There were some extraordinary revelations yesterday that highlighted exactly why the upcoming McDougall review into the NSW agency responsible for workplace safety should be wide-ranging and undertaken through public hearings. 
 
Safework NSW officials were recalled for a second estimates hearing. 
 
Under questioning from the Opposition’s Peter Primrose and Anthony D’Adam it was revealed that the safety regulator   has been involved in drafting the terms of reference for the review into their own agency. 
 
“I am also deeply concerned that despite clear failings of Mr Perrottet’s safety regulator it will currently be allowed to determine the terms of reference for the review into its own actions.” said Sophie Cotsis, Shadow Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations. 
 
It was also revealed that Safework NSW  is  planning to undertake an internal ‘peer review’ of its Investigation Decision making Review Panel, which decides on whether to further investigate or prosecute unsafe workplace practices that could lead to death or injury. This is following recent revelations that a number of inspector requests for further investigations into unsafe workplace practices have been overturned by the Panel.
 
“This is outrageous and the Minister must intervene to ensure the review is at arms length from the agency and this must include open and transparent public hearings to ensure confidence in the process” said Ms Cotsis. 
 
The critical need for the review was highlighted  by the Oppositions examination of a number of cases where the clear warning signals of unsafe workplace practices were either ignored or allowed to continue because they were dealt with through correspondence or a request for information and the lack of adequate enforcement tragically led to preventable and predictable workplace fatalities.  
 
NSW Public sector Surveys around workplace culture revealed Safework inspectors experiencing a high incidence of bullying and workplace stress.
 
Ms Cotsis continued, “The combination of an extraordinary high turnover of inspectors, vacant positions and the fact that a large proportion of current inspectors are still on probationary means that Safework NSW is well below the International standards and shows this Perrottet Government is inept and incompetent to carry out its legal and moral obligations to ensure workers are safe at work.” 
 
Workplace safety is paramount to both workers, businesses and the public. 

The opposition alongside families, worker representative, business and community leaders have been strongly advocating for a long time for scrutiny to be applied to this safety regulator with Opposition welcomes the auditor general’s performance audit and the review into Safework by justice McDougall is overdue but needs to be open and transparent. 
 SOPHIE COTSIS MP
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR WORK HEALTH AND SAFETY