Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Are we dealing with the government—

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I am on the first set of government amendments. I am just putting the second one.

Question negatived.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (12:41): Senator Abetz, would you like to move opposition amendments?

You have predicted well, Chair, and that is why I jumped just before.

I will not spend too much time on this amendment that I move on behalf of the coalition. I seek leave to move opposition amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 7308 together.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate and move:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 4 (line 16), omit "has terminated", substitute "has been terminated (other than at the employee's initiative)".

(2) Schedule 1, page 54 (after line 31), after item 54, insert:

54A Paragraph 311(1)(a)

  Omit "has terminated", substitute "has been terminated (other than at the employee's initiative)".

The coalition has said on multiple occasions that we support a majority of the recommendations that were made by the review of the Fair Work Act, despite our misgivings about the reviewers themselves and the terms of reference. One example is that one of the reviewers railed against the coalition's use of the corporations power for workplace relations purposes yet, when Labor did exactly the same thing with its Fair Work legislation, he was strangely silent, unable to find anything wrong with the use of the corporations power. Once again it was one of these very transparent exercises of 'Liberal bad, Labor good'. It is one of the indications of the hand-picked, cherry-picked panel. Nevertheless, this hand-picked panel with skewed terms of reference—and a cost of $1 million to the Australian taxpayer—did make its findings. This is what they found:

Yet it does appear to the Panel that when employees voluntarily seek to transfer from one associated entity to another, they should be employed under the terms and conditions to which they would be subject as an employee of the 'new employer'. Of course, as has been shown above, in these instances the parties can apply to FWA under s. 318 for an order that the existing terms and conditions of employment of the transferring employee will not govern her or his employment with the new employer.

The question for the Panel is whether it is necessary to require the parties to apply to FWA on every occasion an employee voluntarily seeks to transfer to a similar position in a related entity. We believe it would be preferable to spare both parties the time and expense of making such an application. This could be achieved by amending s. 311(6). Such an amendment is unlikely to increase the risks of employees having their terms and conditions of employment diminished through transfers to associated entities.

Indeed, the panel went as far as to recommend that section 311 of the Fair Work Act be amended to make it clear that when employees, on their own initiative, seek to transfer to a related entity of their current employer they will be subject to the terms and conditions of employment provided by the new employer.

So I am pleased to move this amendment that would actually implement a recommendation of the government's own Fair Work Act review both within the confines of this bill and also those of the Fair Work Act. This would mean that employees who leave an employer of their own accord and then move across to a new business, where a transfer occurs, would not be entitled to move across their existing terms and conditions.

It is important to note that this amendment would still cover those employees who are forced—and I stress this, forced—to move across to a new employer to keep their jobs by the transfer of business provisions. This is something that the coalition supports, and I note that it is a principle that has been enshrined in industrial legislation for a long time. As a result, I commend the amendment to the Senate.