Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Australian Greens amendments (4), (5), (6), (7), (8) and (11) on sheet 5449 together:

(4)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 13 (line 31), omit “that”, substitute “to”.

(5)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 13 (line 34) to page 14 (line 5), omit subsection 346K(1), substitute:

        (1)    This Subdivision applies to all workplace agreements.

(6)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 14 (line 9), omit “to which this Subdivision applies”.

(7)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 14 (after line 28), at the end of paragraph 346M(1)(a), add:

                 (iv)    if the agreement is a union greenfields agreement or a multiple-business agreement that would be a union greenfields agreement but for subsection 331(1)—the organisation or organisations bound by the agreement;

(8)    Schedule 1, item 2, page 15 (after line 9), at the end of paragraph 346M(2)(a), add:

                 (iv)    if the agreement is a union greenfields agreement or a multiple-business agreement that would be a union greenfields agreement but for subsection 331(1)—the organisation or organisations bound by the agreement;

(11)  Schedule 1, item 2, page 17 (line 4), at the end of subsection 346Q(2), add:

           ; (d)    if the agreement is a union greenfields agreement or a multiple-business agreement that would be a union greenfields agreement but for subsection 331(1)—the organisation or organisations bound by the agreement.

These amendments relate to the issues around agreements operating from approval. Under the current arrangements in the bill, certain of the agreements operate from approval—that is, once they are approved by the Workplace Authority then the agreement passes the NDT—and other agreements come into operation on lodgement, which is quite confusing. We received a number of submissions about this during the committee inquiry.

Those agreements that come into operation on lodgement—that is, new employer ITEAs and greenfields agreements—have the potential to require the compensation provisions to be accessed if the agreement does fail the NDT. For employees on ITEAs, we believe this is a particular problem. The compensation provisions are quite complicated and they are not easy for individuals to access. We believe it is much more logical for all agreements to come into operation on approval and bypass the need for a complicated compensation process.

There is an issue around backlog and timeliness of approvals which we believe is a matter of administration and should be dealt with in that way, not through two different types of agreement regimes. As I said, we believe that makes the act much more complicated, and the present system actually replicates the process it goes through now, the fairness test, which we believe is unfair and is generally acknowledged to be unfair.