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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-09-28 Daily Xml
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Industrial Relations

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (14:41): This is my final question. It could not have been better if I wrote it myself.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS: Of course, I did; sorry. My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector. Will the minister inform the council about the government's achievements in the industrial relations portfolio?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:42): I thank the honourable member for her question and her complete outburst of truth and reality. It is entirely appropriate that the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos' final question in this council is on the subject of industrial relations. Her contribution to this policy area cannot be overstated, and it has laid the groundwork for many of the reforms now being implemented by this government.

The honourable member has been a stalwart champion of the rights of working people, and particularly working women, her whole life. The honourable member has distinguished herself as the first ever migrant workers' rights officer at the then Federated Miscellaneous Workers' Union, now the United Workers Union, helping workers from non-English-speaking backgrounds understand their workplace rights. She took that experience to the Trade Union Training Authority, helping empower trade union officials and workplace representatives.

She then had a significant career as an industrial lawyer, firstly as a review officer at the Workers Compensation Tribunal and then as a workers compensation practitioner for over a decade, helping injured workers navigate the complex workers compensation system. Those experiences at the coalface of industrial relations, combined with the honourable member's natural tenacity and force of personality, have armed her well to make a significant contribution in this place. The honourable member has rightly been called a leading voice for social justice and a conscience of this party on the issue of workers' rights.

The honourable member has served on a wide range of parliamentary committees in this place, investigating industrial relations issues. Those include committees on wage theft, the repeal of sex work offences, harassment in the parliament workplace, the privatisation of public services, ReturnToWorkSA and the gig economy, to name just a few. The honourable member's work on these committees has often shone an important light on issues affecting working people in South Australia and has served as a foundation for very significant policy reform.

Many of the industrial relations policies enacted by this government in its first 18 months reflect the tireless advocacy of the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos over many decades. In that time, we have repealed the unfair impairment assessment guidelines made by the former Treasurer and ensured that rules for assessing injured workers' compensation will always be subject to the scrutiny of this parliament. We have introduced legislation to restore workers' representation on the board of ReturnToWorkSA. We have supported the creation of parliamentary committees into work systems such as the aforementioned gig economy.

We have introduced 15 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for every public sector and local government worker in this state. We have made gender equality an object of the Fair Work Act. We are consulting on legislation to make it easier for injured workers to return to work and make the workers compensation system fairer for victims of dust diseases and terminal illnesses. We have banned the uncontrolled dry cutting of engineered tabletop stone and committed that if there is no decisive action taken nationally to deal with the issue, we reserve the right to go it alone with these dangerous materials in SA.

We have introduced new regulations on the management of psychosocial health and safety risks. We have made significant commitments to reform our work health and safety system, including fixing secrecy rules which keep injured workers and their families without as much information as they should have in investigations, and last sitting week, I think for the very first time in the couple of decades it has been an issue, this council passed a bill to deliver justice to the victims of workplace death and make industrial manslaughter a crime in this state.

It is just a very small sample of the work this government has undertaken in the industrial relations area, and on almost every one of these issues the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos has been a leading advocate within our party and within the community. Quite frankly, the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos has made this a better Labor government. It is for that reason I can say that the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos leaves a significant legacy, one that precedes her time in this chamber and will certainly follow it.

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