Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let us try and get to the nub of the issue here. Family First believes that this bill will pull the rug out from independents. This amendment just delays that fact. I will support the delaying of it. It is better than actually having it happen earlier. But really, we have had no assurances at all in this chamber, so senators will have to think very carefully about how they vote on the third reading, given that we have had no assurances. In actual fact, if you went on form on the reform of the Trade Practices Act just recently, you would find that the government has been very mischievous in trying to tie helping small businesses to stopping collective bargaining from proceeding. It takes one minute to pass a bill in the lower house. The Senate has made it quite clear on collective bargaining that it should go ahead but the government stubbornly refuses to go down that track because it wants to make it easier for big business to merge. The Senate would not have a bar of it and the lower house should pass that immediately. So that is the form on trade practices reform. Here we are talking about delaying it on the pretence that there may be some amendments to the Trade Practices Act arising from the Dawson review. The form so far is that it is not fair dinkum; it is not reasonable. Family First will support the delaying of it, but I certainly at this stage will not be supporting the third reading.