Police (Return to Work) Amendment Bill
18/11/2015
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: I take the floor to indicate that Dignity for Disability will support the Hon. Rob Brokenshire’s initiative with this bill, and we thank him for it. We also thank the Police Association for briefing my office on its campaign to improve the rights of police officers in the case of injuries caused in the line of their work.
Dignity for Disability would also like to note, as other members have mentioned, the significant safety challenges that many other emergency workers face in their workplaces or in the line of their duties and through no fault of their own. Whether you are an ambulance officer, as the Hon. Ms Franks has pointed out, an emergency department nurse or a mental healthcare nurse, to name just a few, or I even think of my own mother, not strictly an emergency services worker but a registered nurse in aged care who regularly deals with patients who may be confused due to dementia or PTSD, for example, there are other professions that face specific challenges of personal safety and welfare.
I think those need to be treated just as seriously, but particularly those more emergency related professions that I mentioned: mental healthcare nurses and ambulance officers, for example, who can and do face violence or the risk of violence, illness and injury in the course of their duties on a regular basis, despite taking the usual precautions, because the people they are treating might be unwell, under the influence of drugs (including alcohol), or perhaps experiencing significant trauma due to stress due to a violent situation, for example, or a health condition.
So, while we do support these measures to further protect police officers who are injured in the line of their duties and certainly thank them for the service they provide to the community, we, like many other parties, want to remember and better serve and better protect those other workers who also face significant risks in the line of their duties and therefore look forward to working constructively with the government and all other parties to make sure that all members of our community who work hard, who put their safety and wellbeing on the line to protect others, are also protected. With that brief contribution, at this stage I indicate Dignity for Disability’s support for this bill.
