Page 2016 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 May 2013
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course, the key role that these agencies have in liaising and dealing with the local building and property sectors. I can advise the Assembly that in September 2012 the Land Development Agency board established a workplace health and safety subcommittee to oversee the development of interim guidelines for managing work health and safety in construction projects. The interim guidelines were developed in consultation with the Chief Minister and Treasury Directorate, my other portfolio area, Commerce and Works, through Shares Services Procurement, and the ACT Government Solicitor’s Office.
I am pleased to advise the Assembly that the Land Development Agency board endorsed the interim guidelines in February and that they are now being adopted across the Land Development Agency, the Economic Development Directorate and, indeed, the broader ACT public service. The interim guidelines have been implemented from 4 April this year and there have been a series of information workshops held for staff, for industry and also for union representatives.
A key feature of the guidelines is that work health and safety is taken into account at every stage of a construction project. This is a critical element—that we encourage a workplace health and safety focus at the feasibility and design stage of projects, at the tendering and procurement stages of projects, at the contract management stages of projects through to the completion and handover of the new asset.
In addition, Madam Speaker, there is a feedback process so that lessons learned from one particular project can then inform further improvements to work health and safety in future projects, thus ensuring that we have a virtuous circle of continuous improvement in work health and safety outcomes. The interim guidelines are built on the active assurance concept to ensure that all Land Development Agency and Economic Development Directorate staff are meeting their due diligence requirements under the Work Health and Safety Act.
There are clear reporting requirements through the use of checklists at every single stage of a project. In addition, there are reporting requirements to ensure that the Land Development Agency board and the Economic Development Directorate senior executive committee are aware of existing and, importantly, emerging work health and safety issues to enable them to meet their due diligence obligations in their senior management roles.
The interim guidelines are dependent on the development of template documents that will capture the work health and safety requirements at each stage of the process. These documents are now being reviewed and finalised in conjunction with the Government Solicitor’s Office. The interim guidelines have been informed by and take into account the government’s response to the Getting home safely report that Mr Corbell outlined in his contribution to this debate this morning.
Turning now to my Directorate of Commerce and Works, here Shared Services is taking a key role in implementing strategies to support the recommendations in the Getting home safely report. I would like to touch on several of these recommendations today. Recommendation 12 calls for a national approach to the registration of engineers, with the ACT to go it alone if a national scheme is delayed or likely to be
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