Senator MACKAY(11.03 a.m.) —I have a number of amendments to this bill in the following terms:

(5)   Schedule 3, items 1 to 5, page 6 (lines 6 to 29), TO BE OPPOSED .

(6)   Schedule 3, item 7, page 7 (lines 6 to 12), TO BE OPPOSED .

(7)   Schedule 3, item 8, page 7 (lines 13 to 23), TO BE OPPOSED .

(8)   Schedule 3, item 14, page 8 (lines 4 to 12), TO BE OPPOSED .

These amendments have the effect of opposing all proposals as printed and inserting a provision, which is amendment (9), whereby the Industrial Registrar must publish the reasons for approving or refusing an AWA or a variation agreement or for terminating an AWA. Determinations published must still ensure that the identity of a party to an AWA is not disclosed.

This goes back to comments made with regard to previous Democrat amendments. As I indicated before, we have concerns with regard to the Employment Advocate in the areas of secrecy, the lack of accountability, the excessive secrecy, the lack of scrutiny. For these reasons we regard any extensions of the powers of the Office of the Employment Advocate as unacceptable.

We have had somewhat illuminating discussions in the estimates hearings with regard to this in terms of the opposition continually attempting to get access to information as to what the Office of the Employment Advocate is doing. We have had enormous difficulty there. We wish to extend the principle of transparency to every area we can, and this includes the Industrial Registrar.

Essentially, we are enshrining in our amendments an in-principle position which we will be pursuing in these areas. Given the behaviour of the Employment Advocate's office so far, we are not confident that only minor filing requirements, filing irregularities, will be waived. They are not defined in the legislation.

I understand that Senator Campbell indicated yesterday during the second reading debate that they would be minor. However, they are not defined as being minor. We do not know what they are. In the estimates process the Employment Advocate indicated that one of the concerns he has with what he regarded as excessive bureaucracy on this is the fact that a number of employees had not in fact signed. We do not regard that as minor and we are not intending to pursue that principle with regard to the Industrial Registrar.