Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly the opposition is always eager to engage in a constructive fashion to expedite the work of the House. Indeed the very substance of this suspension of standing orders motion gives effect to that objective of the opposition, because the motion that is before the House would, if passed, allow the order of the day for the consideration of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 to be called on immediately.

Let me just for the benefit of members remind us of the context in which the House is considering this matter. Four bills were passed by the Senate last week. They deal with a range of matters going to the safety, rights and position of workers under the industrial relations framework. The opposition was pleased to support those bills in the Senate, and it was certainly our expectation, as I think it would be the expectation of any reasonable Australian looking at these facts and circumstances, that there would similarly have been an opportunity to bring these matters on for debate and have them voted on immediately this afternoon. The government could very readily have done that, and we could have by now indeed have dealt with all four of them. By doing that we could have materially advanced the position in relation to the rights of workers in circumstances where they're being made redundant from a business which is eligible for the small business redundancy exemption in circumstances which I think are widely agreed to be inappropriate—that is to say, it's managed to come under the threshold by virtue of insolvency. We would have materially advanced the rights and position of workers who are in the very difficult position of having been subject to domestic violence, with that potentially impacting the way that they are dealt with in a workplace context. We would have materially advanced the position of workers who are at risk of silicosis, and we would have materially advanced the position of first responders.

Because of what the Senate has done in passing four bills addressing these four matters, which are uncontentious, uncontroversial and supported by the opposition and, indeed, by the government—as is evident from the many passionate speeches that have been given and from the fact that they're included in a bill that the government has brought forward—and, as I am advised, by many on the crossbench, we could have dealt with these matters very quickly and efficiently. But, rather confusingly, what the government has chosen to do is reject this opportunity to deal promptly with these matters.

What the opposition is seeking to do, in each of the suspension of standing orders motions that we have moved, is to give all members of this House the opportunity to vote in a way that indicates whether or not they're supportive of bringing these matters on so that affected workers can have their position improved immediately. That is the reason the opposition is moving this particular suspension of standing orders, just as it is the reason that we have moved the other suspensions and intend to move one further suspension of standing orders: because it is important that members of this House have the opportunity to vote on these bills. These bills are before us. They could be considered immediately. They were considered and dealt with very rapidly in the Senate, and the opposition certainly believes that there is an opportunity here in the House to deal with these matters very rapidly.

The specific bill that is the subject of this suspension of standing orders motion deals with the problem of family and domestic violence. Under existing arrangements in the Fair Work Act, an employee who is subjected to family and domestic violence is not necessarily protected from employer adverse action within the workplace unless it is connected to the exercise of the employee's workplace rights or it can be argued to be protected by another attribute such as sex. The fact that an employee has been subject to family and domestic violence, therefore, could be a source of discrimination within the workforce—for example, resulting in a reduction of work hours or a demotion.

The very sound policy reasons as to why this matter needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible are undoubtably what motivated the Senate to pass a bill which had the effect of taking these uncontroversial provisions, which are widely supported across the political spectrum, and putting them into a standalone bill. That's now been passed by the Senate, and there's an opportunity for the House to vote on that bill as well. That is certainly something that we in the opposition would be supportive of. It is for that reason that I have moved the suspension of standing orders in the way that I have.

Again I make the point that if the Leader of the House had conducted himself in accordance with the reasonable expectation on the part of all members, having regard to the words he caused to be included in the daily program, then this less direct method would not have been necessary. But, the circumstances being as they are, this is the next best option for the House. I commend, therefore, this motion for suspension of standing orders to the House.

See this speech in context