The Turnbull Government must exempt the provision of essential services related to supply of electricity, natural gas, water, waste water, or telecommunications in its Building Code.
By not providing a mandatory exemption, Malcolm Turnbull is telling South Australians he’s happy for industrial disputation to take place and for South Australia’s power supply to be put at risk.
It has been reported today that South Australia’s power sector faces industrial disputation because the state’s electricity provider, SA Power Networks, is insisting the enterprise agreement which is currently being negotiated must be compliant with the Turnbull Government’s unfair and illogical Building Code.
Labor vehemently opposes this draconian building Code.
Section 6A of the Code provides a discretionary exemption to be exercised by the ABC Commissioner – in this case Mr Nigel Hadgkiss, a man who does not enjoy the support of the Senate due to incompetence and bias – to exempt a building industry participant where it relates to the provision of essential services. This should be a mandatory exemption, not discretionary.
The resumption of debate on the Government’s Building and Construction (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017 provides the perfect opportunity for the Government to fix its own mess.
It is bad enough that the Turnbull Government wants to impose the Building Code with all its flaws on the construction sector – effectively making it an economy wide regulation has economic disaster written all over it.
The Turnbull Government can’t pretend to care about power and not provide a mandatory exemption.
The Prime Minister has told some fantastic lies about power in the past fortnight and Labor will hold him to account on this matter as well.
Malcolm Turnbull needs to see the light – he’s happy to leave workers in the dark but he must not put at risk South Australia’s electricity supply.