Senator WOODLEY(10.58 a.m.) —I would like to go back to the previous question that is on the running sheet. I think we are going to deal with Senator Brown's amendments separately. I would like to indicate that the Democrats' amendments 2 and 3 are identical to the Labor Party's amendments 2 and 3. So, clearly, I am not going to press mine but I support the Labor Party's amendments. I certainly do not want to hold up the Senate.

Just let me make some brief comments. These amendments deal with part 1 of the bill and they will clarify some of the provisions relating to employer contact certificates. If you can fix up employer contact certificates, we would like to try to do that—at least make them a little less severe. That is why we have moved this amendment ourselves and now support the Labor Party amendment.

We have great concerns over the use of employer contact certificates just in principle. But we will not be opposing this path as it does have some beneficial aspects to its operation. We are concerned, however, that if employer contact certificates must be used, then they should only be issued to people whom the department has good reason to believe may not be undertaking sufficient job search. As such, we believe it would be inappropriate to impose these requirements on a person who has simply lodged a claim for newstart. The amendments, therefore, simply remove the words `or has lodged a claim for' from this part 1.