Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020. The devil is in the detail and is certainly not reflected in the title of this bill.

Before I go into some of the specific matters of this bill, I want to talk about the context of why we are actually talking about the fair work amendment bill and not the other bill that was before it on the original government business program a mere 24 hours ago, which of course was the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Amendment (Grid Reliability Fund) Bill 2020. We are debating this bill because the government has pulled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, because the member for New England put in an amendment but didn't tell his colleagues, and now that bill isn't going to be coming back to this floor.

Mr Falinski interjecting—

I can hear the interjections from the member for Mackellar. He is very brave in interjections, but I will only believe in his bravery when he votes against the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill. I know the member for Hughes, who has walked into the chamber, will be supporting the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, joining with many of his colleagues on those completely misguided amendments to that bill. But that is why we are here now, at the end of this parliamentary sitting week, talking about the fair work amendment bill: because the government are too ashamed to bring on the original bill that was meant to be debated this week. They have been shamed into pulling that bill off the government program, and they've been forced to settle for this bill.

See this speech in context