Put workplace safety on the front burner - Senator Gayle

As nations observe World Day for Safety and Health at Work today, local senators have lamented the need for a stronger workplace safety culture.

"Mr President, safety and health at the workplace is something that we take for granted. Accidents and injuries at the workplace are sometimes not investigated. No records are kept, no data assessed. Incidents or near misses go sometimes unnoticed, without even being reported," Senator Cavan Gayle told the Upper House yesterday.

Debate on the long-awaited Occupational Safety and Health Bill began in the House of Representatives in February and is slated to continue. On Friday, Gayle proposed that a joint select committee rigorously examine the bill to achieve consensus among stakeholders.

But Opposition Senator Lambert Brown rebuffed the suggestion, contending that committees had met in the past and that the bill needed to be passed without delay.

"We need that bill now. We can't continue to live off the 1943 and 1961 legislation.