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

Minister, returning to the fact sheet that will be provided, I need some clarification—and I am sure Senator Marshall will want to follow through on this. As you know, Proposed subsection 154A(1) says that the Workplace Authority Director must, by notice published in the Gazette, issue a document called the workplace relations fact sheet. Proposed subsection 154A(3) says the regulations may prescribe other matters relating to the content, form or manner of providing the workplace relations fact sheet. As I understand it, the regulations, in this context, mean the workplace regulations generally, which are disallowable. If those regulations are disallowable and they actually refer to the content—which, of course, would be the wording, as I understand it—that would always override the Gazette. So I would think that the gazettal would follow the regulations—I would expect that to happen—unless there were no regulations referring to this. Do you see my problem? You have got two forms of publishing. My question is: will there be regulations—or don’t you know that yet—and, if there will be, am I right in believing that they would precede the gazettal but, because regulations are disallowable, the form and content would indeed be subject to parliamentary disallowance? I might be conceiving a conflict here; I am not sure.

The other brief question I have on these issues is whether the onus is initially on an employer. As I understand the law as written—and bear in mind that I have not had long to deal with it—the onus is on the employer as a matter of course. But, in the early distribution of these forms, is the onus on the Workplace Authority to get the forms to every employer or is the onus on every employer to go and get these forms themselves? Again, I stress that not all employers are on the internet and have a printer or are fully cognisant of the English language. They might not know that this is happening and would not necessarily be able to get hold of these forms in the time frame required. Those are the two extra questions I would like a response to.