Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. In a context where someone's talking about something that is, by definition, intimately personal, they may be sharing information with others, and obviously the employer needs to go through certain internal processes in order to grant this leave. So it may be that the spread of people to whom this information is disclosed will, of necessity, grow, and there should be some confidentiality protections.

Lastly, with respect to amendment (10), this is an important amendment because this will allow modern awards and enterprise agreements to include terms relating to evidence requirements for the unpaid leave that's granted here. This is important because, as I've said, the evidentiary requirements here are going to be critical to making sure that someone feels comfortable about accessing this leave, and they may make a difference to whether or not they choose to access it, depending on who they have to tell about it. There's also going to be the question of what standard has to be met in order to access it. That is something that ought to be able to be looked at more closely by the Fair Work Commission or by parties during their enterprise agreement negotiations, so expressly permitting the evidentiary requirements to be in the modern awards or enterprise agreements would be something that would make sense. I commend these amendments to the House.

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