Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was not actually intending to speak to this motion to refer the provisions of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013 to the Senate Education and Employment References Committee, but I was listening to some of the observations that were being made from the other side of the chamber, and that inspired me to come in and make a couple of observations.

I sat on this inquiry last week. I sit on the Selection of Bills Committee. What I could not believe when I saw this reference, which necessitated me looking into the precedents for this, was the abuse of process. This is furthering it. It is a total abuse of process. The purpose of the Selection of Bills Committee and referrals to committees is so that inquiries can be convened in relation to bills and they can be dealt with in the most efficient and expeditious way. I sat through that process. I note that the senators on the other side of the chamber seemed to prosecute the case against the bill, and they were talking about that as opposed to why there was a critical need to have another inquiry. My colleague Senator McKenzie has gone through the background and precedents for this, but it took a lot of homework to come up with the last time that this happened. It really does militate against the proper process that we all, with goodwill and good faith, work together to try and implement.

Listening to the contributions that have been made, the one complaint that seems to be coming from the other side of the chamber all the time is about the lack of time for consultation in relation to this. I would like to remind those on the other side of the chamber that, when the then Minister for Workplace Relations, Mr Shorten, proposed amendments to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act in 2012, the Senate committee at that time had five days to deal with it—five days from the day of referral to reporting, with one very short hearing on a Friday morning, at the end of a sitting week in Canberra. So there were five days from the date of referral to the date that that report was to be tabled in parliament.

We hear—and I just heard the senator discussing it when I came into the chamber—about the disclosure requirements and the fact that some organisations, including the Australian Industry Group, whom the senator spoke of at length, have complained about them. May I direct her to the fact that these disclosure requirements were contained in the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2012, which was introduced by the former minister, Mr Bill Shorten, and will come into effect on 1 January 2014. The complaints also go to the requirements in relation to the Corporations Act, and there is the suggestion that they go beyond that. If that was such an issue, why wasn't it raised in the Labor caucus in 2012? Why has it taken this length of time to suddenly have these concerns about the requirements that supposedly go above the Corporations Act? We did not hear about them back in 2012, but suddenly we seem to be hearing about them today. It is just breathtaking, this absolute hypocrisy that we see time and time again, and we have seen it today in relation to other matters in the chamber. I can only suggest that this is an absolute abuse of process.

Debate interrupted.