Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

You would be drawing a long bow to argue that a press release issued by a non-government party would somehow be used by a future court to interpret the meaning of this legislation—

An opposition senator interjecting—

I know. I am not and no-one in the government is responsible for the words that are issued by a non-government party, whether it be the Greens or anyone else. How they want to characterise things is a matter for them. What I can tell you is—and this is from the supplementary explanatory memorandum, from paragraph 24 onwards, on page 5:

New subsection 193A(6) provides that when applying the BOOT, the FWC may only have regard to patterns or kinds of work, or types of employment, if they are reasonably foreseeable at the test time.

This amendment amends subsection 193A(6) to provide that in considering what is reasonably foreseeable, the FWC must have regard to the nature of the enterprise or enterprises to which the agreement relates.

Then it, importantly, says at paragraph 27:

The FWC must have regard to the reasonably foreseeable patterns or kinds of work, or types of employment, for both existing award covered employees and foreseeable employees…

It does refer to the Coles case, which I assume is the same Coles case that you're referring to. So the Fair Work Commission would no longer be required to consider hypothetical working arrangements that are not reasonably foreseeable.