Moroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Health and Safety Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6095. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): I rise to take a call on Part 4 of the Health and Safety Reform Bill. I do hope that we are going to be able to have some comprehensive debate on this part of the bill because it is a part of the bill that because of decisions made in earlier parts 25 percent of our workforce will be reliant on because they will not have access when they request it to a health and safety rep who could actually be taking preventative actions in their workplace. Those are the workplaces that have fewer than 20 employees and that are deemed to be low risk—places like dairy farms and beef farms—and where people are blowing up buildings and demolishing them. These are apparently the sorts of workplaces that are now going to have to rely on Part 4 of the bill because that is the part that actually outlines what the prosecutions are what the offences are. This is now the domain in Part 4 of labour inspectors. That is effectively what Part 4 talks about. This part contains all the things that labour inspectors can do. We have gone past the parts of the bill that are more preventative and that I would say are actually more proactive ways of managing health and safety where health and safety reps could actually make a difference in their workplaces.I want to focus on clause 123 “Power to issue improvement notices”. I guess that I want to extrapolate this out to include the prohibition notices and the non-disturbance notices that labour inspectors can also issue. I want to ask the question of the Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety—particularly in terms of the power to issue improvement notices noting that this is a power that only labour inspectorswould have—as to how that would differ from the power that we have given health and safety reps under Part 3 to issue provisional improvement notices and what the difference would be between those two things. I will have a go at explaining what my version is and if I am wrong then I would appreciate it if the Minister could rise to his feet and correct me.My understanding is that under clause 92 in Part 3 which we have already passed elected health and safety representatives can if they have been trained issue provisional improvement notices. Those provisional improvement notices can require if the legislation has been contravened by the person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU)—or as some people would prefer to call them the “BOSS”—the trained health and safety rep can issue a provisional improvement notice and require the PCBU to remedy whatever part of the legislation it is that they are contravening. They can issue one of these provisional improvement notices to prevent a likely contravention from taking place and they can issue a provisional improvement notice to remedy the things or activities that would be causing the contravention.The reason why I raise that is that surely it is going to be a better thing to happen in these workplaces—that a preventive measure happens—than clause 123 in Part 4 where things have got so bad that they have come to the attention of the Labour Group. I really want to—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I know that the member is attempting to tie this to Part 4 but extensive discussions about why Part 3 methods are better than Part 4 and relitigating the decisions that have already been taken in Part 3 are out of order when we are in discussion about Part 4.SUE MORONEY: Thank you for your guidance Mr Chair. I am of course talking about the power of labour inspectorsunder clause 123 in Part 4 to issue improvement notices. My question is really this—I am going to cut to the chase here—who is actually going to alert the labour inspector? Who is going to alert the labour inspector—these I do not know; I think we have about 50 of them throughout the country Minister? Something like that?Hon Michael Woodhouse: They are called health and safety inspectors.SUE MORONEY: Health and safety inspectors.Hon Michael Woodhouse: There are about 350 of them.SUE MORONEY: There are about 350 of them. How are they going to be on all of these dairy farms all of these beef farms all of these places where health and safety representatives do not exist because they are not allowed to exist even if the workers ask for them? How are the health and safety inspectors employed by the Government going to learn of the things that are going wrong in order to get to them in time and prevent them—