Thursday, 24 February 2022

Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms HORNE:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Ms HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (15:27): I am rising to make a contribution to the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021. This bill makes a number of changes to a number of acts, including six separate elements related to the workplace safety portfolio, and is another step that this government is taking in Victoria’s nation-leading silica action plan.

The bill aims to improve compensation arrangements for workers with certain work-related progressive injuries or illnesses, including extending the presumptive right to compensation for firefighters with certain types of cancer to those maintenance workers that maintain vehicles on the fireground and are engaged by Fire Rescue Victoria. It will also improve compensation entitlements for family members of workers who have died at work.

At the start I guess I should acknowledge that Labor governments have a proud history in the space of workplace health and safety—in spite of repeated opposition from the other side and scaremongering and pushing back from the Liberal Party. This has not stopped the progress for change that Labor governments have continued in order to make sure that workplaces are safe and healthy environments for working people. Of course we have not finished the job yet; there is still a lot to do, but the legislation we are talking about today continues that upward movement to make places more safe and more healthy. I am proud to be the Parliamentary Secretary for Workplace Safety and to be working with the Minister for Workplace Safety, Ingrid Stitt, and this work continues.

Now, the Cain Labor government—just to give a little bit of history—passed the most progressive and rights-based health and safety laws in Australia, and in fact probably the world, in the 1980s. While the Liberal coalition fought it all the way at the time, when it happened the sky did not fall in, when it was passed by Parliament. But when the opportunity has arisen the opposition have always, when in government, tried to water down the health and safety legislation for workers, whether it was the changes that the Kennett government made during the 1990s or looking at the moves that were afoot under the Baillieu government—but fortunately they were not here long enough to make any of those changes that they perhaps would have liked to have made.

So we continue to build back better health and safety legislation to make sure not only that working people have the strongest protections, they also have rights to take action to ensure workplaces are safe, that the work environment is healthy and that families are given the respect and best possible compensation in cases of fatality and serious injury. Again, I restate that the system is not perfect and the legislation is not always there, but we are continuing on, and the bill that we are talking about today continues to build a better system for working people.

Before going into the details of this bill I would like to acknowledge and say thank you to some of those that have assisted in shaping this bill: first, members of the WICC, the Workplace Incidents Consultative Committee. The WICC is a consultative committee of people with lived experience of workplace fatality or serious injury. It was enshrined in law and is tasked with providing recommendations and advice to the minister. As parliamentary secretary I have the honour of co-chairing this committee alongside Lana Cormie. The WICC has made an exceptional contribution to the shaping of this bill regarding better support for families that have lost loved ones at work, an example of the value that our government places on the ideas, the suggestions and the contributions of those with lived experience. This is a courageous group of people that do this work in the hope that they can make things better, that they can prevent future tragic incidents and devastation to families, because of their experience and their direct knowledge. So in terms of the bill that we are talking about today, the improvements in family supports via these amendments will include improved compensation entitlements for families of deceased workers from as early as 1 July. This is not the end of the work of the WICC, this is only the beginning, but this is an example of some of the contributions they have made to make sure that their voices are heard, that the voices of those families that have lost loved ones are heard and that those with serious injuries are heard.

The changes extend current pensions for children with a disability from the age of 16 to the age of 25 to ensure dependent persons with a disability are eligible for provisional payments following a work-related death, and continued household help services can be received by an eligible person for six months after the tragic loss of life. This will be partially retrospective and allow for eligible dependents who are between the ages of 16 and 25 years at commencement to receive back payments for the period that they would have been entitled to them. The family support benefit changes also allow for the payment of overseas funeral costs following a work-related death, which can cost families tens of thousands of dollars. This is in recognition that many Victorian workers who are not born in Australia may need to be repatriated overseas following their death. This is again an example of the compassion shown in this legislation that really would not have come about except for the contribution made by WICC members. So they are some of the changes to the family support model, and I understand that there are further things that may not be through legislation but through other areas where there will be continued improvements in support for families.

I would also now like, because I am running out of time, I know—there is just so much that I have got to say about this legislation—to get onto one of the other aspects of the legislation. I thank the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union for raising the anomaly regarding the fire truck maintenance workers who attend and maintain trucks on the fireground but were not included in the original legislation regarding presumptive rights for firefighters in both metropolitan and country brigades. Again, these are examples of the government listening to people in order to make sure that we have a system that is fair and equitable and protects workers that, in going to work, come into all sorts of contact with dangerous things that can create bad health outcomes for them into the future.

The firefighters’ presumptive rights will be extended under this legislation to maintenance workers. This continues the evidence-based assertion that if you have contact with certain chemicals and if you get particular types of illnesses, then there is a direct connection between that contact and those illnesses. In this case there is well-known evidence of the types of chemicals that firefighters and maintenance workers on the firegrounds would have had contact with. There are also of course from the Fiskville inquiry that I was involved with the concerns about PFOS and PFOA, and maintenance drivers have a lot of contact, particularly in the past, with washing out trucks and having very direct and long exposures to these sorts of chemicals. In July the Labor government made the firefighters’ presumptive rights happen, and I think we are all very aware of that really important and significant piece of legislation. In this bill we are going to ensure that it includes firefighters that are in the maintenance areas and maintaining the vehicles that are on the firegrounds. Therefore no worker working in these areas will be disadvantaged regardless of the fire agency that they are in. We also in the preceding weeks—I am not sure if it was this year or last year—looked at extending rights to firefighters that work, for example, in forests and in national parks.

