Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was talking to this before the break. This is about inserting terms for long-distance transport workers. I was saying that I could not see a recommendation on this issue in the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations report on the Fair Work Bill 2008 provisions. Obviously this is a fairly contentious issue and there has been a fair bit of press about the blue-card system in New South Wales. By the same token, you want to make sure that there is safety and security on our roads as far as long-distance transport goes. Considering it is such a contentious issue, I strongly suggest to the committee that we send to a committee a reference—which I foreshadow—for amendment (2) to be looked at and well considered before we go about inserting it at the eleventh hour tonight. I think there are two views that need to be put forward strongly. We have heard the cases from the government and the opposition. We could spend a lot of time here continuing that debate, but I think the best way of resolving this is to send this particular amendment to a committee to be looked at and to have them report back to the Senate.