Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go to the differences between the definition of 'road transport collective agreement', which appears in clause 33(2) of the bill, and clause 33, which appears in the amendments. There are some significant differences—differences which I think the House ought to consider very carefully before it is prepared to agree to this amendment.

One of the questions that strikes me as an obvious one, when you look at the wording of proposed clause 33, is the question of whether individual drivers need to be aware that there are other drivers who have also contracted with the hiring party. On my review of the term 'road transport collective agreement' as it is contained in clause 33, it strikes me as entirely possible that you might have a situation in which a hiring party issues a tender calling for parties wishing to drive under a contract for the hiring organisation. They accept the terms which are issued but, because there is more than one driver who has accepted those terms, it automatically becomes a road transport collective agreement, even though there is no collective intention or state of mind between the individual drivers.

I invite the minister to respond and explain to me whether that interpretation is correct or not and, if it is not, to give me assurances as to why it is not. If that interpretation is correct we have here the long hand of the extensive and growing, intrusive industrial relations governance apparatus of this Rudd-Gillard government reaching into yet another area of economic activity, where hitherto individual business entities—people such as truck drivers—have been free to carry out their businesses without the unnecessary overweening bureaucratic supervision of yet another instrumentality of this collectivist and interventionist government. By virtue of the drafting of proposed clause 33 we now have the extension of the scope of the activities of this tribunal into commercial arrangements which may very well be made, as far as an individual driver is concerned, on an individual basis with a hiring party, but, because of the drafting, he or she suddenly finds that they are caught up, quite to their surprise, in what is deemed to be a road transport collective agreement, and then that agreement cannot proceed unless it has been compulsorily considered by this tribunal.

That is a very serious matter of public policy. It is a significant interference in the freedom of contract, and the House ought to consider that very carefully.

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