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

One of the issues that I'm having—and this is why we will continue to ask these questions, and I'm glad the answer is that it's up to the Fair Work Commission—is that the government keeps saying this bill is meant to make it simpler and easier for businesses to bargain.

I am actually asking you questions on behalf of employers in this country. I didn't dream these up; employers in Australia did. To date every single answer that they are being provided with—because they're listening in—is: 'The government's not making it easier. There's nothing further for you to read. Go through all of these questions. There's nothing further for you to read.' I can read from the explanatory memorandum, but that's actually where all of the questions are coming from. I can look to Minister Burke, who insults the opposition in question time. That actually doesn't help me because you won't formally rule something in or rule something out. You keep saying you're making it simpler for business, but what we are now working through—and we've only been here for an hour and a half, so we've got a long way to go—is: 'It is being left to the discretion of the Fair Work Commission.'

Regarding geographical location, we will get onto what you've said. We're going to rule out coast to coast because that's going to help me in Western Australia—ruling out that anyone in the Western Australian mining industry is going to be compelled to bargain with anyone on, you've said, the east coast. I'll get your definition of the east coast, because that is also going to be very important going forward by way of statutory interpretation.

Going back to geographical location, it is being left to the discretion of the Fair Work Commission. I've got a whole series of questions provided by the Western Australian mining industry. Does this legislation set a distance limit when considering a shared geographical location as a common interest? We've ruled out coast to coast, so I also need to understand how you ruled out coast to coast by way of geographical location. I need to understand why, because then we can actually start to work backwards. We've now got a distance—coast to coast.