Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Just moving on, in terms of Senator Lambie's statement to the Senate, I want to preface every single question that is being asked—I will say it by myself, but I'm sure that Senator Lambie, Senator Tyrrell and Senator Roberts will agree. I just want to remind the chamber and, in particular, the minister that the official records of parliamentary debates, which include questions in the Committee of the Whole stage, are a vital source of information when it comes to statutory interpretation. As Senator Lambie has rightly pointed out, at 6.23 pm the government's amendments to the most significant piece of industrial legislation that this place has seen for decades were circulated. One might say the government was treating the Senate with contempt, but that would be for some to say. There is significant uncertainty about how this legislation could be interpreted. Yes, we will be here till 11 pm, because there are so many questions that need to be asked and answered properly for the purposes of statutory interpretation going forward, and we will resume again tomorrow, and it is open-ended, but, due to the significant uncertainty about how this legislation could be interpreted—which, again, one may say, appears to be by deliberate design—it is important that we as a Senate, on behalf of every employer and employee in Australia, get clear and concise answers to provide guidance to those interpreting the government's legislative intent.

In that regard, to be very clear on the Hansard record, I will quote from section 1 5AB of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 :

(2) Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), the material that may be considered in accordance with that subsection in the interpretation of a provision of an Act includes:

…    …    …

(e) any explanatory memorandum relating to the Bill containing the provision, or any other relevant document, that was laid before, or furnished to the members of, either House of the Parliament by a Minister before the time when the provision was enacted;

(f) the speech made to a House of the Parliament by a Minister on the occasion of the moving by that Minister of a motion that the Bill containing the provision be read a second time in that House;

(g) any document (whether or not a document to which a preceding paragraph applies) that is declared by the Act to be a relevant document for the purposes of this section; and

(h) any relevant material in the Journals of the Senate, in the Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives or in any official record o f debates in the Parliament or either House of the Parliament.

So I say to the Senate chamber that is the way in which I will be approaching each question that I ask.

The questions I ask are being asked on behalf of employers in Australia. This bill will pass the Senate—we know that. Senator Pocock has given the government the vote that it needs. But after the bill passes the Senate, it goes back to the House. It will pass through the House of Representatives. The people of Australia deserve to know that employers are able to properly interpret the legislation and, in particular, the hundreds of questions that are going to be asked in committee stage that, to date, the government and the department either have been unable to or have failed to provide answers to.

In that regard, before I turn to questions, in relation to the amendments that have been circulated by the minister on behalf of the government, can I ask: when were these amendments finalised—on what date and at what time?