Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Last year 169 workers were fatally injured at work in Australia.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. Each of these deaths represents a family member who will never come home, a friend or co-worker lost forever. Each of these deaths is preventable.

One death is too many.

The Albanese Labor government is serious about improving work health and safety in Australia.

The Work Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2022 implements recommendations from the review of the model work health and safety laws, conducted by Ms Marie Boland in 2018.

I would like to thank Ms Boland for her considered examination of the model work health and safety laws and her important recommendations.

I would also like to acknowledge those families who have lost a loved one at work for giving their time to speak or write to Ms Boland, as they have given their time to write and speak to myself and to many other members in this place. You continue to fight tirelessly to improve the system that let you down, in order to ensure that others do not have to face the same heartbreak as you have.

The Boland report contained 34 recommendations.

So far, not one of the recommendations requiring legislative change has been implemented by the Commonwealth jurisdiction—but this bill will change that.

The bill doesn't address the most critical recommendations, but its swift implementation signals how serious the government is about taking action on work health and safety.

We can do better, we must do better and we will do better. This bill is the first step.

Most significantly, the bill expands the most serious offence under the Commonwealth's current work health and safety laws to include negligence as a fault element. The bar for conviction is currently set way too high. This change means that both reckless and grossly negligent employers who expose workers to serious risks will face the most serious consequences and penalties.

The bill will prevent a person required to pay a penalty under the law from recovering that penalty under a contract of insurance. The penalties in the act are there as a deterrent. Allowing companies to take out insurance against these penalties makes workplace injuries just another cost of doing business. Prohibiting such insurance forces businesses to take their work health and safety duties seriously. No longer will a statutory penalty just be another line on a balance sheet that an employer can recover from their insurer, while a family has lost a loved one in a workplace fatality.

The bill clarifies that a health and safety representative is able to choose their own course of training and removes the requirement for the health and safety representative to make this decision 'in consultation with the person conducting a business or undertaking'.

We are also introducing amendments to align service notice provisions to ensure clarity and consistency across the Work Health and Safety Act.

The bill also amends the Safe Work Australia Act 2008 to clarify that information may be shared with Safe Work Australia when the information is relevant to their statutory data and evidence functions. Safe Work Australia publishes data that is central to work health and safety and workers' compensation policy development. Without a decent body of substantive data, governments are limited in their ability to develop good policy that solves real issues. In particular, Safe Work Australia maintains and publishes the traumatic injury fatalities database and the National dataset for compensation-based statistics, without which we would have no clear view of the extent of work health and safety issues in Australia. This sensible amendment will ensure that Safe Work Australia can continue receiving information necessary to its research and data publication efforts.

Safe Work Australia undertook extensive tripartite consultation, seeking feedback on implementing key recommendations of the Boland review on the model Work Health and Safety laws. This involved consultation across all jurisdictions and with union and employer representatives. In June 2022, the Model Work Health and Safety Bill was amended in line with this process.

This bill would harmonise the Work Health and Safety Act with the recent changes to the model work health and safety laws.

This bill is only the beginning; there's still much more for us to do to make Australians safer at work.

The federal Australian Labor Party has consistently supported the introduction of an industrial manslaughter offence. The government will later take action to put this issue back on the agenda.

In 2022 we find ourselves in a situation where workers are contracting silicosis. This is an incurable disease, and it's unacceptable that Australian workers face this hazard. Urgent action is needed to protect workers from future harm and to support those who have already been failed. This government hears the calls for urgent reform. We are committed to getting national traction on this issue.

We also recognise the link between workplace relations and the work health and safety frameworks.

Consultative, cooperative workplaces are also the safest workplaces.

Secure jobs, where workers can raise safety concerns without being scared that they will lose their job, are safe jobs.

Workplaces that have a culture of fairness, that respect diversity and that promote equality are also healthy workplaces.

In the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill, the government has introduced reforms that will see more workers in good jobs: jobs with security, fair pay and proper protections.

We are also implementing the recommendations of the Respect@Work report to eliminate sexual harassment in the workplace.

These significant reforms will have a positive impact on the safety of Australian workers and their workplaces.

This bill doesn't solve all these big issues. This is just the beginning of this government's journey to implement the recommendations of the Boland report. With this bill, the Albanese Labor government is getting on with the job of delivering safe workplaces for all Australian workers. Every Australian worker should be able to go to work and come home to their loved ones safely at the end of the day.

Debate adjourned.