Another really large and significant area is silica. It was the Labor government that introduced into the industrial diseases schedule illness and death as a result of silica disease from the dry cutting of stone. I am running out of time, but again it was shown that there were some difficulties being posed to workers in their attempts to rightfully apply for compensation for these terrible illnesses. This legislation makes that a little easier and takes out some of the roadblocks to ensure that workers claiming compensation for silica-related disease are able to get it quicker without having to go through some hoops that really ought not be there, particularly when you are so ill and it is a very well-known fact that there is a connection between work and illness. I recommend this bill.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (15:37): I commend the member for her contribution and for her role as chair of the committee we were both on and the work that we did in regard to Fiskville and what we learned about PFAS and PFOA. Her advocacy for the safety of workers in our state has been nothing short of tremendous.

I also support the amendments in this bill. We know, as previous speakers have said, this is the government that is always there to support workers. We are always here to support families, and workplace safety is an issue that is incredibly important to us as the party of the working class, as the party of workers. We know that workplace injury is a serious issue. We know that it happens across many industries, and we are the only party that will do anything about it. We are here for workers, and this includes introducing wage theft laws and workplace manslaughter reforms.

I know that people in this house have heard me talk about my grandmother’s first husband before, and with your indulgence, Acting Speaker, I will speak a little bit more about him again. I cannot imagine what it was like for my nan to have someone come to her home, knock on her door and let her know that her husband, who was only 25 years old, had died in a workplace accident. She had a small child, and I cannot imagine how difficult it would have been in working-class East Brunswick to raise a child in the 1930s on your own. My nan was one of 12 children, as many families were at that time. She was the eldest daughter. She was the one who had to leave school at 12 to look after her siblings, which was a common story in working-class households. My nan had to go out and be a cleaner and manage the care for my uncle. The devastation, the shock of that death, she never got over. Nan, in becoming a cleaner, was lucky in that she met my paternal grandfather at the Argus newspaper and got married, had three more children and thankfully had my dad. But Nan never got over it. Nan never forgot that trauma. It never left her, knowing that her husband—she was 22, he was 25—had informed his workplace that the machinery they were using was not safe, had told other people to keep away from it, yet it was that machinery and the log that came from it that crushed him and killed him.

The fact that we know that workplace accidents still happen to this day in this state and elsewhere because of employers not taking the warnings of their employees seriously or not recognising the serious threats to their health and safety is a challenge, and this is a role for government to step into. This is why we have governments that do not just let the private sector rule themselves. This is why we have processes that actually ensure that employers do the right thing, because we know that corners can be cut. We know that profit can be the overarching goal that people are reaching for rather than what is in the best interests of their employees, what is in the best interests of those around them. So we do need government to step in, we do need government intervention. It is foolhardy to say that we do not or to believe that we do not or to believe that the market will always provide, because we know through lived experience, through regrettable lived experience, that the employers do not always provide. That is not to say that there are not good employers out there, because we know that there are. We know that there are employers who do right by their employees and who do right by the workplace. But you still need government, you still need authority and you still need leadership to show how workplaces can be kept safe and to make sure that they are kept safe—and if they are not, that there are serious penalties put in place.

In 2019 we introduced our comprehensive silica action plan in an effort to combat this debilitating illness. This is a workplace injury. This is just like asbestosis—damaging, life-threatening. Silicosis in your lungs kills people. The challenge that many people have got is that when they get silicosis they do not know when it will actually kill them; they just know they will die sooner than they would have. I am glad that we as a government have been at the forefront in responding to this, that we have not been like governments previously, including our federal Liberal governments and our former foreign minister Julie Bishop. We have not pretended that asbestosis or silicosis is not a problem, that it is not something that needs to be addressed. We know it needs to be addressed, and we know we need to do something about it.

Along with an unprecedented compliance and enforcement blitz that focused on stonemasonry workshops to prevent this deadly lung disease, we also introduced a statewide ban on the uncontrolled dry cutting of materials containing crystalline silica dust; a stringent new compliance code for businesses using these materials; an awareness campaign to highlight the risks of working with engineered stone, which has extremely high concentrations of silicosis-causing silica; and free health screening for Victoria’s 14 000 stonemasons. This was good policy in 2019, and it is good policy that we are debating now.

We know this surge in demand that we have seen for stone benchtops in Australian homes. I live in Eltham so of course my bench is wood, but we know that many people across our state have loved these stone benchtops, and they can be beautiful. It is terrific that jobs have been created and that we have had a very strong industry, but the unintended consequence of this, where people have not understood or have ignored the dangers that can come with this incredibly fine silica dust, has meant that we have really seen silica numbers rise. We know, as we saw with asbestosis, that people working in this industry, even though we have now put those protections in place, will see ongoing cases of silicosis because it can take time for it to be detected. What is interesting also is that there are industries that are not directly related to stonemasonry, like tunnelling, like quarrying, like manufacturing, where people have also developed silicosis and other forms of silica disease. So we need to put things in place to look after people. We need to put things in place to ensure that people’s health needs are recognised and protected. As other members have said, since the beginning of last year four workers have died from silica-related illness and WorkSafe has accepted around 60 claims for silica-related diseases.

