Page 1284 - Week 04 - Thursday, 8 May 2014
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will propose an amendment that removes legal practitioners from the scope of choice available to the minister.
The second act to be amended is the Cultural Facilities Corporation Act 1997. The amendment repeals, from 1 July 2014, the requirement on the corporation to produce its quarterly report. We will support this amendment because it creates a significant administrative efficiency for the corporation.
I am aware that the corporation’s quarterly reports are substantial documents which the corporation staff must surely spend an inordinate amount of time preparing. And for what, Madam Deputy Speaker? The reports are tabled and noted in this place. They rarely, if ever, draw comment, debate or even public interest.
I know the corporation include much of the content of the quarterly reports in other publications such as their annual reports. This amendment will relieve considerable double handling, consumption of staff time and allocation of money that could perhaps be more usefully applied elsewhere within the corporation’s operations and activities.
Sadly, though, the attorney has failed to explain fully the implications of this change. In his presentation speech he talked about the impact of change on the Assembly, but failed to discuss the impact the change might have on external users of the quarterly report. Once again, this amendment borders on a substantive change to policy. Nonetheless, in the interests of encouraging practical efficiency gains for the Cultural Facilities Corporation, we will support it.
Finally, the bill amends the Dangerous Substances Act 2004. The amendment provides that a person who has corresponding duties under this act and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 is held to comply with the Work Health and Safety Act if they comply with this act. In the event of any inconsistency, the WHS act prevails.
In general, this is a pragmatic amendment which again creates efficiency and mitigates doubt. However, it begs the question as to why there should be legislative inconsistencies, especially when it involves issues that can become emergencies.
Laws and officer duties of this kind should be harmonised. My colleague the shadow minister for industrial relations will propose an amendment that puts a sunset of one year on the provisions relating to how any inconsistencies are dealt with. This will give the government an opportunity to review the dangerous goods act and the Work Health and Safety Act to identify the inconsistencies and to bring forward amending legislation that ensures legislative harmony so that workers know that there will be no confusion about how they should be dealing with situations.
Whilst the amendment to the dangerous goods act does not amount to a substantive policy shift, it is important for people who work under multiple laws to know that their work done under one law will not bring them into conflict with another. This is especially so in the case of the explosion that occurred in Mitchell in 2011. In such cases workers need to be able to think and act quickly in the knowledge that their actions will be supported by law.
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