Industrial Relations

The Hon. T.T. NGO (14:54): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector. Can the minister tell the council about the government's achievements in the industrial relations portfolio since the 2022 state election?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:55): I thank the honourable member for his very perceptive and insightful question. I would be most pleased to provide an answer in relation to what this government has done in the industrial relations portfolio in the three years since it was elected, and I note the honourable member's very strong interest in making sure workers are protected in South Australia.

In the three years—I think it is three years to the day today—since the election of the current Labor government, we have delivered significant reforms in the industrial relations area to improve the lives of South Australian workers and to ensure the safety of workers to try to make sure, as best we can, that workers who go to work every day come home in the same state in which they left. The first issue that the government had to address was something that was left completely unaddressed by the former Liberal government, and that is the issue of the Summerfield case that the former industrial relations minister, the Hon. Rob Lucas, had decided to kick down the road and decided not to do anything about whatsoever.

It left a $1 billion unfunded liability—that was the advice we got as soon as we got into government—that, unaddressed, would create an impost on businesses and SA collectively of something like $250 million every year. This was what the Liberal government had left. This was clearly their policy: a $1 billion unfunded liability for the WorkCover scheme and up to $250 million a year in extra fees for South Australian businesses. We will be making sure we remind South Australians of what the Liberal government's view was in terms of cost to businesses in the lead-up to the next election.

What we did was address that. We spent a lot of time negotiating with industry, with businesses, with industry groups and also with unions to come up to a compromise that now has the Return to Work scheme almost at a 100 per cent funding rate and that has not seen that quarter of a billion dollars a year impost on businesses, as was the Liberal policy that they obviously committed to at the last election by doing nothing about it whatsoever.

We have introduced legislation to permanently restore workers' representation on the board of ReturnToWorkSA to ensure voices of workers and employees are heard when important decisions are being made. We have amended legislation to repeal the flawed second edition of the Impairment Assessment Guidelines and ensure that the future guidelines are subject to disallowance by parliament.

Just this week, we tabled that new set of the Impairment Assessment Guidelines that had so infuriated many in the industry in the last term of government. We have undertaken one of the most significant public consultation processes in relation to this workers compensation scheme to develop that third edition of the Impairment Assessment Guidelines, focused not on ideology but on the needs of the medical practitioners and the workers in the scheme.

We have introduced significant reforms to strengthen employers' obligations to help injured workers get back to work following an injury, including by extending that obligation to host employers who have injured labour hire workers. We have made changes to make our compensation scheme fairer for victims of dust disease and terminal illnesses, removing barriers to them maintaining some compensation, which I talked about earlier this week in relation to suggestions that had been put forward by our colleague the Hon. Connie Bonaros.

We have undertaken the most significant reform to shop trading hours in a very long time. Sadly, over four years of paralysis under the formal Liberal government, we got nowhere. We remember very well, in the last term of the Liberal government, suggestions being made that the whole of this chamber, except for the Hon. Rob Lucas's Liberal team, voted against. Everyone was in furious opposition to what the Liberal government put forward. It took a Labor government to make these changes. We have made changes to the shop trading hours system in South Australia, bringing us in line with every other state by making Easter Sunday and the Christmas holiday, whenever it falls, public holidays. We remember well the former Liberal government not wanting Christmas Day to be a public holiday.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Absolute shame. The former Liberal government, the Hon. Rob Lucas' Liberal government—with sidekick the former member for Dunstan, former Premier Steven Marshall—had an ideological obsession with, and objection to, workers receiving what they should.

We have introduced higher aggravated penalties for people who assault frontline retail workers. We have supported a select committee of this council to look at the Return to Work system and the gig economy. We have conducted a review into the practices and processes of the South Australian Employment Tribunal and passed legislation to improve the operation of the tribunal and the quality of processes for litigants. We have amended the Fair Work Act to make gender equality an object. We have legislated 15 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for every public sector and local government worker in this state.

We have expanded the portable long service leave scheme to workers in our community services sector, delivering equality with the construction workers who have had this benefit for almost half a century. We have introduced regulations to ban uncontrolled dry cutting of engineered stone and supported a national agreement to ban the use and now the importation of stone. We have made new regulations on the management of psychosocial health and safety risks. We have fixed secrecy rules which kept injured workers and their families in the dark about investigations being undertaken by SafeWork SA. We have recognised the essential role of industry groups, trade unions and victims' advocates in supporting work health and safety by establishing the SafeWork SA Advisory Committee.

We have given the South Australian Employment Tribunal stronger powers to step in earlier and help resolve disputes about work health and safety problems before serious injuries or even workplace deaths occur. After seven attempts over nearly two decades—and I acknowledge our colleague the Hon. Tammy Franks' valiant attempts here in years gone by—we have passed legislation to make industrial manslaughter a standalone crime in this state and delivered justice for the victims of workplace deaths.

This is just a small sample of the work this government has undertaken in the industrial relations portfolio since coming to government three years ago today. It stands in very stark contrast to the four years that preceded it.