Now, many people who develop silicosis are not old. They should have a long life ahead of them, but they do not know what is ahead of them. Some people in this place might have read of Joanna McNeill, a 34-year-old Australian mother with two children who has been diagnosed with silicosis not because she was a stonemason, not because she was tunnelling but because she worked in an office at a quarry. That is how pervasive this silica dust can be, and I cannot imagine what it is like to walk in her footsteps knowing that she has a time bomb in her chest that could terminate her life at any point. And for someone with young children it must be devastating. The mental and emotional health challenges she must face every day in not knowing how much time she has got left—and I know we all live, you know, not knowing when any of us could, to be colloquial, pop off, but she knows that there is something there that is going to make that happen and that she cannot do anything about it. It is not about putting her seatbelt on. It is not about getting double or triple vaccinated. There are not any preventative measures she can take to stop this disease from occurring in her body, from killing her. Last year she said:

At the moment I am feeling healthy, but I don’t know if that will be the case in one year, let alone five or 10 years and as a mum of two young daughters that terrifies me.

And I can imagine how terrified she would be. We know that these people are at risk of psychological conditions such as depression and anxiety, and it is completely understandable that they would be. When you hear what Joanna McNeill is saying you absolutely empathise and you absolutely understand how emotionally devastating this would be.

These amendments will allow workers with silica-related diseases to make a further common law application for damages if they develop a subsequent silica-related disease. They will also extend compensation for counselling services for family of workers diagnosed with an eligible disease. This is incredibly important, and I support the legislation.

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (15:47): It is with great pleasure that I rise in this place and speak in support of the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021. Can I start my contribution by acknowledging the work of the minister, her team and of course all of the public servants who have helped to craft and put together these significant reforms. There are a number of reforms in this bill of course. It amends a number of acts of this Parliament and really continues a longstanding Labor tradition of protecting workers, making our workplaces safer and making them fairer, not just today and not just tomorrow but for years to come. I think it really speaks to this government’s record of continually looking to find ways to reform and to bring workplaces into the 21st century in places where perhaps that is not so and ways we can further improve to make sure that our workplaces are as safe as they can be. Of course this bill helps to address some issues for those who are now living with awful circumstances in their life and provides them with further recourse and support in dealing with those issues as well.

I just want to acknowledge the member for Eltham, who spoke just then in support of this bill. It was wonderful to hear not just from the member for Eltham but from members in this place and of course particularly from members of the Andrews Labor government about their passion for supporting workers in making our workplaces safer places to be. Growing up in Dandenong with the Labor Party mentality and its tradition of being a party of the workers, the party of fairness and the party of equality, is really what drove me at my young age—and particularly a number of the issues while growing up that were important to me and my family—to becoming a Labor supporter and of course a member of the Victorian Labor Party. I am now very proud and honoured to be here and to be able to talk about legislation that improves the rights of workers is a great honour.

This government has proudly reformed, as we promised to do. We criminalised wage theft to the chagrin of many employers out there—I say ‘many’ but it is a select minority—and that is already making a difference. That is a deterrent more than anything else I would hope—you know, if you break the law now, there are absolute, real penalties there that you will face, make no mistake about it. And even more importantly, I believe, workplace manslaughter is now in the law of the land, and that is critically important. I must say, hearing from some, their concerns—as they put it—with the legislation just made absolutely no sense to me. If you look after your workforce, if you provide a safe workplace, then you should not be concerned at all. And of course everyone deserves to come home safely from work regardless of their profession or their workplace.

This bill makes amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004, the Dangerous Goods Act 1985, the Equipment (Public Safety) Act 1994, the Accident Compensation Act 1985 and of course the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013, so it is a very wideranging piece of legislation that seeks to make a number of critically important reforms. These amendments are designed to improve outcomes for injured workers and their families, enhance scheme operations and increase WorkSafe’s ability to prevent and respond to workplace safety incidents. It also amends the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 in relation to the conduct of hearings by the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal to prohibit alleged offenders from being notified of or attending hearings in matters of family violence or sexual offences. It makes a range of amendments that pertain to our reforms around presumptive rights compensation, and it also amends the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 to strengthen the integrity of the Victorian Legal Services Board, ensuring lawyer members of the VLSB are not the subject of actual or potential disciplinary action at the time of their appointment and can be removed if they are subject to disciplinary action during their term of office.

I feel like I need a glass of water after going through that list of all of the things that this bill will do and reform to make our workplaces safer. We know there is no time to waste, and we know how important it is to support injured Victorian workers and their families, including through our provisional payments reforms, particularly the provisional payments pilot that is now applied more broadly to emergency services workers. When we announced that for police, our frontline emergency services workers, that was something that we had promised to do at the last election. It might seem like a smaller reform, a smaller announcement, a smaller cost, a smaller outlay, but for me at the time, even before I was preselected, it was a game-changing reform, having worked with members of Victoria Police and members of our emergency services family very recently at the time of the election—three weeks beforehand. I heard awful stories from friends and friends of friends who were knocked back, who could not perhaps get the support that they needed when they needed it. That acknowledgement from this government that we need to support those people who go towards the flames, who with their lights and sirens go into the most critical of incidents to help others in the line of duty, was an incredible reform, and I am pleased it is now more broadly applied across Victoria. That is saving lives, it is changing lives. I know that our emergency services workers and many others now are grateful for not having to wait for that support and for getting that support for at least 13 weeks regardless of any outcomes of assessments or otherwise. That is critically important.

