Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I do not want to rehash what was a very strongly motivated debate on the creation of the building commission and so on. I remind the chamber that the Democrats strongly support a single national unitary system of industrial relations law—we think that is a good advance for Australia—but we do not support the form in which it has emerged. The Work Choices legislation goes far too far in terms of what we consider to be good, sustainable principles of industrial relations law. Attached to that view is the need for a national regulator. The one thing labour laws lack in this country is an independent regulator. A tribunal or an industrial relations commission, whether state or federal, is not a regulator in the sense that I mean it.

We are hopeful that, when and if the Labor Party becomes the government of Australia, it will close the Office of Workplace Services, as well as that of the building commissioner, and instead create a new, independent, national regulator for workplace matters. It is important that we have such a body created. We do not support industry specific regulation of the type that is indicated by the building construction industry set-up at present. That being said, amendments (8) and (9) principally look to be machinery matters that are consequential to the Independent Contractors Bill 2006.