Mr McCLELLAND (11:27 AM) —by leave—I move:

(12) Schedule 1, item 58, page 28 (after line 20), after subsection (1), insert:

(1A) An application under subsection (1) may be made by a person or trade union on behalf of an affected person with the consent of the affected person.

(13) Schedule 1, item 58, page 28 (after line 20), after subsection (1A), insert:

(1B) Where 2 or more persons are affected persons in relation to a complaint terminated by the President under section 46PH, in respect of which the President has given a notice to any person under subsection 46PH(2) in relation to the termination, one or more of those persons as representing some or all of them may make an application to the Federal Court, alleging unlawful discrimination by one or more of the respondents to the terminated complaint.

(1C) A representative proceeding may be commenced whether or not all the members of the representative group are seeking the same relief.

(14) Schedule 1, item 58, page 28 (lines 21 and 22), omit the note.

Opposition amendment No. 12 relates to representative complaints by a union or another organisation. Again, this focuses on the costs issue of these Federal Court proceedings in particular, where the costs can be prohibitive, with filing fees, transcript fees, and legal costs generally, and in circumstances where the amount recovered in these cases is traditionally quite modest. It is the case that, on a simple cost-benefit analysis, a complainant simply may not wish to incur the costs of pursuing the complaint.

So in those circumstances, particularly where so much discrimination relates to allegations of workplace discrimination, it is appropriate in our view to enable a registered trade union or, indeed, another appropriate organisation, to represent a complainant to bring the matter of the alleged discrimination before the commission and in the Federal Court. That amendment, we say, is significant, and is a significant access to justice issue which may not otherwise occur.

Opposition amendments Nos 13 and 14 relate to this concept of class actions. Again, class actions are very important in this area because of the cost to individual complainants. We say that, whereas the current provisions in the Federal Court of Australia Act require seven complainants before there is a legitimate class action, that should be reduced to the current provisions that apply in the commission, whereby two people can initiate a class action. They were concerns raised by the Human Rights and Discrimination Committee of the Combined Community Legal Centres Group of New South Wales. We think those concerns were legitimately raised by an organisation at the grass roots in trying to advance these issues and the amendments should appropriately be included as part of the bill.