Page 594 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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consistent with the corresponding laws in surrounding New South Wales waters. I commend the government amendments to the Assembly.
Amendments agreed to.
Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Work Health and Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
Debate resumed from 31 November 2017, on motion by Ms Stephen-Smith:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (11.28): From the outset I will state that the opposition will be supporting this bill today. The Work Health and Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 builds on work already done to harmonise work safety legislation across states and territories. Clearly this harmonisation has been a key priority for successive commonwealth governments over the past 20 years and has had a clear aim to reduce the incidence of work-related death, injury or illness. This is an aim and an objective shared by all sides of politics. While states, territories and the commonwealth are responsible for making and enforcing their own work health and safety laws, there are some consistent approaches to these. We can safely assume that the devil is always in the detail in the application of these laws. Therefore, it is important to have consistent laws in this space.
As the minister has previously explained, this bill proposes to adopt chapters 7 and 9 of the national model Work Health and Safety Regulation, better known as the model regulation, which governs the use, storage and handling of hazardous chemicals and also makes improvement to handling asbestos.
I understand the bill will also make consequential amendments to the Dangerous Substances Act and the Dangerous Substances (General) Regulation. This is also in line with the reform agenda in the intergovernmental agreement. Once again, the opposition will be supporting this bill.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (11.30): The measures presented in this bill and the regulation accompanying it are designed to improve work health and safety regulations particularly focusing on hazardous chemicals and hazardous facilities. The changes stem from a model work health and safety regulation developed at the federal level. During yesterday’s debates I mentioned the national model Work Health and Safety Act which we passed in this place in 2011 and which has been an important reform. This reform is made in the same vein and is, in fact, part of the same process.
We have since adopted the national model asbestos regulation and today’s bill adopts the national regulations covering hazardous chemicals and major hazard facilities. These are changes that already exist in most other jurisdictions as well as at the commonwealth level. The model regulations have been developed by SafeWork
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