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

The Greens do not support the provision in the bill for new representation orders and consequently it will come as no surprise that we do not support the opposition amendments. As I said in my speech on the second reading, the purported reasoning for these new orders is to deal with the new rules for right of entry and the fears expressed by business that demarcation disputes between unions would increase as a result. However, we note that the new orders are not limited to right of entry disputes; indeed, there may not even need to be any actual dispute at all. We note the amendments the government moved in the House that clarify the dispute need only be threatened, pending or probable and, like the senators who contributed to the majority report of the committee inquiry, we do not believe additional representation orders are necessary. We believe they will have the potential to breach the rights of workers to freedom of association and therefore believe they do not have a place in our industrial relations system. So, as we do not support the provisions in the bill, we will not support these amendments.