Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I will keep my second reading contribution brief because I have already said a few words. Just as we did in the other place, the Greens will be strongly supporting the safer workplaces bill of 2024. We recognise it establishes a new offence of industrial manslaughter in the Work Health and Safety Act 2012, a new division in that act with the objects of the act to prevent workplace death, to deter people from breaching health and safety duties, and to reflect the severity of breaches of work health and safety duties – a duty of care that can lead to the death or serious injury of a worker.
I note that the bill applies to all persons to whom a work health and safety duty is owed. It includes negligence and recklessness, and this is what came up in the briefing this morning. Again, I was unpersuaded by the arguments that were put by WorkSafe Tasmania and the DPP in this instance on this bill. I note that the bill does not provide an exemption on the basis that the death or injury did not occur at work. It does not provide an exemption if a person did not have a reasonable excuse being there, and it does not selectively apply work health and safety duties.
Because a lot of the concerns that have been raised by the DPP and WorkSafe Tasmania and government have come through so late, I have not had an opportunity to hear back, for example, from Ben Bartl from CLCs Tasmania to respond to the email we received from the DPP at 3.05 p.m. today. That, again, is regrettable. However, if we just step back for a minute from the issues that have been raised in the briefing at the last moment, what is the worst thing that can happen from an administrative point of view if we pass this bill unamended? Well, there may need to be some work done by the Director of Public Prosecutions and WorkSafe Tasmania to fully interpret and give effect to the will of the parliament. What is the worst thing that can happen if we do not pass this bill and Tasmania remains the only jurisdiction in the country without a specific offence of industrial manslaughter? Well, we know what that is, because we have families sitting here in the Chamber today who have experienced the trauma and the grief of sending someone you love off to work and them not coming home. So, the discomfort of WorkSafe Tasmania and the DPP, I think, is manageable. The DPP certainly is well experienced in dealing with complex legal questions and issues.
The fact that under the Criminal Code Act 1924 there has never been a conviction against an employer for a failure of duty of care that led to the death or serious injury of a worker tells us a lot about how ineffective, pathetically ineffective, the current legal framework is. We have a whole nation, all jurisdictions, moving or have moved to institute industrial manslaughter provisions. We should not continually put up with being at the bottom of the table, the laggards, particularly when now we have, as the member for Rumney pointed out, the capacity to look across the country, see how these provisions have taken effect and have a look at model legislation that could apply here. I genuinely believe Labor has got this right. I struggle to say that sometimes. This bill absolutely comes from a place of necessity and evidence and avoidable grief.
Unions Tasmania, in its correspondence to members – and I want to acknowledge the presence in the Chamber today of Jessica Munday, champion for workers – has said many times that these laws are needed to deter those who cut corners on safety, to focus culture change, to prevent workplace fatalities, to give justice to families and to meet community expectations that a death at work is treated as seriously as deaths in other parts of our community.
Observing on the bill before us that these laws do not replace existing safety systems and laws. They enhance or complement them. They do not change duties or obligations that already exist for employers to provide a safe workplace. For the employer who has the right approach to safety and is meeting their legal obligations, these laws will not impact them. That is such an important point to make. Overwhelmingly, employers and workplaces fulfil their obligations, their current obligations under the Work, Health and Safety Act. Overwhelmingly, employers want their workplaces to be safe. Those who are doing the right thing will not be impacted by the changes we are making today.
Back to the correspondence, Unions Tasmania has never said these laws would fix all the safety issues we need to continually address in our workplaces, but they are an important layer that is missing in Tasmania now.
There was a similar sentiment from the Community and Public Sector Union which points out:
Tasmania has seen some of the most devastating workplace fatalities in Australia. The inclusion of the offence of industrial manslaughter in the Workplace Health and Safety Act of 2012 will not only honour the memory of workers who have tragically lost their lives but also reinforce our collective commitment to fostering a culture of safety and accountability in Tasmanian workplaces.
It is a collective commitment, but it is also a responsibility that we have.
With the greatest of respect to the DPP and WorkSafe Tasmania and indeed to other stakeholders such as the TCCI, Small Business Council, Automobile Chamber of Commerce, none of the concerns or queries that have been raised have been compelling enough to me to want to do anything other than be part of getting this bill through the House unamended and get it out there and make our workplaces safer.
