Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd just like to say that I will be supporting the government on the amendments. It is called the protecting vulnerable workers bill. But I also will be supporting some of the Labor amendments with the backing of Senator Xenophon. As I understand it, what the government wants to do with this is give the Fair Work Ombudsman new powers to broaden its investigative powers to include new evidence-gathering powers, including compulsory questioning powers, and to provide coercive powers to the FWO to, as they put it, achieve positive investigation outcomes which, of course, would force workers to speak, and they could be fined if they don't. As I understand it, Senator Cameron, your side want to add a layer of oversight to this through the AAT, which isn't always a wonderful institution. It would involve the FWO requesting permission from the AAT to use coercive powers. I hope you'll correct me if I'm wrong, but the FWO would then have to give reasons to the AAT about why they want to use these coercive powers, why they want to question somebody and what they want to question them about. If the AAT did grant the powers, then the FWO could use them. Following the use of those powers, the Commonwealth Ombudsman would then review the FWO and the use of their powers to make sure it had been done properly.

Also, as I understand it, some of these amendments want to limit the scope of these investigative powers to some of the following: the underpayment of wages or other monetary entitlements of employees, the unreasonable deduction of amounts owed to employees, the placing of unreasonable requirements on employees to spend or pay amounts paid or payable to employees, the unfair dismissal of an employee, the bullying of a worker at work, the unlawful discrimination of a person in relation to employment, a contravention of a provision of the National Employment Standards or the coercion of an employee by an employer. So I just want to say that I do support the government amendments to this. I also support some of the ones, especially this one, being put forward by Senator Cameron in association with Senator Xenophon, and I hope we get on with it and get it done quickly.