Category: Gillard

Political response to new OHS laws for Australia

The Australian government got what they wanted for the harmonization of OHS laws but some persistent political shenanigans.

Troy Buswell, Western Australia’s Treasurer, is making political mileage with some bluster as the only Australian State run by the Liberal Party.  Politically he could not be seen as following the lead of the Australian Labor Party but will “continue our dialogue with the council”.  He does not have much option particularly as the Federal Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard reminded him that he could risk his access to federal funding by risking a breach of the inter-governmental agreement.  Expect Buswell to concede having saved face.

Joe Tripodi, the New South Wales Finance Minister, has expressed his disappointment.  Tripodi knew what was coming as the compromise options had been flagged long ago.  But from the state that has the most overtly-influenced government, he perhaps had as much face to save as Buswell in WA.  The employers groups in New South must be jumping with joy this morning as one of the most contentious and divisive elements of NSW OHS legislation will go – the union’s right to prosecute.  The process for instigating an OHS prosecution is formalized in the new model OHS legislation and still allows unions to begin prosecutions but with less direct control.

Tim Holding, the Victorian Finance Minister, is having trouble containing his excitement.

“This is a resounding endorsement of Victoria’s OHS laws, which will provide the building blocks for the new national scheme”.

Does anyone wonder why Victorians are so disliked by the other States?  Is Holding’s over-confidence an indication that the Victorian OHS law was always going to be the dominant influence on the national law and perhaps the model OHS Law review was unnecessary for change and just a case of political processes?

In the euphoria, there are some words of caution.  There has always been concern that if any States flexed their muscles and opted-out seriously then true harmonization would not exist and Australia would go back to the fuzzy days of a National OHS Framework that everyone signs up to but does not act upon.  It is likely, with the tough Federal Government approach, that this won’t occur however a spokesperson for the Business Council of Australia is quoted as saying  (page 3 of the Australian Financial Review 19 May 2009, not available online):

“If any states decide to opt out of the process, then we won’t have a fully harmonised system of OHS and that’s bad for business.”

The government’s response to the model OHS Law review is available online or as a page in this blog.

SafetyAtWorkBlog will be updated regularly over the next few days as interesting and relevant opinions and comments become available.

Kevin Jones

Australia’s OHS harmonisation likely to fall

Media reports on 11 May 2009 do not provide optimism for the introduction of harmonised OHS laws in Australia.  The Australian reports that the ACTU is lobbying Federal ministers over the reports into the model OHS law that are scheduled to be discussed at the Workplace Relations Ministers’ Council on 18 May.

The unions believe that following the recommendations of the review panel will provide workers with lesser standard of safety protection than they currently have.

The government has been slow is responding to the recommendations of the review panel, an odd action given the tight reform timeline they set.  However, the government has shown that timelines are flexible even when the future of humanity is threatened by climate change.

The ACTU will be campaigning in the media this week against the weakening of OHS laws, particularly the extremist laws of New South Wales.  Whether this is an ambit claim or not will be found out next week but whatever it is it shows regrettable shortsightedness on the part of the ACTU.

The Australian Financial Review (page 5, 11 May 2009, article not available online) seems to take some glee in the fact that the safety laws are “shaky”.  The paper may be caught between watching the Government’s agenda failing again or advocating legislative change to reduce the operational costs of its readers.  The AFR reports that three States are digging in against the possible OHS law reforms.  New South Wales (largely seen as dominated by the trade unions), Queensland (new IR Minster Cameron Dick wants the State’s reverse onus of proof to be applied) and Western Australia have indicated a hesitance to accept.

The Federal Government needs a two-thirds majority for the national OHS legislation to occur and, with a week to go, SafetyAtWorkBlog expects the government to apply some horsetrading  for the new laws to pass. 

Having said that noone yet knows what the new laws are that will be proposed.  The Government has received the review panel reports but has yet to respond to the recommendations.

Any law reform focused on national harmonisation is unlikely to succeed unless there is unanimous support for the reforms.  The fear all along with the OHS laws is that agreement will be short-term until state governments decide that their industries or industrial relations situation have special needs and responds parochially and weakens the national strategy.

The challenge for the Federal Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, is to achieve unanimity AND lock in State support for several years so that harmony and stability can be achieved.  OHS law reform on this scale occurs rarely and all parties should be looking at the long term on this issue rather than their own state-based petty power struggles.  We have to wait till early next week to see which States have the mature politicians.

Kevin Jones

Safe Work Australia Awards 2008

Safe Work Australia is a fairly new configuration for  Australia’s OHS department but it’s awards have been going for some years.  On 28 April 2009 the awards were held in Canberra.  The timings don’t seem quite right but that is the scheduling of these sorts of things in Australia.

The award winners from the State events are nominated for national awards, usually, conducted six months later.  SafetytWorkBlog has written elsewhere  about the need to review this system.

The winners this evening were congratulated by the Workplace Relations Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Julie Gillard and were

The obvious peculiarity in the award winners is the absence of winners from Victoria, Western Australia and Queensland, states with large populations and/or large mining sectors.

The Dorsal Boutique Hotel gained considerable kudos in New South Wales’s awards in October 2008 with its bed elevator that reduces the need for housekeepers to bend when making the beds.  It is a good example of thinking further into the problem and asking why beds are designed the way they are and why can’t we change it.  It has a limited use but considerable appeal to the millions of hotels around the world.  More information can be found on the solution at the NSW WorkCover Awards site.

