Building Industry Occupational Health and Safety
Reverend the Hon. Dr GORDON MOYES: I direct my question to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Is he aware that a 16-year-old labourer with just three days experience fell 15 metres at a Sydney worksite this morning? Is the Minister also aware that the boy was not wearing a safety harness? What assurance does the Minister give to parents of young people working on dangerous industrial sites that their children are under proper supervision and working under safe conditions? What action will he take to enforce the use of safety equipment and to educate employers that persons working higher than three metres are required to wear a safety harness?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I congratulate the honourable member for raising this important issue. I do not have a specific answer about the incident this morning.
Ms Lee Rhiannon: Check the legislation.
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I hear a familiar voice in the background. Honourable members may not have noticed, but the Government has repeatedly amended the occupational health and safety legislation. With the co-operation of previous and current Labor Council secretaries, the Government has modernised the legislation and we now have what even militant union secretaries and officials have told me repeatedly is among the best such legislation in the world. Many visiting officials who have examined our regime have agreed with that opinion. Our arrangements are based on an important logic that highlights the need for a co-operative framework. If we implement appropriate incentives, we can make workplace safety not only a moral imperative but also good for business; that is, it will add quality to business operations.
Ms Lee Rhiannon: Why is that not working?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I beg to differ; it is working very well.
Ms Lee Rhiannon: Why then did the young man fall off the roof? It is not working. It is the second time that has happened to a teenager.
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: The honourable member’s attitude is bordering on irresponsible, given the seriousness of this issue. She keeps raising individual instances when she knows I am talking about general arrangements and what the Government is doing to ensure safer workplaces, not what I can do about a specific incident that happened this morning or an incident that might happen next week. The Government has introduced three principles that are critical to ensuring safer workplaces and the implementation by employers of better work practices relating to safety, production and services. Those principles involve hazard identification and mandatory consultation between employees and employers. We have one of the few industrial safety regimes in the world that requires employers to consult with employees about workplace safety. If it is not the first, it is certainly one of the first such arrangements of its kind in the world. That illustrates this Government’s level of commitment to a better framework for industrial safety.
Hazard identification and minimisation are the next critical steps to be taken. WorkCover has produced a wide range of reader-friendly material for large and small companies, and even for micro businesses, to explain their obligations. It is not necessary to take a punitive approach in every instance; the Government is keen to provide information and to educate. That approach will produce great results for the businesses and workplaces of New South Wales.
Ms Sylvia Hale: It did not work in this instance.
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I keep getting odd interjections about particular instances. It is poor taste and shows a lack of respect for dead or seriously injured workers to use their misfortune to trivialise the political and moral significance of the debate about better workplace safety. The Government has implemented a new and effective regime. We can always do better and we are open about the fact that we are working to improve the situation. The new framework has already started delivering much safer workplaces. Only two or three years ago many employers would have found such a comprehensive framework very onerous. However, its implementation has been achieved in such a way that employers have found it acceptable. We are moving forward in this important area.
