Page 2258 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 31 October 1989
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MR SPEAKER: Please be more direct, Mr Moore.
MR MOORE: "Wooden Bar" Stefaniak was what I was saying. The point is, Mr Speaker, in this case, we could have a situation where our wooden bar would be trying to hammer into the particular workers - but they are volunteers, and we need them; they are important to the legislation; they cannot be under threat of this sort of penalty.
MR WHALAN (Minister for Industry, Employment and Education) (9.25): This is a silly amendment. Under clause 47 you want to be able to hang the safety rep, and you can do that under clause 47. Then you want to introduce a new clause 47A and you want to whip him after he is dead. It is a double penalty. I would like to very briefly adopt the points made by Mr Moore in terms of the role of the voluntary workplace delegate. The whole thrust of this legislation is that it imposes a duty of care upon the employer. It is not appropriate to adopt the argument that, because there are 10 places where the employer who in some way places in jeopardy his duty of care could attract a fine for that, then there have to be 10 places where the employee who takes on the job of being the safety rep could be fined.
The proposal is more dangerous than that. It is a very dangerous amendment, and I am sure that it will not be acceptable to a majority of members of the Assembly. It is proposed that an offence be created where the health and safety representative shall not take any action that would render the representative liable to disqualification under clause 47. The proposed offence is far too uncertain when you talk about any action. That is clearly too wide a proposal. And, of course, to add the words "liable to disqualification" does not necessarily mean that the person has been or even will be disqualified; so it is just some vague set of circumstances where he may be liable to disqualification.
The Bill provides that the registrar shall not disqualify, unless he believes certain matters on reasonable grounds, having regard to a number of criteria. Therefore there is no obligation on the registrar to disqualify even a person who may be liable. For example, a trivial incident or an inadvertent action by the representative could be any matter the registrar thinks relevant. They are in addition to the matters which are specifically set out in the legislation. The effect of this amendment would be to make a person liable to an offence for taking any action which may or may not result in a disqualification.
As for the penalty, the penalty is far too high. Even if the elements of the offence were not so uncertain, we find that $10,000 is used as a penalty for such fundamental matters as non-compliance with improvement notices, obstructing inspectors and not notifying the registrar. The proposed penalty is double that for employers interfering with the workplace notices, and it is 10 times
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