Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The government is introducing the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill 2017because we are committed to continually improving Australia's workplace relations system.

This bill will respond to a number of sensible recommendations made by the Productivity Commission inquiry into the workplace relations framework, as well as by the report of inquiry into matters concerning former Vice-President Michael Lawler of the Fair Work Commission, conducted by former Federal Court judge, the Hon. Peter Heerey AM QC. The bill will:

With this bill, the government is continuing to implement commonsense reforms to the workplace relations system to reduce complexity and costs.

There is broad support for reforms to repeal four-yearly reviews. In November 2016, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Council of Trade Unions jointly wrote to the Minister for Employment, asking the government to abolish these reviews.

Abolishing the reviews is also consistent with recommendation 8.1 of the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the workplace relations system. The commission found that the reviews are 'hugely resource intensive for all involved'.

Employee groups, employer groups and the Fair Work Commission spend an enormous amount of time and money in undertaking these reviews. Their abolition will save employers and unions about $87 million over the next 10 years. This amount represents a significant regulatory burden.

To ensure an appropriate transition period, the bill will allow the current four-yearly review to conclude in a timely manner under the existing framework. Importantly, it will remove the requirement for a new review to commence in January 2018.

In addition to this important change, the bill also responds to Productivity Commission recommendation 20.1, by amending the Fair Work Act to allow the Fair Work Commission to overlook minor procedural or technical errors when approving an enterprise agreement, as long as it is satisfied that the employees were not likely to have been disadvantaged by the error.

Currently, the Fair Work Commission is handcuffed. Proscriptive, inflexible rules set out in the Fair Work Act mean that inconsequential procedural or technical errors made during bargaining prevent it from approving an enterprise agreement. This means that fundamentally sound enterprise agreements which have received broad support from employees are being knocked back because undue emphasis has been placed on procedural requirements set out in the Fair Work Act.

The Productivity Commission's report highlighted an infamous case where an agreement was rejected because the employer stapled additional pages to the Notice of Employee Representational Rights form. This was considered to be a deviation from the prescribed notice and the additional stapled content invalidated the entire bargaining process.

This overly strict approach to the procedural requirements in enterprise bargaining has resulted in some ridiculous outcomes. For example, the Fair Work Commission has rejected enterprise agreements where an employer printed the notice onto a piece of paper with the company letterhead on it and inadvertently provided the incorrect telephone number for the Fair Work Commission infoline.

The government is therefore proposing to introduce a commonsense reform to give the Fair Work Commission the capacity to approve enterprise agreements despite minor procedural or technical errors made during enterprise bargaining, as long as the errors were not likely to have disadvantaged employees. This amendment will not give carte blanche to employers to ignore the proper processes. What it will do is ensure that minor procedural or technical mistakes in bargaining do not unduly prevent the approval of enterprise agreements that employers and employees have genuinely agreed to. This is a win for everyone.

The bill will also implement the sensible reforms suggested by Mr Heerey following his inquiry into complaints about former Fair Work Commission Vice-President Michael Lawler. The saga of former Vice-President Lawler revealed that there is no formal mechanism to inform the parliament's consideration of allegations of misbehaviour or incapacity against Fair Work Commission members.

Mr Heerey also noted that there is some doubt about whether the complaint-handling powers of the minister and the Fair Work Commission president in the Fair Work Act apply to Fair Work Commission members who formerly held office in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

The bill will clarify that the complaint-handling powers of the Minister for Employment and the President of the Fair Work Commission apply to all Fair Work Commission members. The bill will also apply the Judicial Misbehaviour and Incapacity (Parliamentary Commissions) Act 2012 in relation to allegations of misbehaviour or incapacity concerning Fair Work Commission members, so that the parliament can quickly establish an inquiry into such allegations and be well informed of any case for asking the Governor-General to terminate their appointment.

The bill is sensible, fair and broadly supported, and I commend it to the House.

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