Whether it is those reforms or establishing an arbitration function at the Accident Compensation Conciliation Service or, as the member for Eltham articulated quite well—as have other members here—our nation-leading silica licensing scheme, which is obviously quite a bipartisan matter and has been discussed at a national level, we are truly delivering on making our workplaces safer places and making sure we protect the rights of workers in this great state.

Of course we know this bill certainly adds to all of that important work by making a range of amendments, as I so eloquently and humbly detailed, to several workplace safety acts. We know that we are delivering on those important aspects of this government’s silica action plan by improving the compensation arrangements for workers with silicosis and other like diseases. We are making sure WorkSafe have the tools that they need to prevent serious injuries by changing the threshold for issuing prohibition notices and directions, and it is on that issue that I actually want to take up a point. I have referred to the good member for Eltham a number of times here, but that goes to show the level of detail and care that she put into her contribution. I must say I loved when she was talking about not letting the private sector just do what they want and the government stepping in. Others may have issues with regulation, others may have issues with government intervention where it is necessary—

Ms Ward interjected.

Mr TAYLOR: That is right. Some might think you do not need government intervention in the workplace—lightly goes it and light touches here there. But when it comes to regulating—

Ms Ward interjected.

Mr TAYLOR: Absolutely: ‘Just let it go, let it rip’. But I can tell you right now, when it comes to supporting workers in the workplace and making sure they return home safely, government intervention where it is necessary and regulation are critical to making sure our workers, people working, can get home safely. That is exactly what this government’s record is. Whether it is the silica action plan, whether it is criminalising wage theft, whether it is workplace manslaughter or all of the reforms contained in this legislation, this government is absolutely delivering on making sure that Victorians can have a safe workplace.

We know this bill makes a number of important changes to safety and the compensation framework that are necessary to improve those outcomes for Victorian workers and their families. It ensures the effective operation of Victoria’s workplace health and safety laws and supports WorkSafe to improve operations and deliver on its objectives. Of course I am very happy to have spoken in full support of this legislation, and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (15:57): It is a real privilege to rise on the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021 and follow my good friend the member for Bayswater, who gave a very good account of the bill and how important it is to working people—how the Andrews Labor government backs workers in every element of their work. Whether it is protecting their wages, whether it is protecting their lives and their job security, this government puts workers at the heart of everything that it does. This bill is another element in that story.

Let us reflect on where we have come from in the time that we have had in government. We have protected workers’ wages, we have stopped wage theft—we have criminalised it—and we have made sure that we protect the rights and entitlements of all working people. Many said that could not be done, but the Andrews Labor government committed to getting that right and made sure that it protected those outcomes and the conditions. That is what unions stand up for. That is what working people deserve, no less. And then there were the workplace manslaughter laws that we brought into place to make sure that people pay the punishment, not just a slap-on-the-wrist fine but actual meaningful punishment, for a life lost as a result of negligence. That is the legacy of our government, supporting and protecting working people. This bill goes right to the heart of that.

To hear and to follow the member for Thomastown and the member for Eltham reminds me that when I first came here the member for Thomastown was already dominating but when the member for Eltham and I came in in 2014 this was one of the first things that we were appointed to. I did not know how significant that inquiry would be. I had a sense of the policy area and how important it was, but it was a journey that we went on with both career and volunteer firefighters on the impacts of Fiskville and the tragedy in the circumstances that impacted on firefighters at Fiskville from those practices in the 1970s through. What was abundantly clear to us in evidence that was tendered and something that we reflected on in the final report that we delivered to this Parliament was the importance of presumptive legislation and making sure that we recognise various diseases and impacts on Victorians serving our communities and that firefighters are protected and supported into the future. It was a real privilege and really important work. But some things I will always reflect on, on seeing the evidence and the courage that came with presenting before that inquiry, are the landmark reforms that underpin that and the importance of shining a light on a really difficult and dark period in firefighting culture and history, the culture change that Fire Rescue Victoria and the CFA have been on and acknowledging the mistakes of the past and making sure we protect firefighters, both volunteer and career, into the future.

If you are impacted in your line of work—we have heard this from the member for Frankston as well—when you are running into a burning building, you are thinking about supporting others in that moment. The least that you can expect is that your government and your community will be there to support you if you are impacted in your line of work through some of those diseases. So, broadening out the coverage I think is a really important thing—broadening out and recognising that landmark reform for Victoria. Broadening that out to other workers employed in maintenance of vehicles and equipment is something that I support and something the government supports and has done significant consultation on as well. It builds on all of our work in reforming the fire service as well and making sure we improve safety and outcomes for our firefighters in the generations to come.

