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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-05 Daily Xml
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WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY ACT

Adjourned debate on the motion of Mr Williams:

That the following codes of practice made under the Work Health and Safety Act 2012, entitled Construction Work Code of Practice; Preventing Falls in Housing Construction Code of Practice; and Safe Design of Structures Code of Practice, made on 20 December 2012 and laid on the table of this house on 19 February 2013, be disallowed.

(Continued from 1 May 2013.)

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (11:12): I rise to oppose this motion and signal that the government opposes the motion to disallow the construction work codes of practice, which were laid before this house on 19 February this year. These three codes were part of a package of 23 codes of practice that came into operation in South Australia on 1 January this year. The simple point to be made is that the codes of practice provide practical guidance in the industry. The absence of a code does not eliminate the obligation to comply with WHS laws, but importantly it would remove industry guidance on how to comply with the law.

Codes of practice are developed by industry stakeholders themselves and submitted to Safe Work Australia for consideration. The work health and safety codes of practice were endorsed by the SafeWork SA Advisory Council, which is a tripartite committee consisting of representatives from the unions, employer groups (including the Master Builders Association of South Australia), and the government.

Just a couple of points: South Australia did change the definition of 'high-risk construction work' from two to three metres, at the request of the Housing Industry Association. The Preventing Falls in Housing Construction Code of Practice does not add additional requirements on the construction industry but rather provides guidance on what control measures can be used to address the risk of falls in that industry, a risk that can carry the severest of consequences. The code also provides for workers having access to conveniently-located toilet facilities, which seems eminently reasonable to me.

In terms of the cost impact, we have debated this endlessly over the last few years during the development and passage of the work health and safety laws. Independent costings have repeatedly highlighted that the cost impact of the new regulations is marginal. In closing, any supporters of this disallowance motion condemn workers in the housing and construction industry to a lack of guidance to remain safe at work and deny employers guidance in complying with the law. For these reasons the government strongly opposes this motion.

Mr VENNING (Schubert) (11:14): I have been in this place a long time and there are some things that really make me cross, and this is one of them. These codes of practice are an absolute nonsense. These are codes of restriction, they are codes of huge increased costs, codes for the furtherance of a nanny state. How many people actually fall off a roof on construction sites? Yes, we do know of one or two. Do we then make every building site in this state put up a fence for those one or two? It is a danger, we know, on a building site. I cannot understand. What will happen?

You are adding so much cost to these buildings that you are asking for a change in the way we build buildings. Rather than have people on top of buildings, we are having people putting up stand-up concrete buildings. They are poured on the ground, they just stand them up—you do not have to get on top of them This now will add to the importation of homes from overseas, on the slab principle. You really are making it very difficult. You are putting a penalty in front of builders and adding costs to the homeowners. I think this extra impost is a huge overreaction.

Hiring of scaffolding is very expensive, I know, because I have done it. If you put up scaffolding that, too, has to comply, and you ought to see the compliance in relation to scaffolding. It is way over the top. So are the rules and regulations in relation to changing a light bulb that is more than three metres from the floor. I think we need a reality check. We can see what is happening to our country.

An honourable member: How much building have you done?

Mr VENNING: My basic skill is common sense, and this is not about common sense: this is all about bureaucracy and overreaction. I certainly congratulate the member for MacKillop for bringing this forward because I would say that 90 per cent of our constituents out there would say, 'Hear, hear!' and would back what the member for MacKillop is doing, and so do I.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:16): There are two issues at stake here, and they go to the heart of this current government in South Australia. We know that the housing industry, particularly the new housing construction industry, is on its knees. We are getting statements and policies issued by this government to try to help out the housing industry and boost housing construction in this state. I have brought forward this disallowance motion at the behest of the housing industry, because they know the impact.

On one hand we have the government saying, 'Oh, woe, alas, what a disaster we have in the housing construction sector!' and, on the other hand, imposing further restrictions and costs. The other, I think equally important, aspect of this measure is that when the workplace health and safety legislation went through the parliament late last year, there were a lot of negotiations held with a lot of the stakeholders, including the housing industry, and the housing industry believes it struck a deal with the government that house construction would be exempt, that the level at which scaffolding would be required (the height restriction) would be three metres not two metres, yet these codes impose the height restriction at two metres. That is why I have been asked to move this disallowance motion.

This government, as far as the housing industry and housing construction sector is concerned, just cannot be trusted. It made a deal with the housing sector and Independents in the other place to get this legislation through and, lo and behold, when the codes are tabled, the deal has gone out the window. I am trying, through this particular measure, to save this government from itself because it is incapable of doing it. I commend the motion to the house.

The house divided on the motion:

AYES (19)
Brock, G.G. Chapman, V.A. Evans, I.F.
Gardner, J.A.W. Goldsworthy, M.R. Griffiths, S.P.
McFetridge, D. Pederick, A.S. Pegler, D.W.
Pengilly, M. Pisoni, D.G. Redmond, I.M.
Sanderson, R. Such, R.B. Treloar, P.A.
van Holst Pellekaan, D.C. Venning, I.H. Whetstone, T.J.
Williams, M.R. (teller)
NOES (24)
Bedford, F.E. Bettison, Z.L. Bignell, L.W.K.
Caica, P. Close, S.E. Conlon, P.F.
Fox, C.C. Geraghty, R.K. (teller) Hill, J.D.
Kenyon, T.R. Key, S.W. Koutsantonis, A.
O'Brien, M.F. Odenwalder, L.K. Piccolo, A.
Portolesi, G. Rankine, J.M. Rau, J.R.
Sibbons, A.J. Snelling, J.J. Thompson, M.G.
Vlahos, L.A. Weatherill, J.W. Wright, M.J.
PAIRS (2)
Marshall, S.S. Breuer, L.R.

Majority of 5 for the noes.

Motion thus negatived.

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