Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

If I may say, that does not come as a surprise. The Greens are not necessarily known for their consistency. Despite the ILO resolutions in 2003 and 2006 specifically saying that there should be a disjunct between commercial law and industrial law, we conveniently ignore that and overlook that.

Just in relation to our very first amendment in this tranche, if you go to page 6 of the bill, there is the heading ‘Rights and responsibilities of employees, employers, organisations etc’. Anybody would be forgiven for thinking that that was dealing with the heart of industrial relations law. It then says:

Chapter 3 sets out rights and responsibilities of national system employees, national system employers, organisations and others (such as independent contractors …

So we are interweaving independent contractors and enmeshing them with employer and employee relationships, which the law has consistently said should be separate. What is more, we can even quote the ILO in support, but we do not get actual engagement in relation to that aspect.

In the other aspect that we move—and it is interesting, isn’t it?—we talk about protecting. This is Senator Ludwig’s argument: he really wants to protect independent contractors—he loves them dearly—and says we are going to be doing them a great disservice with these amendments. Let us have a look at our amendment (13). The government opposes where we would seek to add another clause referring to unlawful terms, where we suggest an unlawful term. It would read: ‘A term of an enterprise agreement is an unlawful term if it is any matter that restricts, controls or dictates the use or non-use of independent contractors.’ The government is opposing that amendment. In other words, they believe it is appropriate for an enterprise agreement to restrict, control or dictate the use or non-use of independent contractors—once again enmeshing independent contractors into the industrial relations regime.

I know where this opposition comes from. It is not from the ILO and it is not from common sense; it is from the TWU. It is quite clear. Everybody knows that there has been an ongoing issue there and that the TWU are seeking more to influence independent contractors in the trucking sector. That is the only rationale. Once again we say that our amendments—and we are unapologetic about this—are supportive of small business and supportive of independent contractors, yet the government are still paying off their $30 million fund from the trade union movement from the last election and are therefore putting into this legislation clauses that will in fact help and support the union movement, in circumstances which, as I have said before, even the ILO says should not occur. I commend the amendments to the chamber.