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

The Democrats support the view that awards should be limited in extent. We supported the fact that federal awards were reduced from an open-ended approach to 20 allowable award matters. We now think that, in view of the way modern industrial relations is progressing, the safety net will permit further reduction in allowable award matters. In our own policy we think that 16 is the appropriate number. Having got to that position, you then have to ask: what should those allowable award matters be? In our view, redundancy should be one of those. It is a vital and integral part of the safety net that should apply.

What I like about Senator Fielding’s approach is that it replicates the Democrats long-term approach that, firstly, redundancy is important and should be protected in these ways; and, secondly, it should not be overly prescriptive—in other words, the development of the actual terms of redundancy should be relevant to the industry, relevant to the enterprise and relevant to the individual. The statute should not seek to be overly prescriptive in that area; it should merely require that redundancy pay be properly protected. So, in view of our long championing of this particular aspect of core conditions that should apply to Australians in a First World society, we of course do support these amendments.