Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Abetz is correct. The right to silence and the privilege against self-incrimination are important individual rights. However, these individual rights are not absolute and they must be balanced against the public interest. In the field of regulation, particularly in the regulation of workplace safety, which is a matter of major public importance, one crucial public interest is securing effective compliance and all prosecutions. It is well established that the abrogation of individual rights may be justified if the information to be compelled concerns an issue of major public importance that has a significant impact on the community in general or on a section of the community. Safety in the workplace is such an issue of major public importance.

Abrogation of the right to silence and the privilege against self-incrimination may also be justified where there is an immediate need for information to avoid risks such as danger to human life, serious personal injury or damage to human health, or where there is a compelling argument that the information is necessary to prevent further harm from occurring.

The Work Health and Safety Bill seeks to ensure that the strongest powers to compel the provision of information are available for securing ongoing work health and safety. This means abrogating the right to silence and the privilege against self-incrimination. However, the bill balances the loss of a person's right to silence by limiting both the direct and indirect use of forced disclosure against the person required to provide the information. This means that an individual will be compelled to provide information when asked but that that information and any subsequent obtained as a result of the forced disclosure cannot be used to prosecute the individual. The advantage of section 172 is that all information is available to an inspector following a safety incident, thereby enabling an inspector and a PCBU to take timely safety and remedial action.