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

Because my portfolio—I was even guilty of it then, when I listed out the business groups—collapses into a world of acronyms very quickly, I will explain the concept of what the COIL is. Under the Fair Work Act, there is a national workplace relations committee. It involves equal numbers of employer groups and union representatives. It has existed for a long time, regardless of who the minister of the day has been from each side of politics. It has a subcommittee known as the Committee on Industrial Legislation, referred to as COIL. What happens at that meeting is that, when government legislation is introduced, before it becomes public, it goes to that committee on a completely confidential basis. To my knowledge, that trust, no matter what people think of the legislation, hasn't been broken.

What then happens is that you'll get people—under the other side of politics, it's more likely to be the unions; under this government, most recently, you'll get it from some of the business groups—who will say, 'Okay, first of all, I don't want you to do this at all. If you were to, these are the legislative problems with how you're dealing with it.' That's what COIL is and how it works. That's possible for government legislation.

When we are dealing with an amendment that is coming from the crossbench in either house, whether it be the Senate or the House of Representatives, the government cannot present, with any certainty, what is going to be considered in the parliament, because it is the right of the crossbench member to choose their own amendment. That's the reason why the Committee on Industrial Legislation doesn't get consulted on crossbench amendments, nor can it be consulted on crossbench amendments. It is simply because it is the right of the crossbench to move the amendments in whatever form they choose.

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