Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak to all of the amendments and then vote on them separately, if that suits the chamber. Most of these amendments are relatively minor amendments. We see them as putting in place even more barriers to what we believe are the legitimate rights of workers to take industrial action. The Greens do not support item (9). The bill already places a lot of restrictions on industrial action, and we believe this item, which relates to industrial action not being permitted where a serious breach order is in place, places further restriction on industrial action and we do not support it. We support items (12) to (15), suspension or termination of industrial action on significant harm. We support these amendments as an important strengthening of the test to be applied.

My comments need to be borne in the context that we disagree with the restrictions on industrial action in the bill. As people will see from the amendments we have circulated, we have our own amendments to oppose this provision in its entirety. So, while we do support this particular amendment, we do not support all of the provisions in the bill and we will be dealing with those later. In terms of items (17) to (21), partial work bans, we support these amendments in clarifying the application of the partial work ban provisions to overtime bans. We will be supporting those particular items.