Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Again, I just say, Minister, that the incentive for the employees and the unions—that is, the union representing the employees—is clear. The incentive for the employer, as you outlined, probably gives a bit of strength to the argument that we have been putting, and that is that the incentive for the employer would be to hang on and not make any concessions until the employer gets the agreement that it wants to put to the commission after the six-month period. If you have, as you have indicated, prevailing pay and conditions as the benchmark, that means that workers would not be in a position through that bargaining process to improve on the prevailing pay and conditions. Is that not so?