Page 1061 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 6 May 2014
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One important factor in my mind in considering the human rights elements of the testing regime in this bill is that they must be taken in the context of the catastrophic impacts that could occur to the community or workers in the case of a rail accident caused by impairment.
Drug and alcohol testing is already prevalent in the rail industry. Information provided to me by the Australasian Railway Association showed that in 2011 the rail industry in Australia conducted almost 200,000 employee drug and alcohol tests. 0.147 per cent of these provided a positive result, and the industry has used these figures to show that its drug and alcohol testing regime is effective.
A second amendment moved by the minister will ensure that if a person is compelled to provide information or documents under the law they have both a direct and derivative immunity from that information being used in civil or criminal proceedings against the person. Essentially this is a variety of the protection against self-incrimination, ensuring that although the evidence still must be provided it cannot then be used against the person.
I will be supporting these amendments as improvements to the bill and as a suitable response to issues raised by the committee.
In terms of application of the new laws, I understand that in the ACT there is approximately 20 kilometres of rail track, including sidings, to which the reforms will apply. Obviously there is not a large rail industry in the ACT at the moment. New South Wales trains provide the passenger rail services, which use Kingston station, and there is unfortunately no rail freight. The Railway Historical Society occasionally operates tourist railway services to Bungendore and the society has informed the government that it supports the changes in this bill. As Mr Corbell mentioned in his introductory speech, in the future the ACT has the option to choose whether the national law will apply to Canberra’s capital metro light rail or not.
Lastly, I note that the reforms have strong support from stakeholders such as the Australasian Railway Association. In light of both the stakeholders’ support and my analysis of the legislation, I am happy to support the bill today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (11.48), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill today. The Rail Safety National Law (ACT) Bill will provide a legal framework for rail safety which does not exist in the ACT at present. The national partnership agreement to deliver a seamless national economy identified rail safety regulation as a competition reform priority.
The commonwealth and the states and territories have worked together to develop a rail safety national law and the creation of the National Rail Safety Regulator to improve outcomes in rail safety regulation and investigation. Similar to other recent national reforms such as the national health practitioners and the national heavy vehicle registration schemes, this law is an applied law scheme. It requires a host
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