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

They are included. That's our position. The amendments go to the issue. They can cover the issue of threats, underpayment and record keeping. They go to the national employment standards and to any coercion by an employer. They go to bullying, to unfair dismissal and to unreasonable requirements to spend or pay amounts paid or payable to employees.

Quite frankly, Senator Xenophon, I don't have the same faith in the government that some would have in this place, given their record on using government agencies to attack the capacity of workers to have effective trade unions. It is a legitimate concern that we have. It's there. We've seen Work Choices, we've seen the ABCC, and we've seen the Prime Minister, the former Prime Minister and the former Minister for Employment injecting their views on how the legislation should be applied—so it's on the record about how this government works. We are confident on the advice that we have that this covers the issues that you've raised, and, to be doubly sure, we would agree to a review process to see whether the issues that the minister is raising do raise their heads. We doubt whether they would. We are pretty confident they won't arise. We believe we've got it covered here with these amendments.

The discussions that your office and my office, and you and I, have had in good faith on these issues are clear. We've put our position. We know our position is correct on this: that these are red herrings that are being raised. But, even so, if you need further comfort, we will give you that comfort by going back to a review on these issues. With the discussions that we've had—the discussions that you've had with my office, the discussions that you've had with Mr O'Connor's office and the discussions that you've had with the minister—we believe that these issues are covered. The bottom line is: the fundamental proposition of this bill is to protect vulnerable workers, and that's what we focus on. We believe that's covered in the amendments that we've worked on together.