WHILE public transport, education, crime, health and infrastructure have dominated the State Election campaign, for Ballarat residents there is one more topic that is a lot closer to heart.
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When Charlie Howkins and Jack Brownlee died in a trench collapse in Delacombe in March, it lit a torch on what had to that point been a silent killer in Australia.
That torch has been carried all the way to Canberra by both men’s families who are determined to see workers rights as a major political issue, both at a state and at a national level.
In October Lana Cormie, wife of Mr Howkins and Dave and Janine Brownlee, the parents of Mr Brownlee, travelled to Canberra for the handing down of a Senate Report which contained 34 recommendations to the future of occupational health and safety (OHS) in Australia.
Senators have three months to respond to the report, and while the majority of recommendations are likely to be backed, there is one that is causing a divide, that being the introduction of workplace manslaughter laws.
The Senate report, which was commissioned by Labor, recommends an introduction of national manslaughter laws
Recommendation 13 of the report said “The committee recommends that Safe Work Australia work with Commonwealth, State and Territory governments to introduce a nationally consistent industrial manslaughter offence into the model WHS laws, using the Queensland laws as a starting point and pursue adoption of this amendment in other jurisdictions through the formal harmonisation of WHS laws process."
But the Coalition believes this might be a step too far.
“To introduce industrial manslaughter laws undermines the efficacy of existing harmonised work health and safety laws across Australia,” it said in response.
“It is important not to adopt proposals that could result in poorer outcomes for Australian workers.
“In addition, we are concerned that that industrial manslaughter laws would expose employers and managers to the risk of lengthy prison terms even where they are unjustly accused of being responsible for incidents in the workplace.”
While workplace safety is undoubtedly a national issue, the State Government has announced it plans to go it alone and introduce its own mandatory manslaughter laws similar to those already in Queensland.
Premier Daniel Andrews said it wasn’t right that up to 30 people every year die in workplace accidents.
“The penalty must be a strong enough deterrent to make employers take workplace safety seriously, and not rely on deep pockets to avoid accountability, while cutting corners on safety,” he said.
Deputy Victorian Liberal leader David Hodgett said his party would form a position on industrial manslaughter once it had seen the detail of the proposal.
“We believe that anyone should expect to be able to go to work and come home,” Mr Hodgett told Fairfax in May. “Let’s have a look at the detail on this and we’ll form a position.” In a recent speech at the Safety Institute of Australia OHS Construction Forum, Dr Cormie said the proposed laws were not about sending bosses to jail.
“It is about upholding the values of our people. It is about each and every one of us having the right to expect to come home from work alive,” she said.
“Industrial Manslaughter is not a solve-all to the problem of workplace deaths in this country. However I do believe that it plays an integral role in creating a greater cultural change in workplace safety
“It is disappointing that in this country we have a basic human rights issue being treated as a political issue.
“The right to come home alive from work is something that should have bipartisan support in our parliament.”
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