Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

If one point Senator Abetz makes is critical it is the one for timeliness: the need for employees in Queensland to have a clearer understanding of their circumstances as they contemplate what the Queensland government forecasts may indeed be voluntary redundancies and how those circumstances may impact upon them. In response to Senator Abetz's other issues, the government's policy in relation to transfer-of-business protections has been consistently clear—that is, that employees should be able to retain the benefit of their terms and conditions of employment and their entitlements where their employer changes because their old employer has decided to sell assets or to outsource their jobs but where the work they perform stays the same. However, where an employee has already received a redundancy payment then the employee's period of service will not be counted again for the purpose of calculating the entitlement with the new employer—that is, the bill ensures that employees cannot double dip.