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

As I understand it we are dealing with division 2, object 3:

(f) achieving productivity and fairness through an emphasis on enterprise-level collective bargaining underpinned by simple good faith bargaining obligations.

The coalition have proposed an amendment to the objects of the Fair Work Bill. The amendment would, in effect, replace a reference to ‘achieving productivity and fairness through enterprise-level collective bargaining’ to ‘achieving productivity and fairness through workplace-level bargaining’. We do not support that amendment.

The concept of enterprise bargaining is, quite frankly, longstanding in workplace relations when referring to collective bargaining. Like the Workplace Relations Act, the Fair Work Bill recognises that an enterprise or business can extend beyond just one place of work. In Forward with Fairness, Labor undertook to retain the concept of enterprise-level bargaining—and I underline the words ‘Labor undertook to retain the concept of enterprise-level bargaining’—noting that such bargaining would be available to ‘a single business or employer, a group of related businesses operating as a single business or a discrete undertaking, site or project’. I underlined those words because the Workplace Relations Act 1996, at section 3(b), says:

… ensuring that, as far as possible, the primary responsibility for determining matters affecting the employment relationship rests with the employer and employees at the workplace or enterprise level …

It is not a new concept; it is a concept that has been around for some time, and we think it should remain. That is why we undertook to retain that concept of enterprise-level bargaining—for those reasons I have enunciated.