Mr McMULLAN(6.00 p.m.) —by leave—I move opposition amendments Nos 12 to 16:

(12)   Schedule 5, item 1, page 11 (lines 5-11), omit the item.

(13)   Schedule 5, items 2 and 3, page 11 (lines 12-18), omit the items.

(14)   Schedule 5, item 6, page 12 (lines 5-12), omit the item.

(15)   Schedule 5, item 7, page 12 (lines 13 and 14), omit the item.

(16)   Schedule 5, item 8, page 12 (lines 15-21), omit the item.

This schedule deals with changes to the unfair dismissal provisions or, as the heading states, the termination of employment. We are concerned that the changes have the capacity to restrict the access of employees to the unfair dismissal provisions, if I can use that as a generic description of our concern. There are applications which could meet the standards set in the legislation that will fall outside the standards set in this schedule and therefore would fail to be admitted.

In being concerned about this, I do not think we are opening the door to some continuous frivolous applications. There are already provisions dealing with that, and I have not seen any evidence that has been brought forward that says there is a problem arising with a flood of applications of a particular sort, a flood that needs to be stemmed with these sorts of changes. While it may suit the administrative convenience of somebody to make these changes, they are not changes without effect on people's rights, and that is where our concern arises. It is what has led us to oppose these amendments.

There is a lot of controversy about the whole issue of unfair dismissal, and that will be debated in a Senate committee on Friday. Then, at some time after that, as determined by the government, it will be debated in the Senate. They are very important questions. These are not issues of that level of magnitude. These are not issues about which we expect to see thundering threats of double dissolution.

I accept that these are matters of technicality, but I have not seen or heard or read in the explanatory memorandum or the second reading speech anything that says to me these changes which have a capacity to limit or restrict the access of people to the unfair dismissal provisions and these changes which lead to a circumstance in which some application which may be validly operable under the existing provisions will be excluded under these amendments. I do not see circumstances developing here why that proposal should be agreed to. We are therefore not sympathetic to that.

The protections that are open to workers in terms of their state provisions and their relationship to awards, AWAs and certified agreements are not changes that recommend themselves to us. I do not want to lift it to the level of higher principle that we have dealt with in the original unfair dismissal changes or, more particularly, those that have recently passed through the House and are currently before the Senate. I do not want to get into that level of concern, but at this stage nothing that I have heard recommends these changes to me. They seem to me to be in the pattern where nobody gains and some people could lose. Therefore, we do not support these amendments.