TROY BELL MP
Member for Mount Gambier
Your Independent voice
in State Parliament
Bill sparks concern
Wednesday December 20, 2023A RISK of over-regulation was the main concern for Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell after the state government finalised industrial manslaughter as a criminal offence.
An amendment to the Work Health and Safety Act 2012 was finalised during this year’s final sitting week.
It introduced tougher penalties for businesses and organisations which show negligence in conduct leading to breaches in work health and safety duty or death of another person.
Mr Bell spoke on the amendment, making it clear he supported a safe work environment yet was concerned about possible over-regulation. He said those “doing the wrong thing” needed to be “held to account” in terms of serious injuries or death at work.“
Everyone has the right to be in a safe work environment and come home safely, there is no question about that,” Mr Bell said.“
The concern I had with the bill is the risk of over-regulation and we already have manslaughter protections in place but this bill takes it further.”
He said there were concerns highlighted by members about who would be liable should there be a death at a workplace, claiming the “mum and dad” operations where one partner may not be “actively involved” in the business could be legally liable.
“Operations where one partner may not be actively involved in the business with a director of the company, under this bill, they could be legally liable for criminal charges for an accident or incident that happens at a workplace,” Mr Bell said.
“The amendments I put forward did not pass and we were trying to come in line with what the current law stipulates which is if you are going to be held liable for manslaughter there needs to be tests that have to be made before you could be found guilty of manslaughter.”
He said he did not believe the amendments made would help with occupational health and safety due to SafeWork SA and a number of legislation pieces already in place.
“Everyone has the right to go work and come home safely which is what I support but we do run the risk of over-regulating be-cause there are many avenues in the existing criminal law consolidation act,” Mr Bell said.
“I have spoken to a few businesses who are concerned about what their level of risk is going forward and this new legislation has only just passed, it has not been trialled in a court of law yet but there are several certain wordings which I disagree with because I think it lowers the threshold for a successful prosecution.
“We need very strong workplace relation laws but I fundamentally believe they are al-ready in place.
Mr Bell said he also shared his concerns with the Member for MacKillop Nick Mc-Bride who said in Parliament he understood major indictable offences was a “serious pro-cess” through the courts.