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

If I can take you to page 12 of our amendment sheet 8144, there is a heading: '557C Presumption where records not provided'. What it says under (2) is:

Subsection (1) does not apply if the failure to comply was due to exceptional circumstances beyond the employer's control.

But it also says:

(1) If:

  (a) in proceedings relating to a contravention by an employer of a civil remedy provision … an applicant makes an allegation in relation to a matter; and

  (b) the employer was required:

     (i) by subsection 535(1) or (2) to make and keep a record; or

     (ii) by regulations made for the purposes of subsection 535(3) to make available for inspection a record; or

     (iii) by subsection 536(1) or (2) to give a pay slip;

     in relation to the matter; and

(c) the employer failed to comply with the requirement;

the employer has the burden of disproving the allegation.

So, if they have breached the law—Senator Cash's law, that she brought in—then we are saying that the reverse onus of proof should apply. What is unfair about that?