Page 2585 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 August 2019
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I move:
That the report be noted.
This report on Auditor-General’s Report No 1 of 2017 into WorkSafe’s management of its regulatory responsibilities for the demolition of loose-fill asbestos contaminated houses is a very important report in relation to government processes in the work health and safety area. WorkSafe was charged with the responsibility for regulating work safety for the Mr Fluffy loose-fill asbestos insulation eradication scheme, one of the biggest projects ever conducted in the territory. As CFMEU representatives told us, it was worth a billion dollars and yet the approach to regulation was ad hoc and on the fly. That is not right by any reasonable standards.
Testimony to the committee and materials in the Auditor-General’s report showed us that in regulating the scheme WorkSafe was unable to capture experience from the coalface and disseminate it in useful ways. Key documents intended to guide regulators and contractors were begun but never finished, updated or promulgated and were not available to support people in the field. As a result there was a worrying lack of consistency from site to site. In some cases there were reports of incidents where there was serious risk of harm and persistent questions over the adequacy of the regulator’s response.
Important questions also emerged on the degree to which WorkSafe inspectors are able to exercise the discretion accorded then in the Work Health and Safety Act to issue notices immediately that there is an immediate risk. It appears that the processes provided for in the act have been subverted by an administrative direction that all notices be reviewed by a panel before they are issued. This issue in particular needs urgent attention.
In defending its approach to regulating the scheme the regulator told us that practical imperatives made it impossible to create proper documentary frameworks for the scheme and that given the time and resources constraints it was not possible to do practical regulatory work and provide a documentary framework at the same time. However, in truth, it is impossible to discharge complex obligations without some kind of documentary framework both to support consistency and to factor in information arising from practical experience. The excuse put forward by the regulator does not stand up to scrutiny.
Complex programs need an efficient documentary framework in order to run and to defend actions taken under the scheme. If it is not built into programs from the start it is not going to happen. Unfortunately, this and a number of other matters under our consideration show that the government agencies have not got this message. They should anticipate that scrutiny will be applied at some point in the future, yet lack of documentation is proof positive that they do not anticipate this. This needs to change across the ACT government, otherwise there will be future reports from the public accounts committee highlighting a consistent lack of documentation.
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