Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the question, ‘Are we in negotiations with the meat industry with respect to a labour market agreement?’ is yes. When we have an agreement, if that in fact comes about, I think the senator will be pleasantly surprised by a range of things that we would hope to see in the agreement, certainly including salaries. An agreement may be constructed in an umbrella format so that it is possible to have sub-agreements with individual companies but that will only be for the purpose of ensuring that companies who do not want other companies to know how they are structuring their staff are able to do that—that is, that they can have some confidentiality between them and the Commonwealth as to the numbers. There will be no sub-agreements at all for the purposes of watering down any conditions.