Wind Farms

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:10): I seek leave to make a brief explanation prior to asking the Minister for Industrial Relations a question regarding energy production workplace safety.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Members would no doubt be aware that several news reports have noted that the newly completed and French-owned Golden Plains Wind Farm in Victoria is actually falling apart, with dozens of pieces of serrated turbine edges flying as far as 750 metres from the site onto neighbouring properties and roadways, and causing significant safety concerns. No injuries or damage to property have been recorded to date but the size, weight and sharpness of the serrated pieces collected, which have been stuck onto the turbine blades with glue apparently, are currently forming part of the WorkSafe Victoria investigation, which is ongoing. My questions to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector are:

1. How often are South Australian wind turbine farms audited for workplace safety?

2. Are previous audits publicly available?

3. Are such audits at the expense of the South Australian taxpayer or are they at the cost of the international companies raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and energy sales and putting their workers at risk?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:11): For a start, I think many South Australians are rightly proud of our leading role that we have played in renewable energy production and storage over many years in South Australia. In relation to workplace health and safety, there is a positive obligation on any one PCBU, a person conducting a business or undertaking, to provide a safe workplace. That is whether you were running the old coal-fired power station in Port Augusta or you're a PCBU running a wind farm operation, or any sort of other business undertaking anywhere.

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Cooking sausage rolls in a bakery, as the Hon. Ian Hunter says. There is that positive obligation to provide a safe workplace under our work health and safety rules. SafeWork SA is the regulator and has a dual function. It provides an education function for businesses but it also provides that inspectorate, that is the regulator that inspects, can issue improvement notices and can launch prosecutions if there is that breach of that duty to provide a safe workplace.

In relation to the education function, I know SafeWork do that across a whole range of industries, which I am sure touches upon in some ways the renewable energy area, providing guidance about how you provide safe workplaces. But, of course, it is the obligation on that person, the person with the business or undertaking, to make sure that they are providing the safe workplace. That is their obligation under our law, as is the law in every state and jurisdiction around Australia, to provide a safe workplace. In relation to breaches of that duty, there are a range of sanctions, as I say, from the issuing of improvement notices, and that is not just about the physical aspects of work but is about processes in your workplace as well.

We see thousands of these improvement notices issued by SafeWork every single year to the tens of thousands of businesses that we see in South Australia. But where there is a breach, and particularly where there is a worker who is injured, there are prosecutions that take place. I guess in answer to the question, it is the role of SafeWork SA in many respects to provide that guidance, to provide that education, but there is a positive duty on any PCBU, a person conducting a business or undertaking, to provide a safe workplace and when it is breached, it is right that a notice is issued to correct it, and in some cases a prosecution is launched.