Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the bill. The bill implements the recommendations of the review of Safe Work Australia's role and functions. The review was required to start six years after the commencement of the Safe Work Act 2008 and was tabled in parliament on 8 November 2016. Consistent with the review's recommendation, the bill amends the Safe Work Australia Act to include an overarching statement that it provides a context in which the Safe Work Australia Act is to continue to perform its functions and lead the development of national policies and strategies to improve the WHS outcomes and workers' compensation arrangements, and the bill updates and consolidates Safe Work Australia's functions. The bill also replaces outdated terms such as 'occupational health and safety' and 'ministerial council' and clarifies that WHS ministers will continue to approve the model WHS legislation, statements and other key documents.

The former Labor government established Safe Work Australia in 2008 to lead the development of a national policy to improve workers' health and safety, and workers' compensation across Australia, with specific focus on the harmonisation of workers' health and safety laws. The efforts of Safe Work Australia have supported improvements in workers' health and safety outcomes and arrangements in Australia. The six-year review of Safe Work Australia concluded:

There is significant evidence to indicate Safe Work Australia has delivered against its stated role and functions, although there are opportunities for improvement—particularly in relation to the delivery of the workers' compensation, data collection and analysis and awareness raising functions.

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WHS has been a focus for successive tripartite bodies for more than 30 years.

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Progress on workers' compensation arrangements has been less pronounced, however this can generally be attributed to external factors beyond the control of Safe Work Australia. These factors include the focus on harmonisation of WHS laws, underlying commercial issues and disparate jurisdictional perspectives and differences across the various workers' compensation schemes. Nevertheless, there have been some achievements in the administration of workers' compensation schemes including the alignment of definitions on deemed diseases, permanent impairment and the benefits cut-off age.

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T he need for Safe Work Australia' s role and functions to be updated

A key theme arising from stakeholder discussions is that the principles embodied in Safe Work Australia's current role and functions largely remain valid. However, the role needs to be further clarified and the functions revised to suit changed circumstances.

Safe Work Australia's functions are clearly identified in the establishing legislation, but its role is not. A clear role helps to define the purpose of the body and sets the expectations and the overall context for how its functions should be performed. The lack of a clear legislative role for Safe Work Australia has resulted in some ambiguity around its purpose and how to perform its functions. This should be addressed, and there is also a need to update the functions to ensure they remain contemporary—for example, removal of specific references to titles and dates. This bill addresses these issues and I commend it to the Senate.