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

To be clear, we are talking about an object provision, which is different from going into the specifics of a particular clause within the bill. Nonetheless, if you look at the definitions contained within the Fair Work Bill, it does include the definition of ‘enterprise agreement’; it specifies on page 15 what that means. I do not think I can add more than that to assist, in that we do not think that the amendment you are putting forward is reasonable. The government do not support the amendment. The concept of enterprise bargaining is a longstanding one in workplace relations when referring to collective bargaining. As I have said, it is in the principal object section of the Workplace Relations Act 1996, and it continues to be in this one. That is why we undertook to retain the concept of enterprise-level bargaining.