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

I was a bit annoyed, I might say—which is not common with me—at the misrepresentation of the minister about the negotiations between the Democrats and the coalition government with respect to the Workplace Relations Act. I will summarise my understanding of what the minister said. He said that he has been advised that no representation was made at that time, for reasons to be given, with respect to the no-disadvantage test. Those recent questions and answers were not foretold, so the only source of that advice—and I am convinced that they did not give it—would be the advisers at the minister’s shoulder. None of those advisers—and I can see their faces—were involved in the negotiations. None of them sat—and neither did Senator Abetz—in rooms which were occupied by me and the then minister, Peter Reith, who was extremely efficient, professional and polite. He was never petty and was always to the point and well argued. I admired his negotiating ability in stance and capacity. At times we were joined by advisers. At times those advisers were expanded to include government officials. Those meetings were not recorded on tape or on Hansard.

There were some written notes at times, and they varied, so it would be impossible for the former minister, me, advisers or anybody else to remember everything that was said or was passed between us. But what I do remember is this: we knew, when the global no-disadvantage test had to be agreed upon, that global no-disadvantage test was an appraisal of all the allowable award matters and that by and large Australian workplace agreements—the pre Work Choices agreements—had to be at least as good as or better than those allowable matters taken as a whole. To arrive at that decision of either accepting or rejecting them, the Employment Advocate would have to come to a set of reasons as to why they either complied or did not comply. It was a perfectly commonsense outcome. The fact is that we did not write it into the legislation. I cannot recall the detail of it all, but what I do not like is the minister smugly asserting—he was not there; he was a backbencher and was not even involved as a chair of the Senate committee or in any other way—that he knows whether the matter was discussed. That is what he is saying. I can assure you that reasons were discussed, but I cannot recall the reason why they were not finally put in. I would have to go back to my notes, and I would have to ask former Minister Peter Reith. I will say again for the record that, in the whole conduct of Peter Reith’s negotiations with us, I found him to be extremely professional and never smug or petty.

The second thing I want to come back to with respect to these two provisions is that they say ‘must state the reasons’. I said that that could be a clause, a sentence or a paragraph. The minister immediately came back and said that saying that something is or is not fair might be a reason but it creates cost, bureaucracy and so on. If in examining the issue somebody arrives at the opinion that the agreement does or does not comply with the legislation, that is a reason. The virtue of the opposition’s suggestion is that it allows those reasons to be relevant to the matter concerned and to be as short or as long as necessary.

The attitude of the government to every amendment that comes to this place is to reject it because it was not written by them. That is the attitude, unless Senator Joyce has the gumption and the courage to stand out against them, in which case they have to take a different view. The real reason the government is rejecting these amendments is that they were written by the Labor Party. The Labor Party could write an amendment giving every member of the government a million-dollar bonus and you would still reject it because it was written by the Labor Party. You have a visceral, naked, aggressive, ugly repulsion of anything that the opposition puts forward as an amendment in this place. Maybe you have accepted one opposition amendment, but you tell me of any others you have accepted since 1 July 2005. If it comes from them, it is bad—I think that is the attitude that lies behind your rejection of these sorts of amendments. The problem is that we then get to a situation where we never examine anything on its merits. You can reject the opposition’s amendments for good, sound policy reasons—and I think there might be good, sound policy reasons to reject the second set of these amendments—but the principles of reasons and review they outline are perfectly reasonable propositions. You might resist and reject the way in which they are worded, but you should not reject the principles they espouse.