Now, the really important point that has been raised by a number of members and is something that I want to reflect on is the work of the Minister for Workplace Safety, who has done an extraordinary amount of work in the silica action plan space. It is an emerging risk that has impacted sadly on too many Victorians and has had disastrous consequences on very young people who had embarked on a trade at the start of their journey in working life, and to be so devastatingly impacted by this industrial illness is an absolute tragedy. We pushed really hard to make sure we acted as quickly as we could to support these families and to support these workers. We have I think at last count 60 claims that have been made to WorkSafe Victoria, and we are empowering WorkSafe to respond to any poor practices or outcomes and behaviours, to issue directions and also to make sure that we are supporting families into the future.

This is really important legislation that protects working people. For anyone that has seen the stories and the outcomes and the tragic circumstances that have impacted on young tradespeople who have had their lives impacted and cut short, they are just horrible tragedies, and I am really pleased on behalf of my community and indeed the Victorian community that these changes to legislation and that extra support will be provided. It is an opportunity to also reflect on those four people that we have lost to silica-related illnesses and that we are at a juncture now where we have had 60 claims accepted and recognised by WorkSafe—but as others have reflected, we are expecting more to come in the future.

There are also some important reforms in the family support benefits space, where the bill will improve access and deliver better support to families of deceased workers, with weekly pension payments for children with a disability to be extended from the age of 16 to the age of 25. Currently under the workers compensation legislation a child with a disability is not eligible to receive a child pension after the age of 16, whereas full-time students or apprentices are eligible for the pension until they reach 25. Another important element in the ‘other matters’ part of this bill will make amendments to the Accident Compensation Act 1985 and the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 as well and provide for improved compensation entitlements for families of deceased workers, because that is the lasting legacy impact. It is the life that is impacted or cut short but also those that we need to as a community embrace and support into the future who live with those consequences. Those generational impacts of someone losing their life in the course of their employment are just so deeply tragic, and then there are those impacts into the future. We need to support them financially but also recognise the mental health and wellbeing impacts into the future.

So there are really important elements and reforms in this bill. It goes to the heart of this government’s ambition of supporting all Victorians and being compassionate, caring and supportive, not just in words but in actions through legislation that we pass in this place. We can be really proud of the legacy that is being created and the reforms that will have generational significance to come, whether it is supporting our wonderful volunteer and career firefighters, whether it is expanding the landmark Victorian legislation around presumptive rights protections in the course of their work or whether it is supporting working people with the silica action plan that the government embarked on and quickly moved on to protect working people for years to come, recognising the need to support their families and empowering WorkSafe to be able to take pre-emptive action, make directions and also follow through on any unscrupulous operators or employers. It builds on that legacy around supporting workers with the landmark workplace manslaughter laws, which are really incredible reforms that have been a long time coming and were heavily campaigned for by the labour movement and by working people and championed by the likes of Luke Hilakari at Trades Hall and so many other union leaders. You wonder whether this legislation would have seen the light of day in other parliaments or in other terms, but we know on this side of the house that we support working people.

It would have been a great opportunity for all members of this Parliament to front up on a Thursday afternoon and make that contribution. There was a lot of song and dance yesterday about only having 13 days and not much time to prep for bills. So far the opposition have knocked the bails off on Tuesday on this bill. We had a couple of speakers, and then that was about it; that is Parliament done. I mean, they have served about 5 hours today. If you are wanting to contribute and shape the legislative agenda and really make these contributions on behalf of communities and to support working people, you have got to be here and you have got to show up. At the moment it is just the member for Gembrook holding up the show, and that is a bit of a shame really. It is a bit lacklustre. We would have liked a bit more, but that is okay. This bill is really important, and hopefully they can come back in and make some contributions.

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (16:07): It is a great honour to rise and speak in support of the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021. It is another step forward in delivering on our commitment to protect and support Victorian workers. As one of the final speakers on this bill, it has been really interesting to listen to the debate both on Tuesday and today and to hear the varying and sometimes personal reasons why each has spoken in support of this legislation. For me, entering this Parliament I have been both proud and privileged to speak in support of real and life-changing reforms that are making our workplaces safer for Victorians. In 2019 we saw the passage of the new workplace manslaughter laws that ensure employers who negligently cause the death of workers or members of the public are held to account for their actions. In 2020 we built on this work with the delivery of a provision payment scheme to ensure workers who suffer a workplace mental injury can access the support they need when they need it.

Each time these matters come to the floor of this house we hear stories of loss and pain that are shared by speaker after speaker. The member for Eltham spoke very movingly about her grandfather and nan and the impact on their family of a workplace death. At times like these it becomes clear that almost every Victorian family has been touched in some way by tragic workplace safety injuries, failures and deaths. That includes my own, and it includes the lives of so many of my constituents, my colleagues and my staff. I spoke in detail about my uncle George when we debated the workplace manslaughter legislation and the gaping hole that his death left in the lives of my aunty and my cousins, who were just young boys at the time, and the horrible, traumatic day when my father had to pick the boys up from school and tell them that their dad was not coming home.

