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

I rise to speak further on the amendments that have been circulated in my name, to explain the effect of the amendments to the House.

There has been agreement reached over a number of weeks as to matters that the coalition would be very pleased to support in relation to this industrial legislation: the small business redundancy exemption; changes to the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder for first responders: changes to the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency; and protections against discrimination for those who experience family and domestic violence. The coalition has supported those measures consistently, and we continue to support them.

The difficulty that has occurred today is that, at short notice and with, certainly, zero consultation with the opposition, the government has reached agreement with a number of crossbenchers in the Senate to strip those four elements out of the 270 pages of its closing the loopholes bill, which covered a very wide range of matters, putting them into a separate bill. So far, so good; the opposition can absolutely support that. But the government has also put in at least two aspects which are deeply, deeply problematic. The arrangements in relation to the rights of union delegates are deeply problematic and would see small businesses around the country facing extraordinary cost burdens. This would be enormously damaging.

Of course, there are the so-called labour hire arrangements. What will happen is very clear from what has been said in the course of this debate and from questions asked by the opposition not being answered adequately. The government tells us that there's a process by which service contractors can establish that they're not caught by the so-called same job, same pay labour hire provisions. But, in fact, it's a cumbersome process. It requires them to engage in a separate legal process and it doesn't deliver the certainty that's claimed. It's far from clear, still, despite the assurances, that companies which are service contractors in the mining sector—or, indeed, from my own experience in the telecommunications sector, where all of the big telcos use outsourced providers to do specialised work such as rolling out networks facilities, building towers and other things—won't find themselves automatically, and by force of law, having the industrial conditions of the company they're contracting to imported so that it applies to all of their workers.

That creates enormous uncertainty; it's most undesirable and the opposition's clear view is that that matter should continue to be investigated by the Senate committee. If it can be demonstrated through the Senate committee process that the fears we're articulating, which have been raised with us by many businesses, are groundless, then let that process go through and have that demonstrated. But, for some reason, the government wants to rush it through now. The purpose of these amendments is to make it very clear that, if the coalition has these amendments accepted by the government, then the coalition is in a position to support the amended bill—the 'shrunken down' bill, if I can refer to it in that form, or the 'compressed' bill or the 'reduced bill. So far, it has not been reduced to a form that is to the satisfaction of the coalition, but if it slims, reduces, further by the removal of the measures that we have specified in our amendments then we are ready to support it.

We are a constructive opposition engaging in a positive and constructive fashion. We've worked very rapidly, despite the lack of consideration by the government, to be in a position where we can be very clear on what it is we are prepared to work for. But we're certainly not prepared to support measures that would grant extraordinary rights to union delegates—rights of entry that are not shared, frankly, by the police. This is just remarkable. That is what this government is supporting. That would be a disaster for businesses around the country, it would be a disaster for productivity and, ultimately, it's a disaster for all Australians, because real incomes are going down and this kind of productivity-sapping change is going to make that much worse. I offer that explanation to the House of the basis on which we have moved these amendments.

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