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

I support this amendment for entirely different reasons to those put forward by Senator Siewert. As readers of the inquiry report would know, my recommendation 2 said:

That Labor design an individual statutory employment agreement system as an alternative to individual common-law contracts, that has the following characteristics:

• the statutory provisions are fair;
• fairness provisions are oversighted and enforced by an active regulator;
• the individual statutory agreements are underpinned by a credible safety net of wages and conditions;
• individual statutory agreements are subject to a global no-disadvantage test referenced back to the applicable award; and
• fast low-cost disputation processes are available.

That being so I wanted to see a continuation of the individual statutory agreement stream, albeit much fairer than the one we have had in the past. So I was particularly pleased with government amendment (1) and I said before question time, rather selfishly, I think, from the perspective of Western Australia, that it is an excellent amendment. I know it is one much desired by employers and employees in my state. I think Senator Siewert has a point because now we have the protection of that amendment (1), which means an ITEA can be made with a previous employee provided the former employee’s employment was not brought to an end in order to re-engage the former employee on the ITEA. So if it expires at the nominal date and the employee genuinely wants to strike an agreement for an ITEA with the employer, I think that is a good thing. It reinforces the proper negotiation and agreements and allows the conditions of employment to be updated. I am sure my motivation is different from yours but I do like the symmetry of what you have done. I think it is better legally, better ethically and better from the point of view of modernising and updating employment arrangements between individuals and their employers. Of course, it would not be as attractive without government amendment (1), which again I compliment the government on for introducing. So we certainly support this amendment.