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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-05-17 Daily Xml
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International Workers' Memorial Day

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:51): On 28 April, I attended, along with other honourable members of this place and also the other place, both on behalf of Premier Jay Weatherill and as a deeply interested party myself, the International Workers' Memorial service at Pilgrim Uniting Church. This service is held each year to mark International Workers' Memorial Day. It was my first attendance at this particular event but it is far from my first brush with the sombre and sorrowful matter of industrial deaths.

As a grandson of Broken Hill miners, I grew up schooled in the notion of how fortunate I was to feel secure in the knowledge that my parents would likely come home safe from work at the end of each day. It was made clear from my youngest years that this is not a privilege that my parents enjoyed during their childhoods, nor did their peers. I was raised to understand that coming home safely from work was a fundamental right for working people, but the fact is, while it should be a fundamental right for all working South Australians, it has been tragically proven time and time again that even today, in 2017, it is far from true that all workers are afforded that right.

I am encouraged that over the last decade and a half we have improved in terms of the number of prosecutions taken against employers who have caused an industrial death or maiming at work. I am also encouraged that, over this time frame, we have increased the number of workplace safety inspectors by around 50 per cent. However, it is at events such as those at the Workers' Memorial and in decisions of the courts that we are reminded that it is not the case that all workers can count on returning home to their families.

While there are many examples I could cite here, I am aware that a worker was killed, on 16 July 2010, and another was nearly killed, during the construction of the desalination plant. In this matter, shortly before the limitation period expired, SafeWork SA commenced a prosecution. The company they chose to prosecute was insolvent. The director they chose to prosecute had insurance that paid for the fine the court imposed. The court magistrate in the prosecution judgement commented on the inappropriateness of the insurance, which meant that the penalty was, of course, no imposition on the director.

I concur with the magistrate in his comments. Such insurance is surely an admission of failure in an area where we should not accept defeat. I believe we should look to outlaw such insurance or, at the very least, vastly increase the scale of the penalty where there is such insurance. A more recent example is in the decision of this year against a major fast food chain vendor where a 16 year-old casual employee suffered second and third degree burns when he stepped backwards and fell almost completely into a container of hot oil.

This oil was measured to be some 108° Celsius over two hours after the incident occurred. It was placed on the floor behind him without warning, as there was no proper process in place for the oil to cool elsewhere. It is worth noting the comments from the magistrate in this particular matter. He stated that:

…the business model relies on child workers to use commercial volumes of dangerously hot oil, and in this case relied on another legal child to train another new employee with insufficient safety guidance. Such young workers are necessarily inexperienced, despite their intelligence and good work ethics, and so need greater protection than adults.

I find myself concurring once again. I am encouraged by the commitments of our Premier that there will be a coronial inquest into the recent death at the RAH site and a review into the failure of all the prosecutions of those workers who have died in recent years in SA workplaces. I am also encouraged that our Premier has stated that there will be a review of workplace laws.

In my own experience as an officer of a union, I have been involved in the aftermath of workplace incidents that make my skin crawl. I have been involved in matters where employers have breached awards or agreements. Under commonwealth legislation, workers and unions can sue employers for breaches of enterprise agreements, awards, the NES and other aspects of the legislation, and if the court finds that the employer has breached the relevant obligation, the employer is fined. These are referred to as civil penalty proceedings.

Civil penalty proceedings have been a feature of industrial legislation for many years, including during WorkChoices and, more generally, under the Howard, Abbott and Turnbull governments. If it is good enough under the Howard, Abbott and Turnbull governments for workers or their unions to be able to sue employers for breaching industrial instruments, then it is my view that allowing the families of workers who have died, or their unions, to sue negligent employers for industrial deaths should be good enough, too.

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