Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fowler for the amendment. In particular, I thank the member for Fowler for confining the amendment itself to the issues about community languages. I respect, in the speech that was given, there are other issues the member for Fowler's deeply concerned about, including the small-business exemption and how that's defined, but I do appreciate the amendment has been put in a form that allows the government to be able to support it.

At the moment, the Fair Work Ombudsman have about 30 languages where they are doing this. The Fair Work Commission operates more through an interpreter service as to how they deal with community languages at the moment. But as we both know, because our communities are not that different, and I'm pleased the member for Fowler referred to the lockdown period of the pandemic, there was a period where information was not being provided in community languages when it needed to be. So this puts into the Fair Work Act a requirement as to what's expected, and the government's very happy to back that. The government thanks the member for Fowler for bringing it forward.

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