OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELFARE (PENALTIES) AMENDMENT BILL

Final Stages

Consideration in committee of the Legislative Council's amendment.

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: I move:

That the Legislative Council's amendment be agreed to.

The amendment is in regard to the government's clause about reckless endangerment.

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Koutsantonis): Order! Can the gentleman in the gallery who is having a conversation with someone in the chamber please remove himself?

The Hon. M.J. WRIGHT: The substantial change that has been moved by the Legislative Council in regard to this clause is the words:

creates a substantial risk of death or serious harm to another who is in a workplace.

We can certainly work with those words, so I think that this piece of legislation, which obviously has a number of elements to it, will be a good piece of legislation. To remind the committee, I point out that it does three things, in the main: it trebles penalties for corporations; it applies imputation; and it also has that reckless endangerment clause, which is the clause that has been amended by the Legislative Council. The government is pleased to support that amendment.

Mr WILLIAMS: I can inform the committee that the opposition is very pleased that the government has seen sense on this matter. Interestingly, I recall (and it is some time ago now that we debated this bill in this chamber) that I raised serious concern over the wording in the government's original proposition in new section 59. I think all parties accepted that the old aggravated offence in section 59 was, indeed, not working. My information, and I think the minister said the same thing at that time, is that, in the 20-plus years of the operation of this act, there has never been a successful case under section 59.

No doubt, as a result of the advice I have taken from a number of interested parties, there have been situations where persons should have been prosecuted successfully under section 59. There was bipartisan support for changing the evidentiary provisions. I remember arguing and debating at the time that the opposition believed we were introducing untried phraseology into the wording of this bill. It was argued at the time that it was phraseology which would take up a lot of the tribunal's and court's time in order to come to a decision on a new interpretation of what the phraseology meant.

At the time the government chose not to accept an amendment which I proposed and which was lifted virtually straight out of the Victorian legislation. I argued at the time that it had been operating successfully in that state. The amendment that the opposition successfully moved in the other place is a slight variation of that amendment.

The Hon. M.J. Wright interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: The minister says that it improves upon the original. Both suggestions were given to us by two different interested parties. We could not get over the line with one of them so we tried the other one. It is our belief that both of them would achieve the same effect. I am delighted that the minister has seen fit to accept the fine amendment that was moved by my colleague the Hon. Caroline Schaefer and carried in the other place.

Motion carried.

At 16:46 the house adjourned until Thursday 22 November 2007 at 10:30.