Page 1622 - Week 06 - Thursday, 13 August 1992
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OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY (AMENDMENT) BILL 1992
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (10.32): I present the Occupational Health and Safety (Amendment) Bill 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MR BERRY: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Madam Speaker, this Bill seeks to extend the Occupational Health and Safety Act to cover more of our Territory's workers. Simply put, it will extend the coverage of the Act from workplaces with more than 20 employees to workplaces with more than 10 employees. Last weekend I heard on the news that a gas blast under the canteen of a textile factory in Turkey killed 32 workers. The explosion was caused by the build-up of methane gas that went unchecked, resulting in an accident that could easily have been prevented.
In the 1990s the situation in Australia is somewhat different. For many years there has been an increasing awareness among both workers and employers of the benefits of a safe workplace. Labor believes that it is the right of every worker to go home at the end of the day as well as they were when they went to work. Preventing injury in the workplace saves pain, lost working life, and the long court cases that in reality cannot compensate for the ruining of a worker's personal and family life - something that the Liberals have not been committed to in the past. Employers also benefit financially from a safe workplace. That, too, is not something that the Liberals have been long committed to.
Mr De Domenico: That is not true.
MR BERRY: Fewer accidents mean lower workers compensation premiums, higher worker morale, higher productivity and less need for retraining of injured or new staff. Mr De Domenico will have the opportunity to speak on this Bill at some time later if he could just be patient, although that is something that he has not been committed to in the past either.
During the 1980s the Federal and State governments introduced occupational health and safety legislation. This was a major step forward in enforcing the duty of care that employers have in the workplace. However, many conservative employer groups opposed the introduction of occupational health and safety legislation, progressive elements of which were also resisted by Liberal members opposite. In 1989 the first Follett Labor Government introduced the ACT's first Bill, the ACT Occupational Health and Safety Bill. There was an outcry from some sectors and some politicians. They criticised the cost and union involvement. Of course, there were some employers who supported it.
Now, both the employers who supported the legislation and those who opposed it are benefiting from the improved safety in the workplace. The best indication of the legislation's success is measured by the reduction in accidents, leading to an average 40 per cent reduction in workers compensation premiums.
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