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- 13 April 2000
Workplace Safety Committee
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Page: 4698
The Hon. HELEN SHAM-HO [10.09 p.m.]: I draw the attention of honourable members to the 1998 inquiry of the Standing Committee on Law and Justice into workplace safety, the recommendations of which had the unanimous support of members of the committee. In particular, I highlight recommendation 32 in the interim report, which states:
… the Occupational Health and Safety Act be amended to provide for the establishment of a Joint Parliamentary Committee on Workplace Safety, to be known as the WorkSafe Committee.
I seek the support of honourable members and ask the Government to implement that recommendation. In recent days much concern has been expressed about the safety of rail workers. It is interesting to note that we spend most of our adult lives at work, yet for many people, especially rail maintenance workers, workplaces pose an unacceptable level of risk to their health and safety. In 1997-98 there were 58,604 employment-related injuries and 181 fatalities in New South Wales. Each year workplace-related accidents involve more people and cost us more than road accidents.
Australia wide, workplace injuries cost the Australian economy $15 billion a year. Needless to say, many indirect costs are also involved, such as a higher level of absenteeism, increases in premiums, staff replacement and retraining, and loss of expert knowledge. These indirect costs have been estimated to be about four to 10 times more than direct costs. As I noted in my contribution to the take-note debate on the interim report, recommendation 32 is one of the key recommendations to come out of the inquiry into workplace safety in New South Wales.
The potential significance that a joint parliamentary committee on work safety would have in helping to raise the profile of workplace safety, and of signalling to the community that members of Parliament care about this issue, cannot be underestimated. The idea of a worksafe committee to promote and develop workplace safety, and to monitor the effectiveness of WorkCover, was inspired by the success of parliamentary committees such as the Staysafe committee in New South Wales in improving road safety. It was envisaged that a worksafe committee would operate along similar lines.
I am aware of the large number of parliamentary committees and the costs associated with committee inquiries. Therefore, I submit that the committee operates under the umbrella of the Staysafe committee to save costs and to enable the committee to tap into the experience and expertise of the Staysafe committee staff. For the benefit of honourable members, at pages 96 and 97 the interim report states:
The submission received from Advocates for Workplace Safety called for the establishment of a permanent Parliamentary Committee on Workplace Safety. Advocates reasoned that such a Committee would raise the profile of workplace safety in the same way Road Safety Committees have:
Advocates suggests that the principal reason why road safety has such a high profile in both the media and the community is because of the continued existence of Parliamentary Committees in Victoria since the late 1960s, in New South Wales since the 1980s, and Queensland and Western Australia in the 1990s which review and report on road safety matters.
There is no reason that the same level of success cannot be achieved in relation to workplace safety. All it needs is the political will to bring this important recommendation to fruition. A committee would provide an important overseeing function to existing structures in place, such as WorkCover, as well as provide an additional forum at a bipartisan parliamentary level from which workplace safety policies can be initiated and reviewed. I have already consulted the Attorney General about this issue, and he was sympathetic, receptive and responsive. The Law Society has already expressed its full support of the proposal. I again urge honourable members to consider this recommendation in the workplace safety report, and I hope the Government will implement it as soon as practicable.
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