Bills

Rail Safety National Law (South Australia) (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (15:46): There have been instances of rail safety workers fraudulently altering certificates of competence and providing them to rail transport operators. To discourage this behaviour, this bill introduces a new offence that ultimately allows for the prosecution of a rail safety worker who provides a document or information, in relation to an assessment of the worker's competency, that the worker knows is false or misleading in a material particular, or omits any matter or thing without which the document or information is misleading. If a rail safety worker is found guilty of this offence, they will face a maximum penalty of $10,000.

Examples of documents that have been submitted incorrectly include a rail safety worker from a labour-hire company who had his brother's certificate of competence altered and uploaded as evidence of competence on his profile. In another case, multiple altered certificates of competence were uploaded into several workers' profiles.

The maximum penalty for a rail safety worker who is found guilty of the new offence, under section 117, of providing false or misleading documents or information for the purposes of an assessment of the worker's competency is $10,000. This is the maximum penalty that applies to individuals for several other offences against the national law.

However, I do believe that, in most cases, the rail transport operator has observed irregularities prior to the worker commencing work on the rail system, and I thank our rail transport operators for their eternal vigilance to ensure that everyone working on our railways is appropriately qualified for the scope of work they are undertaking.

The bill also amends the national law to provide the National Rail Safety Regulator with a new power to exempt all rail transport operators from section 114 of the national law in the event of an emergency. Section 114 of the national law requires a rail transport operator to prepare and implement a health and fitness program for rail safety workers who carry out rail safety work for the operator.

The current exemption was used in April 2020, where the responsible minister in each state and territory granted rail operators in their jurisdiction an exemption that only applied to the requirement for operators to arrange for periodic health assessments for certain categories of rail safety workers.

As it currently stands, the National Rail Safety Regulator's power to grant an exemption is limited to the granting of an exemption to an individual rail transport operator who makes an application for its exemption. This meant that the regulator was unable to grant an exemption to all rail transport operators at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The amendments will give the National Rail Safety Regulator the power to exempt all rail transport operators, or a class of rail transport operators, from section 114 of the national law in the event of an emergency.

I understand this bill was developed in consultation with the National Transport Commission, all states and territories, the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator and members of the rail industry, including the Australasian Railway Association and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union. I thank all these stakeholders for their work in developing these sensible changes.

Before I close, I will take this opportunity to thank the Rail, Tram and Bus Union for their work to ensure that transport workers, including bus, tram and train drivers, guards and other staff in our public transport system in South Australia are safe. I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.