Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Some of those matters and the difficulties that have arisen existed under Work Choices. The Fair Work Bill goes a long way to resolving many of those issues. It provides a significant improvement to Work Choices and it ensures that this government delivers on abolishing AWAs. It is about ensuring that, for those organisations, it is not about cutting conditions from their take-home pay. But, of course, some of the issues will have to be dealt with through, as I indicated, the Workplace Relations Ministers Council, because it is a precondition that the states provide and refer the power. Victoria already has. Many of those issues can be dealt with through the third bill, which is the consequential one, particularly around the Victorian referral. But if states refer all of their private sector then those issues do get, quite frankly, eliminated in the circumstances that you have outlined. One of those issues is, of course, that it does take two parties to move through that. We are reasonably confident that the states have seized on the issues that you have raised and are keen to work with us to resolve them.

The position is far from perfect; we understand that. But we are in a position of moving forward with a fair and balanced bill that includes a range of conditions which will not only underpin the employment relationship between employers and employers but also provide collective bargaining as its focus. An earlier issue that was raised by the opposition related to a particular community based organisation, which I will also have a look at. It depends a lot on the way they have been funded—the nature of their funding and where the funding has come from—as to how they interact with the system, but it is designed to be a relatively straightforward system where they can enter a collective arrangement and come up with an outcome. If you look at the difference between Work Choices and the Forward with Fairness policy and the Fair Work Bill itself, you will see a much more simplified bill with plain language. Parties should be able to negotiate an outcome around a collective agreement which suits their individual circumstances. It is the objective of the legislation to do just that.

That does not give you the strict answer that I think you are seeking, but I assure you that, from our perspective, it is a significant improvement from what the opposition wanted to continue with under Work Choices.

Question agreed to.