Thursday, 20 February 2020

Ministers statements: workplace manslaughter legislation

Ms HENNESSY (Altona—Attorney-General, Minister for Workplace Safety) (11:22): I rise to update the house on the investment that the Andrews Labor government is making to make good on the commitment that we made to the people of Victoria to introduce the new crime of workplace manslaughter. I am delighted to tell the house that the government is investing $10 million to support the implementation of the new laws. It includes new dedicated support for families following a workplace death. It includes new specialised teams at WorkSafe that will investigate, respond and follow up, as well as work on the prosecutions. We are putting more boots on the ground. We made a commitment to recruit 40 additional WorkSafe inspectors that have experience and specialisation in construction, which we know is a high-risk industry; it is where workplace deaths are over-represented. I am delighted that we now have 20 specialist inspectors in place that we recruited as part of this program.

Tragically we have sadly already seen six workplace deaths occur this year. That is six deaths too many, so we still have a great challenge ahead of us in reducing workplace deaths and workplace injuries. Of course when these new laws take effect in the middle of the year there will be fines of up to $16 million and penalties of up to 20 years in prison.

As I said, every death is one death too many. We know that we have got over-representation in agriculture, in construction and with people that are working at heights, and we are going to keep focused on those to try and keep people safe at work.

It is with some irony that I see that those opposite like to go around beating their chests like they are tough on crime. When it came to this crime, when it comes to industrial crime, those opposite voted against these laws. In fact they called them bizarre and unfair. We look forward to their implementation and protecting Victorians at work.