Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for his question. I know that he has been interested in the policy area of occupational health and safety for a long time. It has been a long-sought-after policy goal to have uniform occupational health and safety laws in this country—something that people have wanted for a long time. Why? Because it would be better for business; in particular, it would be better for those 39,000 businesses that operate across state boundaries to be able to have all of their workforce under the same occupational health and safety regime. That is just common sense. It would be better for working people if there were uniform high standards around the country, because we know that, tragically, 300 Australians are killed at work each year and over 140,000 Australians are injured at work each year, costing the economy $34 billion and bringing tragedy to the people involved in those injuries and the family members of those who are lost at work.

In July this year COAG had a breakthrough. After years—indeed, decades—of this kind of reform being talked about, COAG agreed to an intergovernmental agreement to get on with the job of ensuring occupational health and safety laws are uniform around the country. It had an agreed end point, model laws, model regulations, model codes and an agreed time frame; and, importantly, it had agreement for the creation of a new body, to be known as Safe Work Australia, to guide this process. The legislation to create this new body is before this parliament. Amazingly, the Liberal Party are on a strategy to frustrate this legislation and prevent it passing the parliament. They know that this legislation is the product of an intergovernmental agreement and that we have a best endeavours clause to deliver the legislation so it matches the intergovernmental agreement, and they are on a strategy to frustrate it. In particular, they are moving amendments to increase the number of representatives from the employer organisations and the number of representatives from the unions.

When the Liberal Party first moved those amendments it did seem to me that that was a very strange thing for the Liberal Party to do, given they had spent the best part of a decade or more trying to destroy the Australian trade union movement. I thought that that was a very unusual thing for them to do. But I am in a position to advise the House why they are going on this strategy, because I have had come into my possession the shadow cabinet brief that was taken to their shadow cabinet dealing with this legislation. It is marked ‘shadow cabinet in confidence’. It makes abundantly clear why they are moving these amendments. It says:

The Coalition should propose amendments to the bill to alter the membership of Safe Work Australia, increasing the number of representatives submitted by each social partner to 3 from 2. This may also assist in defeating future policy proposals by State or Federal Labor.

That is, they are deliberately moving these amendments to derail the occupational health and safety harmonisation process. They are so desperate for political advantage that a reform that business wants, a reform that working people want, they will stand in the way of because they are about playing politics.

Who endorses this reform? The Business Council does. The Australian Mines and Metals Association does. Indeed, it is No. 1 on the Business Council of Australia agenda for deregulation, and here they are with their mind-numbingly petty politics with amendments deliberately calculated and designed to derail this process. The Leader of the Opposition is a man who seeks to present himself to the Australian community as someone who knows about business. He is seeking to present himself to the Australian community as a merchant banker who is therefore an expert in the ways of business. I believe this is a test of the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition. Is he going to allow an objective as important as having harmonised occupational health and safety laws in this country to be derailed by the petty politics of his shadow cabinet and his shadow minister or is he going to instruct his shadow minister to withdraw from this strategy and pass this bill unamended? It is a test of leadership for the Leader of the Opposition. This is a man who walks both sides of the street. One day he is in support of the Economic Security Strategy of the government; the next day he is against it. One day he is for pensioner relief; apparently now he is against it. One day he is working in the interests of Australian families; now he opposes them getting payments.

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