Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): 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.
