Page 5987 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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DR BOURKE (Ginninderra—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (4.09): I rise to commend the Work Health and Safety (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2011 to the Assembly. I will not speak for long. At the outset, Madam Assistant Speaker, I would like to congratulate all members on ensuring the passage of the Work Health and Safety Act in September this year. As we all appreciate, we cannot overstate the importance of workers’ safety and reducing the unnecessary regulatory burden on business and industry. The act is an important step in this journey.
The bill before the Assembly today seeks to appeal the present Work Safety Act 2008, the Work Safety Regulation 2009 and the Magistrates Court (Work Safety Infringement Notices) Regulation 2009. Due to the passage of the Work Health and Safety Act 2011, these pieces of legislation are no longer required. I also advise the Assembly that I will shortly notify the work health and safety regulation and a range of codes of practice to underpin the new act. Included in this pack of subordinate laws will be the remaking of the ACT codes for preventing and responding to bullying at work and for the sexual services industry.
Finally, I advise that this week the Northern Territory has joined Queensland, New South Wales, the commonwealth and ourselves in the 1 January 2012 commencement of the harmonised legislation. I thank the Assembly for its cooperation in the introduction and passage of this bill in a short time. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (4.11), by leave: I will be brief. I apologise for not being here sooner. The Greens will be supporting the Work Health and Safety (Consequential Amendments) Bill. The bill repeals the existing Work Safety Act to make way for the new Work Health and Safety Act 2011, which the Assembly passed in September this year. It also updates references in ACT statutes to ensure they refer to the new act. This will allow the new act to begin operation in the ACT on 1 January 2012.
One issue I did raise with the government—and I believe the minister has referred to it—was the fact that repealing the existing Work Safety Act also involved repealing all the legislative instruments made under the act. This includes existing codes of practice for work health and safety—for example, the ACT code of practice on bullying in the workplace. Most of these repealed codes of practice and instruments will be covered in new harmonised legislation and by upcoming federal codes of practice. But not all of them will be. The code of practice on bullying in the workplace, for example, is not being replaced in the new harmonised regulation or with a new federal code of practice.
I am pleased that the government responded by agreeing that it will retain the existing bullying code pending completion of a national code. I do not believe it would have been appropriate to leave a void in ACT bullying regulation while we hope for a quick and effective federal process to replace it. It will also be important to see if new regulations will be satisfactory, as there should not be a reduction in ACT laws. We
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