COUNTRY VOLUNTEER ORGANISATIONS

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:52): I would like to talk for a few moments about the difficulty for small volunteer organisations in regional South Australia and also, no doubt, other places, brought about by the recent change in clarification to section 61 of the Occupational Health, Safety Welfare Act that requires that all corporate bodies, even if they are not-for-profit organisations, must appoint a trained responsible officer on their behalf. I can certainly see the merit in that, of course, with regard to larger organisations.

It is very important, and I am not trying to pretend anything other than occupational health and safety is very important, but the problem is the really unfair burden that this places on small regional organisations if they are an incorporated body, even if they are a not-for-profit organisation and fully run by volunteers like the local bowls club, the local footy club, the local netball club, youth clubs or any of these organisations that run all that sort of thing.

They have to nominate and train one person in their organisation who will be solely responsible for any problems that come up on behalf of that organisation; so number one for that style of organisation. I think that it is really unfair; it is way too much pressure for a volunteer. I am sure that it is the same in the city, but in the country most people are on lots of organisations and most people are relatively senior in age. A lot of them are retired and they have the time and they want to help and contribute, but they do not necessarily want to take on a binding legal liability.

Another difficulty is the cost. It is in the order of hundreds of dollars for the training to get the qualification. So, again, for a volunteer organisation that might just have a few hundred or a few thousand dollars in the bank, that is a significant amount of money for them to try and come up with.

The next issue, of course, is that some of the roles might turn over every few years. Right now the president, for example, could be a 65 or 70-year-old man or woman contributing of their own time to this organisation. They have to go and get trained in their own time. They or the organisation have to come up with the money to pay for that, and maybe next year they will not be the president or the person taking on that role any longer.

It is a huge problem for these organisations, and without these organisations in regional South Australia we will really suffer; particularly sporting clubs, but all sorts of other organisations, whether they happen to be car clubs or youth clubs or, as I said, the many sporting clubs that are around the place. Without them, regional South Australia would be in all sorts of dreadful situations, but this is a really unfair obligation or burden to put on those people.

In case anybody is curious, the Volunteers Protection Act 2001, which would normally exempt people from personal liability, in this case actually is overridden by the health and safety act. The provision does not extend the immunity from criminal liability that attaches to a person who breaches a responsible officer obligation, even if the responsible officer is a volunteer. That is an extraordinary amount of pressure to put on a volunteer in a small volunteer organisation purely working on behalf of the community.

Another really important thing to point out is that, if these clubs cannot actually find somebody, if these clubs actually cannot get one of their volunteer committee people, whoever it happens to be, to put up their hand, then every other leader or position holder within that body corporate essentially becomes the responsible officer and takes on that legal responsibility on behalf of the club.

While I am sure we would agree that all over South Australia the people in these situations and positions will do their very best and try very hard. This is not about trying to get out of the law or trying to have unsafe organisations. I think we would all agree that putting this sort of pressure on volunteers, who really are just putting up their hand for the good of their organisation and their local community, is unfair. We are not talking about the SANFL clubs or anything like that, but if their organisation is a body corporate—we might be talking about the local under 16s netball club or whatever it happens to be—that obligation is really unfair, and I ask that the government consider that.