Page 447 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 16 February 2016

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These amendments have been moved. They reflect the debate in the chamber earlier on. I want to thank Mr Smyth for his assistance during this process. It gives us the opportunity to express the obligation upon inspectors to show their identity cards to employers and business operators in positive terms. The government is committed to ensuring that the workers compensation scheme provides the best support for injured workers and operates as efficiently as possible.

MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.19): We are opposing this clause because we do not believe that the case has been made to make the changes to the existing act. If members had a copy of the existing act in front of them, they would see that, in some cases, for an inspection to occur people need to have a warrant or a court order. I think it is a bit over the top when, in attempting to get information about workers compensation matters, we give inspectors the power to go into any premises at any time of the day, 24/7. What sort of country are we getting to? What sort of city do we become?

I refer to section 191(2) of the existing act:

An inspector may enter any premises, and may exercise the powers of an inspector under subsection (3), if the entry is made, and the powers are exercised—

(a) under a warrant issued under section 193;

(b) with the consent of the occupier …; or

I am not sure what prompts the government to think they have to do this. They cite that it is national alignment, harmonisation. You can put that case forward, but that does not mean we have to do it. When we were talking about clause (3) of 192A as proposed in the amendments which he has now amended—and I thank him for that—Mr Gentleman said that this was a lift from other people’s bills. It turns out that it was not; it was somewhat of a paraphrase. It is that sort of action that gives me great concern about what we are doing here today.

What reason would you need to enter premises after hours, for instance, when nobody is there, without giving any warning, rather than having lawful entry during the day or having a warrant or getting a court order? What is the difficulty in making a case to undertake this activity? I think the argument of harmonisation does not hold here.

These issues in dealing with workers compensation will often be long and protracted, will take a great deal of time. It is not like on a dangerous site, whether it be a quarry, a building site or a factory, where there might be a concern for the immediate safety of the occupants. That is not the case when we are dealing with workers compensation. There has been no case made. We are giving extraordinary powers to inspectors. Thank God that is being limited to government inspectors, who, one would hope, are reasonably trained and appointed appropriately, unlike the appointment of inspectors under the health and safety act. The problem here is that we simply do not have a compelling case from the government to make these amendments today. We will be voting against them.

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