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

sheet 7954—and that is basically about restoring one of the key concerns that Labor have among the many fundamental concerns that we have about this bill, and that is oversight of what was then the Fair Work Building Commission and now, if this bill goes through, oversight of the ABCC. Senator Xenophon, I have not had a chance to look at that amendment, but you know that the oversight that was done by the Ombudsman was diminished oversight in relation to what the Fair Work Building Commission had, so this is a return, basically, to Fair Work Building Commission oversight, where the Administrative Appeals Tribunal would have oversight in relation to the operation of the Fair Work Building Commission—and, I assume, through your amendment—under the ABCC.

I understand there is another amendment, which is a Senator Hinch amendment, in terms of a two-year transition period. We will have a bit of a look at both those amendments right now. I am not sure if we have the two-year transition amendment yet. I think it is still in the system somewhere. Once we get a look at that, I do not think we would need to spend a lot of time considering supporting them. We would, I think, be inclined to support those two amendments. We just want to have a look at the details, so we would not be holding the process up on them. Certainly in relation to the area that we are discussing now—that is, amendment (1) on sheet number 8003—I would like to indicate that we will not support that. We will be looking to deal with these issues on sheet 8015. I might just leave my comments at that. We can then deal with the other amendments that are before the committee.