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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2717 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

It was never the intention of the Occupational Health and Safety Act to give the power of the legislation to some other body, on my reading of it, although it is fair to say that there ought to be some appeal rights. If this Assembly decides that there is an exemption option available to the Minister, then, one would expect, there has to be some right of appeal to deal with the matter. From discussions earlier this morning with Mr Moore - I do not think I am exposing a confidence - it seems that the AD(JR) Act and the Supreme Court may indeed provide an avenue of appeal, ruling out the necessity for this Administrative Appeals Tribunal position anyway. But, on the face of it, if the Assembly chooses to grant the Minister the right to make exemptions, there has to be some sort of appeal right if he refuses to give them. So, I am not inclined to support Mr Moore at this point in relation to the striking out of subsection (4).

Mr Speaker, yesterday when I was being briefed by departmental officials, I put to them: When in the past have you needed these exemptions? When in the past have you provided exemptions under the old legislation, which is, in effect, to be superseded by these provisions - the Machinery Act and the Scaffolding and Lifts Act - in all of its representations? When in those circumstances were exemptions given? In the case of the Scaffolding and Lifts Act, there is no exemptions clause, as far as I can make out. There is an exemptions clause in the Machinery Act.

I am reading the information that the Minister has just provided to me. The advice did talk about exemptions for some pressure vessels. I am still inclined to think that, overall, the case has not been made out for giving an exemption at all. I am not entirely confident about that exemptions clause, although at the end of the day, noting that the Occupational Health and Safety Council has given this its approval, I would be prepared to support this exemptions clause very cautiously, because I am still very cautious about the approach that the Government has decided to take.

I read in the speech or the explanatory memorandum which goes with this Bill that there were some savings that could be made in relation to the matter. It is always worth while to find savings. It talks about financial considerations - the Bill is expected to result in a loss of $400,000 in revenue. It is put in a way that it might be some sort of incentive to business - that, if they did not have to pay that $400,000, they might be able to do something else with the money which is more productive. That may well be the case; but I would hate to see that as being the driving force to this amendment, rather than some sensible occupational health and safety reason. Mr Speaker, I will listen with interest to the Minister's response to what I have said and to any response that Mr Moore would wish to make in response to what I have said, and I may come back to it later.

MR MOORE (11.01): In rising to address the in-principle stage of this Bill, Mr Speaker, I have to say thankyou to the crossbenchers. Thank goodness the crossbenchers were able to do the scrutiny of this legislation. The scrutiny by the official Opposition was inadequate. We did not rely on the Occupational Health and Safety Council or on the unions to say, "Yes, it is okay. It is fine by us. Therefore, that is the end of the matter". Rather, Mr Speaker, we took care to look at it in great detail.

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