Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Murray has a whole host of questions. I will try to deal with them in order. If I forget any, I am sure that he will jump up and remind me of them. The Workplace Authority is required to have particular consideration for employers and employees with language difficulties. That would be taken care of, I am advised, by the overall legislation in the way that we deal with those matters. It will be a requirement of the employer to provide the forms to the employee, but they will also be available from the Workplace Authority and over the internet.

In relation to proposed changes to the fact sheet, as I understand the situation, it is not contemplated at this stage that regulations are necessarily needed but, in the event that it is seen as necessary to make changes to the fact sheet for whatever reason, we believe that regulation, which would be a disallowable instrument, would be the most effective and expeditious way of doing it. Keep in mind that section 154A contains the requirements for what the fact sheet deals with—and I read some of those matters out—such as information about the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard, protected award conditions, the fairness test and the roles of the Workplace Authority Director and the Workplace Ombudsman.

Going back to the issue of those who may have language difficulties, I understand that currently eight languages are specifically serviced: Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Italian, Korean, Macedonian, Spanish and Vietnamese. Then there are 24 other languages that have a notification simply referring people to a translation service. There are a whole host of those languages. I may have said ‘24 other languages’ but, looking at the list, I can see that the eight languages I referred to before are included in the 24 languages that have a reference to a translation service if people want to avail themselves of one.