Mr BEVIS (5:46 PM) —The problem on this side is not that we do not understand what this Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Busi ness says; like most Australians, we just do not believe it. Let me deal with a couple of the issues the minister has just dealt with. With regard to Defence Force leave, the minister refers to the provisions in the Defence Act in relation to this. If he bothered to do the investigation, he would know that there has never been a prosecution as a result of the provisions in that act. The Department of Defence do not want to use it to enforce the provisions because they do not think they can make it work. That is the reason.

I can tell you that, with some personal experience of having sought to prosecute such a case where a person was in the reserves and was victimised in their employment, the very persistent, strong view expressed by the Defence Force was that they wanted us to jettison that reservist rather than access the clause to which you refer.

Mr Reith —Why didn't you change the Defence Act?

Mr BEVIS —If you have a look at what the former Labor government proposed in relation to this, it was to do that as well. The problem that you have at the moment is that the great bulk of reservists actually do rely upon their employment conditions for their leave. There are about 152—or there used to be before your 1996 legislation—awards that had Defence Force leave in them. You have managed, as a result of your 1996 legislation, to strip all of those away and, to my knowledge, only one has been resurrected—I might say against the wishes of the employer.

If you do not take our assessment of how that has been detrimental to defence, you might take the views of the defence department. Your government was advised in 1996, when you did this, as follows:

As reserve members constitute approximately 40 per cent of the ADF work force, their continued availability for training as currently provided for in awards, agreements and company personnel policies is essential to the Australian Defence Force capability. Existing awards have been important in providing institutional support for reserves through the inclusion of provisions which allow leave for military training purposes for members of the reserve.

That is the formal minute your government got from the defence department. You ignored it and, for ideological reasons, you overrode the defence department's requirements to strip all awards out of Defence Force leave.

You referred also to jury service and said, `Be honest about it,' which is an interesting comment coming from this minister. Being honest about anything, for this minister, is a bit of a challenge. He said that there were other provisions for jury service. Let us compare them. You have a base legislative entitlement that the state government provides where you are talking of people being paid $15, $20 or $30 a day for jury service or you have the award, which guarantees them full pay. That is the trade-off, and this minister would have us believe that, when we say he is going to abolish paid jury service leave, we are somehow gilding the lily. I can see all the workers out there saying, `I really think I would rather get paid $20 as the base rate that this state provides for me as a juror. I'll take that $20 and I don't want my paid leave. I don't want my normal day's pay. I'll give that up because Mr Reith says it's a good idea.' You go and find me some punters out there who want to follow you down that path, Minister.

The simple fact of life is that your process contained in this bill we are seeking to change here with these amendments is not about simplification and it is not about modernisation, both of which you know full well the former Labor government started and which this opposition supports and indeed the trade union movement supports. What this bill does and what your 1996 bill did was not to seek to modernise but rather to strip clauses out of awards. They seek to reduce the minimum benchmark. That is no surprise to any of us because in your confidential letter to the Prime Minister last year, when you set out your plan for three years, you actually complained to the Prime Minister that the basic wage adjustments that the Industrial Relations Commission had given were too generous. You proposed setting up an alternative tribunal made up of people that you could appoint who might come up with a different answer. Your agenda for reducing the minimum standards of Australian workers is plain. It is in black and white and in formal advice to the Prime Minister. This bill and these award stripping provisions are just another aspect of it.