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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-18 Daily Xml
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SAFE WORK AUSTRALIA

The Hon. G.A. KANDELAARS (15:06): Can the Minister for Industrial Relations advise the chamber about South Australia's performance as identified in the annual Comparative Performance Monitoring Report recently released by Safe Work Australia?

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (15:07): I thank the honourable member for his very important question, and I recognise and acknowledge the many, many years that the Hon. Mr Kandelaars has spent looking after the health and safety of his members. On 5 October 2012, Safe Work Australia released the 14th edition of its annual Comparative Performance Monitoring (CPM) Report. This measures the incidence of work-related injury and disease across the country. The report assesses the work health and safety performance of the states and territories.

The CPM report outlines the process of each state and territory towards meeting the objectives of the National Occupational Health and Safety Strategy 2002-12. The strategy's nationally agreed target is for every state and territory to achieve a 40 per cent reduction in the rate of workplace serious injury claims by June 2012. This goal was also adopted into South Australia's Strategic Plan as target T21—Greater safety at work.

I am pleased to be able to inform the chamber that South Australia is the only jurisdiction to not only meet, but also exceed, its target against the national measure. Data from the CPM report indicates that South Australia's claims rate for injury and musculoskeletal disorder has fallen by 41 per cent since the national strategy's commencement in 2002.

In other words, since Labor won government in 2002, workplace injury rates have fallen by over 40 per cent. This improvement rate is also higher than the 36 per cent rate required by each state and territory in achieving the national target. Furthermore, the rate of serious injury claims in South Australia has fallen by 25 per cent from the 2006-07 financial year to the 2009-10 financial year—a significantly greater improvement that the national decline of 10 per cent in the same period.

The CPM report's encouraging figures show that South Australia continues to lead the nation in the reduction of work-related injuries. They demonstrate that South Australia's strategies in meeting the national target for greater safety at work are operating effectively. Importantly, the CPM report measures each state's regulatory safety performance against an agreed national occ health and safety strategy. I repeat that South Australia was the only jurisdiction to exceed the 36 per cent rate required to achieve the national target.

Following the release of the CPM report, Victoria's minister for WorkCover, the Hon. Gordon Rich-Phillips, made the absurd and misleading assertion that Victoria is the safest state in Australia in which to work. Comments like that emphasise the ignorance of the Baillieu government and the disdain for workplace safety of Liberals in general. If the Victorian Liberal government really cared about improved workplace safety it would do the responsible thing and progress the harmonised work health and safety legislation.

While the CPM report results are positive for South Australia, we must not be complacent. South Australia must always strive to do better. To do this it is vital that we move towards the nationally harmonised work health and safety regime, and I thank those crossbenchers who have sensibly and professionally looked at the proposed laws, with worker safety at the forefront of their minds rather than using the health and safety of workers for their own political gain. The new regime will now allow us effectively to build on the work already done in providing safer workplaces for the safety of all South Australians.

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