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

As the minister and participants in the committee would know, this is an important issue, and has always been an important issue in workplace agreements. If an agreement only has provisions to operate from approval and there is a long time gap between lodgement and approval, workers and employees can be at legal risk. You actually need a legal instrument which applies from the moment of employment under a particular agreement. If you have a very slick approval system, of course, the problem falls away because lodgement and approval can occur within a short or almost simultaneous time span. But that is not possible or guaranteed in any administrative situation.

So, on balance, I have tended to favour those who think lodgement is the better time for provisions to come into play, although that can raise great difficulties if they are subsequently not approved. I recognise that you can end up with the worst of all worlds, whichever system you go for.

I have sympathy for the intention of the Greens, but my instinct is that the government’s choice is right given where we are at with the various regulators and authorities, and the distance, as I understand it, between when lodgement occurs and when approval is likely to occur. I cannot see that improving vastly in the near future, so I am inclined to support the government’s direction here.