Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

He did. You say it in such a pejorative way! He is a regular commentator on Leon Byner's show on FIVEaa, where he gives a pretty measured view, being critical of both sides of politics.

Notwithstanding that he committed the cardinal sin of working for the Gillard government, he said this to the inquiry:

The High Court has said in a series of decisions that it is perfectly okay for federal law to regulate the wages and employment conditions of state government workers or state government agency workers but there are limits. One of the limits articulated in a 1995 decision involving the Australian Education Union and also the Victorian government, as it happens, was that the Commonwealth cannot tell a state who or how many people it employs to do work. There is an argument that would be exactly what the Commonwealth would be doing with this legislation; it would be having a federal body, the Fair Work Commission, in effect overwriting the decisions of a state government body like the CFA when it decides how it wants to structure its relations with both its employees and its volunteers.

I know the government has said in broad terms that there are no issues about this, but that is a very pointed criticism by Professor Stewart. What does the government say about that specific criticism about the bill's constitutionality?