Everyone deserves to feel safe and be safe at work, and everyone deserves to come home. This is a mission that this government takes very seriously, and it is not a new commitment by any means. The safety and wellbeing of workers has been a foundational part of Labor’s work for decades, and it goes to the heart of our union movement. It was the Cain government in 1985 that established our first safety and compensation scheme, and since that time we have continued to build on this legacy. The people of Victoria know and understand the importance of these achievements. They know that the injury or death of workers should never and can never be just the cost of doing business. That is why it was so disappointing to hear from some opposite during the debate on workplace manslaughter who sought to argue that business would somehow grind to a halt and the sky would fall in. I note the member for Bayswater and his very, very pointed contribution about those who prefer a softly, softly approach to regulation and the concerns that are raised by those opposite when we try to make improvements to the safety of our workers in Victoria. Over a year on from the manslaughter laws and their implementation it is clear that business has not ground to a halt and the sky has not caved in. They are working, and they are working well. What is clear is that this government will continue to deliver on its commitment to keep Victorians safe at work, and the amendments in this bill are the next step forward in this work, improving outcomes for injured workers and families and enhancing WorkSafe Victoria’s ability to prevent and respond to workplace safety incidents.

Critically this bill delivers on elements of the government’s comprehensive action plan to address and prevent unsafe silica exposure. As we have heard before, silicosis is a lung disease caused by breathing in silica dust. Silica dust is generated when workers do things like crush, cut, drill, grind or polish certain types of natural or engineered stone—so, for example, the granite that you might find on a kitchen bench. Respirable silica dust particles are microscopic. When they are inhaled they can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause irreversible lung damage. The vast majority of people impacted by this and similar diseases are exposed at work in industries like mining, construction, stonemasonry and demolition. These are enormous industries, and as the member for Tarneit noted in her contribution, these are people at the coalface, responsible for creating some of our beautiful infrastructure and the functional spaces that we all enjoy.

According to the 2016 census around 6.5 per cent of people living and working in Darebin, of which Northcote forms a part, worked across these industries. This is not to mention the many retired tradies and miners who have chosen to call Northcote home. Silicosis can develop quickly or be diagnosed over a decade, but the impacts can be debilitating and fatal. Workers with silicosis can experience shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue and a harsh cough, and the condition is unstable. They can deteriorate rapidly or over a long period of time, with flare-ups and worsening symptoms until eventually they may find simple activities like walking, sleeping and eating difficult. It can also increase the risk of developing other conditions, including chest infections, emphysema, kidney disease and lung cancer. There is no cure for silicosis. This is something that can never go away and will never go away for the families it affects.

Under the current scheme injured workers are not able to pursue common-law claims when they develop subsequent silica-based diseases if they have already accessed a claim. The current scheme also creates significant difficulties for workers to access further impairment benefits after an initial claim, even if their condition deteriorates. The changes in this bill will address these barriers by allowing injured workers to apply for common-law damages and access further impairment benefits after an initial claim. These changes will help to ensure that our compensation arrangements better reflect the lived experience of the tradies, stonemasons and others who are impacted by these debilitating illnesses. It also means that the compensation process better reflects the lived experiences of workers and that that lived experience extends to mental health impacts.

Importantly this bill allows for the provision of family counselling services to the loved ones of workers impacted by silica and other workplace injuries. We know that when someone is injured or harmed at work they are not the only one impacted—so often parents, partners and children are left reeling as well. Processing the news of a long-term illness or loss is not easy. Adjusting to the responsibility of being a carer or making medical decisions is not easy. These are difficult and stressful experiences for families, so we need to make sure that families are supported through that. To that end we are also delivering improvements to family support benefits, including extending child pensions for young people with disability from 16 to 25 years. We are also extending household services to families of workers with an accepted claim to six months after their passing from a workplace-related injury.

In addition to improving outcomes for injured workers and their families, this bill makes a number of amendments to strengthen the operation of WorkSafe, enhancing its ability to prevent and respond to workplace injuries. This includes expanding the threshold for issuing prohibition notices and directions. In particular it will allow notices for matters that do not pose an immediate risk but are nonetheless a serious risk to health and safety, including cumulative risks like exposure to silica.

I do not have much time left, but I do want to mention the amendments and the historic work that we have done to deliver a compensation scheme for our firefighters. This bill extends this right to vehicle and equipment maintenance workers, who form an integral part of our fire services and often operate on the same firegrounds where our firefighters are exposed to carcinogens. As with the changes around silicosis and similar diseases, these changes will make our compensation scheme fairer and better reflect the lives and experiences of workers.

There is one other amendment that I want to talk about, and that is the amendment to the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996. I am running out of time, but this essentially brings forward some of our work to put the victim-survivor first in our response to family and gendered violence. It means that perpetrators will no longer be notified in Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal matters, which can be extremely traumatising to the victim-survivors. Many will look at the prospect of having their perpetrator in the room and just give up and not access the support that they need, so this is a very welcome amendment from our government and extends our commitment to victim-survivors in all matters. For these reasons I commend the bill to the house.

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (16:18): I rise today to add my contribution to the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021, which fundamentally strengthens workplace health and safety laws to provide more support to workers and their families. If ever there was a bill that symbolises what it is to be part of a Labor government, it is a bill such as this. It is a recognition of everything that we have done in this term, and what was done by those who were part of the previous term of this government, and the changes that have been made to strengthen workplace safety. The member for Northcote did touch on a few of those—obviously the workplace manslaughter legislation and the firefighters’ presumptive rights both in the initial act, being for firefighters in Fire Rescue Victoria, and those presumptive rights being extended to forest firefighters. As has been mentioned, this bill now extends that to people working on machines and operating vehicles as part of that service; it extends those rights to them.

