Senator JACINTA COLLINS(12.56 p.m.) —In response to that, I think at least for the record I need to highlight and challenge what is obviously the department's advice that consent orders are not entirely analogous to certified agreements, because in some cases they are. I would challenge the officers of the department to actually review some of the transcripts of hearings of matters which determined whether it was possible to proceed with an enterprise bargaining agreement under an application as a consent award. That sort of review would highlight that in some cases there is very little difference, apart from the fact of the past award coverage and the employer's preference. In some cases it may even just go down to the fact of the employer's preference.

In a sense, the approach that the commission took is that where the parties came together to the commission with an enterprise agreement and generally indicated that it was their preference that it be a consent award rather than a certified agreement, that is basically what happened. These are the people that are now going to be penalised. I heard the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Reith) say last week that the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996 was about agreement making. Why are we penalising those people who, several years ago, were busy agreement making? It is simply being done under what I would say is poor departmental advice that they are not entirely analogous. I am sorry: that excuse is not good enough.

Apart from that, the further explanation which Senator Campbell gave—that there can be a negotiation process over the period of time—ignores the logic that the Democrats argued about why certified agreements should not be able to be terminated at their expiry date. The same logic, I am afraid, applies to consent awards. I am interested, however, in Senator Campbell's comments about unfairness: that if there is unfairness, the parties can rely on the exceptional matters. I must say that this is the first occasion on which I have heard any description of any particular circumstance which might fit into an exceptional matter. I am pleased to hear that much at least, but I still must say that it is not good enough.

The Democrats have not responded to several requests in regard to this matter. I would have to say it will essentially be on their heads that up to 200,000 retail workers will be seriously disadvantaged in their negotiating position when they face their boss and their boss says, `Why should I? Why should I bother? If I just do nothing I can have all of these conditions removed.'