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

We know what the Office of Best Practice Regulation wrote to me after that. My office undertook an FOI request, and the FOI request blows the argument of the parliamentary secretary out of the water, because the email chain clearly discloses the concern of the department. Sure, they finally signed off on it. But to suggest that this was all hunky-dory and that there was no intervention by the minister's office is not to tell us exactly what happened. The documents I was able to obtain under the Freedom of Information request expose that. I must say that I have raised this with the Office of Best Practice Regulation at Senate estimates—that their letter to me was not the sort of independent, full response that one would normally have hoped for from a body such as that.

In relation to the parliamentary secretary saying that she was not fully aware, or aware, of when the Law Council expressed its concerns: the Law Council did make a submission to the Senate inquiry, and they have set out the principles in no uncertain terms. But, of course, that will be of no concern, because if they can stack out Fair Work Australia even further then that is what they will do.

I ask the government: does the government accept the report of the Fair Work review panel as a considered body of work, and does it have the confidence of the government?