Page 2016 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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Let me just tell members about one union that I happen to know, the rubber workers union in Australia. Ninety per cent of the people in that union were born outside this country.
Mr Collaery: Lord Dunlop!
MRS GRASSBY: Please yourself. Today you will use a Dunlop product, so they tell me. I repeat that 90 per cent of those rubber workers were born outside this country and their first language is not English. Most of the accidents to members of that union occur because the instructions in the workplace are not in the languages they speak. They do not understand the operations of a lot of the machinery they use.
This Bill says the common law duty of care is to be sure that, if you are employing people whose first language is not English, all the instructions relating to machinery must be in the languages which the employees speak. I would like to be sure that this will happen. I used to be in the rag trade, or the shmateh trade - - -
Mr Duby: Vot?
MRS GRASSBY: Shmateh trade - I hope that Hansard can spell shmateh; it is Yiddish. Normally, things should be fine with a machine. Machines work the same all round the world. But today there is some incredible machinery in the rag trade which is not found in all parts of the world. This is where the difficulty starts. People start getting their arms burnt by the steaming machines. They find that machinery that cuts large numbers of patterns - - -
Mr Kaine: They start putting two left arms on garments.
MRS GRASSBY: They lose fingers - not arms but fingers.
Mr Humphries: That probably explains my suit.
Mr Collaery: What happened to that shirt? Look, it is too long.
MRS GRASSBY: Oh, wonderful, where is the pair of socks that you usually have up your shirt sleeve? What else have you got up your arm that we do not know about? I have just been to David Jones with you and it worries me what you have got up your arm that we do not know about.
Mr Duby interjected.
MRS GRASSBY: I am sorry; I missed that, Mr Speaker. I would have liked to answer it, but I missed it.
Mr Kaine: It is a good thing that you missed it, Ellnor.
MRS GRASSBY: Mr Duby, don't be so rude.
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