I want to particularly acknowledge the contributions of a number of members in this house who have told really personal stories about what the workplace safety legislation means to them and how much of a difference it made to their lives, how it has impacted their lives and often drove them to lives in the labour movement. Particularly the member for Lara had seen what had happened to his mum firsthand, and that drove him to become the first OH&S rep at the Ford factory when he was working down there in Geelong.

But I do want to focus a fair amount of my contribution on the amendments in the bill to the Accident Compensation Act 1985 and the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 that improve compensation arrangements for workers with silicosis and similar occupationally acquired diseases. These elements of the bill build upon the Andrews Labor government’s comprehensive silica action plan that was introduced in 2019, which took strong action to protect Victorian workers from developing the deadly lung disease silicosis by banning the practice of uncontrolled dry cutting of any materials that contain crystalline silica dust, introducing tough new compliance measures for businesses working with silica, offering free health screenings for 1400 Victorian stonemasons and raising awareness of this deadly disease that is cutting down Victorian workers, even in the prime of their lives. This bill recognises the progressive nature of such debilitating diseases and the ongoing impact that this has on workers and their families. Historically workers seeking to access payouts for silicosis compensation had to prove that their injury had stabilised, adding insult to a chronic occupationally acquired injury. The bill therefore seeks to rectify this situation by improving compensation and assistance entitlements. It also includes other amendments for increased support for families of workers with silicosis and similar diseases, such as counselling support.

Silica dust is a dangerous and potentially lethal substance when inhaled in the lungs. Crystalline silica dust is 100 times smaller than a grain of sand and can be unknowingly inhaled when exposed when stone is mined, manufactured, cut or polished. Stonemasons are especially at risk due to their occupation cutting and polishing stone products. Occupational exposure to silica dust can cause silicosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease, and has been linked to lung cancers. A 2020 Monash University study that was conducted in conjunction with WorkSafe Victoria found concerning statistics about the prevalence of silicosis amongst Victorian stonemasons. Amongst the 456 workers who agreed to take part in the screening project, 29 per cent, or 133 Victorian workers, were found to have silicosis. Of these 133 people, 102 had simple silicosis while 31 had more severe and complicated cases of the disease. Of the total workers screened, 211, or 65 per cent, were found by the screening program to have clinical abnormalities on their screening test results. The study also found a clinically significant burden of the disease among stonemasons, more than any other line of work. This serves to highlight the dangers present for those working with silica and also underscores the vital importance of this government’s work to take action and protect Victorian workers and their families.

Silica is a non-static disease, and it does not just affect older workers who have worked cutting stone and other products for a long time. It is also a disease that affects young tradies, often young men—some with 30 to 40 years of their working life ahead of them—and leaves them suffering from a chronic, progressive and incurable illness which they acquired at work. For example, a young 22-year-old Gold Coast tradie, Connor Downes, had only been working cutting stone for three years when he was diagnosed with a deadly and incurable disease. No-one goes to work or sends their sons or daughters to work to acquire a disease that will not only severely impact their ability to be gainfully and productively employed but may well cut short their lives. Stone benchtops in kitchens or bathrooms or manufactured stone furniture have become a common feature in homes throughout Victoria. No longer a luxury item, they are now standard features in renovations and new construction throughout the state. But no-one would want their stone kitchen island bench to come at the expense of the health or livelihood of those skilled workers who crafted and installed them.

This bill will also amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 to improve compliance by employers by allowing a WorkSafe inspector to issue a prohibition notice, from a standard where a risk is immediate to one where the inspector believes practices involve a serious risk to the health and safety of a person from an immediate or imminent exposure hazard. The government is also ensuring that certain diseases or illnesses will now be able to be prescribed as notifiable by regulation, recognising the significant impact that highly contagious or potentially serious illnesses acquired in the workplace have on Victorians. This is entirely consistent with our government’s work to protect Victorian workers by making these workplace-acquired or workplace-transmissible illnesses notifiable, which will align Victoria with the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The Andrews Labor government is also leading the charge for a national silicosis strategy to be adopted to reduce the Australian silica workplace exposure standard from 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre to 0.02 milligrams per cubic metre over an 8-hour day to offer even better legislative protection for Victorians who are exposed to this toxic dust through their work.

Every Victorian worker deserves the highest level of protection that this and every other government can provide them to be safe and protected while at work, and with this bill the Andrews Labor government is expanding its commitment to protect the health and welfare of our stonemasons and other workers at risk from acquiring similar occupational diseases by recognising the progressive nature of this incurable disease and their need for ongoing support and a compensation process which reflects the reality they and their families face every day.

While that is to me the main focus and the biggest change that is introduced as part of this legislation, there are a number of other really important reforms made by this workplace safety legislation bill. As has been mentioned, there are also important changes being made to the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 in relation to the conduct of hearings by the tribunal, which is a really important stepping stone and builds on our commitment to family violence reforms. So for all of these reasons I think it is a thoroughly important bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (16:28): I take great pleasure in joining the debate on the Workplace Safety Legislation and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2021. It is a throwaway line that you quite often hear in the media or with cynical observers of politics, that there is no difference between the major parties. Quite often it will be, you know, those supporting the Greens political party, saying you should support them because they have a better set of values than the so-called ‘older’ parties and particularly the Labor Party. I have not been in the chamber for all of this debate, but I have been listening and watching intently from my office, and I think it is a real shame that we have not seen any speakers from the Greens political party and only the member for Gembrook from the coalition. I have been in this place for nearly 20 years, and—

Mr Battin: Others have spoken.

