations in the inquiry report; it has provided funding for them in recent budgets; and it has, I think, been working through the recommendations fairly comprehensively.
Most recently we have seen the establishment of the active certification model to govern the employment of government construction contractors, something that will make an important difference and which the Greens have talked about for several years.
The reforms from the Getting home safely report relate to all stakeholders involved in the sector: government, workers, trainers and educators, and the private companies in the industry itself. They are engaged in implementing them as we speak.
Given all of this, I do not think it is the right time to launch another inquiry into the safety of the construction sector. I think that there is a significant level of work underway and there is a clear understanding of what the issues are. It is a matter now to let the reforms that have been put in place flow through the sector and have their full effect so that, hopefully—it must be our aspiration—we will not see another death on a work site in the ACT and there will be a cut in the level of injuries. That is an aspiration we should be striving hard to achieve, and I think that these reforms will go some way to delivering that sort of aspiration.
When it comes to the availability and delivery of land, that is being dealt with by the Economic Development Directorate and the LDA. In the next few years, and there are already signs of this, although there are differing views around town, I do not expect to see such significant growth in demand for housing. Most of the predictions are that we will see a cooling of the market. There is going to be a need for careful government consideration of how much land to release to ensure that there is enough for the demand but at the same time we are not oversupplying the market.
Having tackled all those specific points in Mr Coe’s motion, I guess they really go to why I do not think a board of inquiry is the right thing at this time. In all of the areas that Mr Coe has touched on in his motion, there is work taking place, reforms underway. There is a clear recognition that some of these issues are important issues, and I think reforms that are either in place already or in the pipeline will tackle many of these things. I am not at all convinced that a large-scale board of inquiry, with the powers that it would have, is the right way to tackle this. If there are outstanding
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