Page 3761 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 24 September 2019
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definition of “relevant drug offence” for the purpose of immunity from criminal liability; move the requirement that an offender subject to an order “must not return a positive test sample under alcohol and drug testing” from core conditions in section 80X(1)(e) to treatment program conditions in section 80Y(2); clarify how a drug and alcohol treatment order can be made in relation to multiple offences which are sentenced together; clarify that a drug and alcohol treatment order is not a suspended sentence order; and clarify that the court making a drug and alcohol treatment order can allow for the offender to reside outside the ACT while on the order, for example where the offender is accessing an interstate residential rehabilitation service.
I express my appreciation to stakeholders, in particular Her Honour Acting Justice Walker, for their contribution to the amendments that we are discussing today. I commend the amendments to the Assembly.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (11.17): At the in-principle stage I indicated that we would support these amendments. They seem sensible; they improve the legislation; they have come from people who are looking at this in detail on the front line. We will support the amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Courts (Fair Work and Work Safety) Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
Debate resumed from 22 August 2019, on motion by Mr Ramsay:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (11.18): The rights of workers and safety in the workplace are important issues and anything that genuinely supports the Fair Work Act at the commonwealth level and ensures a timely access to justice for industrial disputes is a fair thing. Others in this place may try to paint a different picture of the stance of either me or the opposition on these matters but I take the opportunity to remind those opposite that I also bring with me a significant amount of experience both as an employer and a worker in the construction industry as well as someone who has had to deal with significant work place injury on their watch. That, in my view, is much more experience than many of those on the government benches.
Given the always present ideological agenda of the Barr Labor government, it has become normal for the opposition to be wary of any legislative change in the industrial relations space, particularly from an employer’s perspective. We only need to look at the secure local jobs code and the work health and safety amendments that have been brought through in this term to see this concern is real and the erosion of employers’ rights in action. These are both terrible in practice and have been criticised widely and condemned by industries as being a burden on business, both financially
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