Ms GREEN: I apologise to the member for Gembrook. There may well have been others, but I certainly have not seen them and I think there were very few. My experience over almost 20 years in this place is that whenever there is a workplace safety legislation bill before the house it is either opposed by those opposite or the support is low key. I think the member for Northcote summed it up well when she was saying that in the debate on the Workplace Safety Legislation Amendment (Workplace Manslaughter and Other Matters) Bill 2019 there were a number of members in this place and in the other chamber that kept talking about the cost to business. I think there should be no business that predicates its making of money and making of a profit on the loss of a human life of a worker or of on an injury to a worker.

I really want to commend the work of the earlier speakers on this bill, particularly the member for Thomastown, the Parliamentary Secretary for Workplace Safety. She has worked all of her working life to ensure worker safety both in her work here and in her work in the trade union movement previously, particularly in manufacturing. We heard from my dear colleague who is sitting next to me, the member for Lara, in his contribution, I think it was yesterday. He told the story of being a little boy that looked forward to coming home from school and seeing his mum there after work doing the things that mums do: preparing food and talking to him and his siblings about how their day was. As a mum it just really cut me to hear him remembering the time—and I think he still remembers that feeling to this day—when he came home from school to find that his mother was not there. She was in hospital due to a workplace injury. I cannot imagine what it would be like. He really gave a word picture for me, knowing the importance of food and family to the Eren family, of what it would be like for any mum or any parent who loves preparing food and caring for their family to lose an index finger. I just cannot imagine how difficult that must have been—the pain and the rehabilitation. We should stand up against anything in workplaces that causes that sort of catastrophic injury.

I did want to make mention of the extension of presumptive rights for other categories of workers within our fire authorities, and I particularly want to pay credit to my late uncle Allan Radford, who passed away as a result of bladder cancer and other cancers. He was a volunteer firefighter. He was also a mechanic. He was quite convinced during his illness that he had acquired his illness through the exposure he had as a CFA volunteer training at the now-closed Fiskville training college. I am sure that he would have really welcomed this being extended to others to acknowledge the sorts of exposures that firefighters have in undertaking their work. I say to my kids that I am potentially a ticking time bomb myself. I do not think anyone knows the sorts of exposures that firefighters like me had on the day of Black Saturday and the days after, particularly on the days after. We searched house to house for many days, and there would have been all sorts of building products. We had no thought for our own safety. So I just hope that that is not something that I and other firefighters will have to face.

My late stepfather, Ron, passed away from that very painful, painful disease asbestosis. Later it was discovered that he had mesothelioma. He drew great comfort from the then Minister for WorkCover, Rob Hulls, in this place moving legislation so that claims for asbestos sufferers could continue on after their deaths, because those dreadful companies were trying to drag out those claims so that the person who had been affected would die and therefore the claim would lapse. He felt comforted that he would be compensated and that Mum and his kids would see something as an acknowledgement of what he had suffered.

Someone else who is very close to me, the late Les Booth, suffered with silicosis. He was the first person that I knew that had silicosis. I am now meeting too many young people that work in kitchen installations and in stonemasonry, particularly in my electorate, that either are having symptoms or are at risk of this dreadful, dreadful disease. So I am really glad to see that we are making these changes.

I want to give a particular shout-out to a brilliant business in Broadmeadows that is run by my friends Robert and Roshni Thompson. That business is called Betta Stone, and not only are they employing Indigenous people and giving them a good start, they are producing a product that is kind to the planet. They are recycling glass. It is being reduced down to a powder and then being pressed into benches. So it is recycled glass. It looks like a stone benchtop. It looks like a beautiful glass splashback, but it came about from their passion about having a lighter footprint on the planet but also because of Robert’s longstanding interest in workplace safety and particularly wanting to address the scourge of silicosis. They hope to make money from this business, but it is a real labour of love for them. And from the minute that they came to see me and say that they were undertaking this business and establishing it in Broadmeadows, it really was about combating silicosis.

So we are not here to advertise particular products for the sake of it, but I would say to any kitchen installer, anyone who is wanting to install a kitchen: please consider Betta Stone. I know that the state government has used some of the products in our GovHub in Morwell; T2, the beautiful tea franchise that is around Australia, they have used it in a lot of their shop fittings; and I know some of the supermarkets have used it as well. But if anyone is watching this live stream, whether you are doing up a business premises or whether you are renovating your house, your kitchen or your bathroom, please consider using a product like Betta Stone rather than the really dangerous composite stones that are around. The more the market and consumers demand a safer product and a product that has less of a footprint on the environment, the better that we will be.

I would hope that we would not have to have legislation that protects against dangerous products, but I am really glad that we have a fabulous minister in the other place that also has a very, very long history in standing up for workers and particularly workers’ safety. Finally, I want to commend the member for Thomastown, the member for Eltham and the member for Mordialloc on their great work on the Fiskville inquiry, and they made a great contribution on this bill, and the member for Northcote particularly, in relation to the uncle that she never met and her passion for workplace safety. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Public Transport, Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (16:38): I move:

That debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.