Page 1619 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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However, I would say that on the health infrastructure program my understanding is there have been about 22 reports to WorkSafe around occupational health and safety in the 2011-12 financial year. The lost time injury rates in the health infrastructure program are well below industry standards. So this is something that the government watches very closely. I would say that the system is working, Mr Hanson. We have Leighton Contractors managing the women’s and children’s hospital and we have—
Mr Hanson: Is this your project?
MS GALLAGHER: If you will let me answer, what we have is contractors who are building those projects for us. We have Shared Services Procurement and Health as the client of those contracts. There is an expectation that occupational health and safety matters are dealt with cooperatively through the contractors, overseen by the clients, and in conjunction with the CFMEU.
My understand is that the CFMEU entered the sites yesterday with different concerns, different workplace safety concerns, than the ones they pursued once they were on the site. But, as is their right, they held a members’ meeting, not about the issues that they had gone to the site for but on issues that they identified at the site visit. The members had a vote in relation to the women’s and children’s site, and a decision was taken to leave the site that day and meetings were held, appropriately, with the contractor and the CFMEU to resolve those issues and get workers back to work safely in accordance with agreements reached.
I am very satisfied that the process is working. But if you are going to stand here and say that there are not going to be issues that the unions are going to identify in those projects, I think you are sadly mistaken. These are big construction projects. The CFMEU have a legitimate role to play in relation to workplace safety and we expect them to play that role. We expect them to play it cooperatively and we expect them to play it in the interests of workplace safety, not to jeopardise the construction of particular projects.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: What is the government going to do to rectify its failure to comply with its own law and ensure that this does not occur in the future?
MS GALLAGHER: The health infrastructure program has regular meetings with the contractors working on a number of different projects. We take health and safety concerns very seriously. This is one that you are aware of, Mr Hanson. I am aware of other concerns that have been raised against projects—as they are against every single project in the territory from time to time, whether they are government jobs or not. A worker was taken to hospital, as far as I understand, this morning on a private job in O’Malley. These things happen. What you have to do is create the framework, the laws and the processes—and, importantly, in this town, the relationships—to make sure that, when concerns are identified, they are responded to quickly. That is exactly what happened on this site and that is exactly what happened with the emergency department as well.
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