It is always more gratifying to see successful things rather than successful programs as the things are often transferable to many workplaces and are visual solutions to problems, sometimes problems we weren’t aware of.  Leadership and management awards are more a recognition that a company has taken safety seriously which has been a legislative requirement on business for decades.  There is little innovation to show in these areas.  More the award is for the fact that known techniques have been applied in difficult work situations or industry sectors or company configurations.

This is not to say the effort of the award winners is less valuable than tangible solutions but often these changes come from a changed management structure or a traumatic event or new focus from the board.  It is easier to understand the significance of these OHS “agents for change” when focusing on an individual achievement.  The award for Viki Coad is a great example of the difference one person can make.  It is these achievements that should be more widely applauded. 

Indeed readers could benefit greatly from looking at the State winners in this individual category for that is where inspiration can be found.

Kevin Jones

(Kevin was invited to attend the awards event by Safe Work Australia)

Happiness is a warm million

The Australian newspapers in late-February shared the “outrage” of politicians and then the community over training that was provided to public servants by the American “happiness guru” Professor Martin Seligman.

The cost to the taxpayer seems exorbitant but the psychologist was from the US and was training delegates for many days.  It is not unusual for US experts to charge over $US600 per hour plus travel and accomm0dation.

The Community & Public Sector Union‘s Assistant National Secretary Paul Gepp noted  in a media statement that news of the expensive conference, which paid an American psychologist’s team more than $440,000, came with news of more layoffs of  public servants, as 100 lost their jobs in the Crime Commission. 

“Public servants are working hard to keep essential services going, keep our communities safe and make the stimulus package work,” said Mr Gepp.  “Million-dollar, feel-good conferences don’t help get these jobs done. If the Government is looking to cut, we suggest it starts with junkets like this.” 

The OHS context of this furore comes from the reasons for the training and whether the same benefits could have been obtained at a reduced price.

Media reports say that in parliament on 26 February 2009

“[Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Julia] Gillard attacked Liberal frontbencher Andrew Southcott for attempting to “parody” Professor Seligman, who she described as a “noted educationalist”.
“He is the leader in the development of (a) resiliency program that has been shown to make a difference to mental health issues amongst young people, including issues like anorexia and depression.  That is actually serious and ought not to be cat-called about.”

SafetyAtWorkBlog has written previously about the workloads of the public sector under the Rudd government and how the government has chosen not to set reasonable production targets.  The Seligman seminars are an example of trying to treat the symptoms and not the cause.   Seligman’s programs are not the issue here as the results claimed may be absolutely justified.  

Part of the problem for the government is timing, and in this, it shares a lot with behavioural-based safety programs.  Whenever a company introduces a wellbeing program, or a happiness seminar, or resilience training, or a team-building extreme sports excursion, it indicates to me that either the company is one that has already tried the traditional approaches to controlling workplace hazards, hasn’t  the faintest ides what to do to improve the safety in their workplace , or has too much money in its human resources budget and needs to spend it by the end of the financial year.

Regrettably, the money spent on public service mental health has been poorly targeted and papers over the cracks whilst ignoring the structural instability of how it manages its people.

Kevin Jones

Comcare’s new role

The scuttlebutt in some Australian OHS circles is that Australia’s Comcare agency will be given a major upgrade through the National OHS Review recommendations that is nearing completion.

Although the Minister for Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, did not name the new agency that she intends to introduce through the Coalition of Australian Governments process, SafetyAtWorkBlog believes that Comcare will be upgraded to a fully functional national OHS authority.

Coincidentally, Comcare has begun promoting a series of national seminars for the month of March 2009.  According to the promotional blurb:

“During the seminar, participants will engage in workshops and listen to presentations from speakers from across the Comcare scheme as well as Comcare’s OHS Compliance Assistance and Prevention & Injury Management Services teams.”

If Comcare’s new status is announced prior to the seminars, I would suggest the seminars will be sold-out quickly.

Kevin Jones

Gillard’s plans for new OHS agency – response

 It was predictable for the Opposition party to accuse Julia Gillard of arrogance for bypassing the Parliamentary process.   Senator Eric Abetz wrote to the letters page of AFR on 21 January 2009, the text of the letter is below (although there were slight changes in the published version)

“It is highly arrogant and misleading for Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard to blame the so-called “intransigent” Senate and the Opposition for the delay in implementing harmonised OH&S laws (‘Gillard defies Senate on work safety”, 20th January 2009).

As the Shadow Minister who dealt with the issue in the Senate, I know that the facts of the matter are that what you might regard as an unlikely alliance of the Coalition, Family First, the Greens, Senator Xenophon, the ACCI and the ACTU (yes, even the ACTU) all agreed that the amendments proposed and passed by the Senate were necessary.

Unfortunately, our offer to meet with Ms Gillard to negotiate a way forward on this matter was rejected by a Minister who apparently thinks “it’s my way or the highway”. It is indicative of the disregard that the Rudd Government shows for the Parliament and the Senate is that it is now seeking to circumvent it on this important matter.”

The risk from the Gillard strategy is that once the process is completed the regulatory agency will forever be accused of being illegitimate, or a political ideological construct, having not undergone due process through Parliament. The Labor government needs to look beyond political expediency to construct a national OHS regulatory body of which noone can object.

Comment continues to be sought from the labour movement and opposition political parties.

Kevin Jones

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