Senator JACINTA COLLINS (12:25 PM) —by leave—I move oppositions amendments (2) and (3):

The opposition foreshadowed in the earlier debate these two amendments, (2) and (3) on sheet 2132, and I have put our position fairly clearly. We had proposed a package of amendments to the Democrats and we had indicated to them that we believed we were making a fairly significant concession in relation to our moving, as I am now doing, items 2 and 3. I want to put very clearly on the record that the concession we were making here was compromising the principle that the commission itself should determine flow-on matters of test case type decisions. But we accepted that the Democrats appeared from their amendments to be accepting the government's position that the parliament itself should intervene and prod along the commission that they have so poorly resourced over time. So the parliament says to the commission, `On the one hand, we want to prod along your processing of matters but, on the other hand, we are not prepared to give you adequate resources in order to deal with industrial matters in our federal system.'

Senator Murray has himself expressed concerns in the past about the level of resourcing at the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. I reiterate and join with him in those concerns. In presenting this package to the Democrats, we conceded and accepted that the Democrats had accepted the government's position that they should prod along the commission and flow matters on. But we also pointed out to the Democrats that there were flaws in their proposal in that it did not seem to contain the matter sufficiently to tallies in the meat industry. So we proposed the amendments we have put here to insert, after tallies, `in the meat industry'. Despite my comments about dealing with these matters in good faith, we still believe that, if this matter is going to proceed, the Democrats amendments need to be targeted solely at the meat industry. In part, I suppose, I was surprised that when the Democrats amended their amendments they did not actually incorporate that criticism because, as I understand, they accepted the argument that these matters do need to be clearly contained to the meat industry.

Having lost amendment No. 1, which the opposition had presented to the Democrats as part of a package position involving a concession regarding amendments Nos 2 and 3, we are now left in a somewhat strange position where, for the public good and to ensure that a bill we are now likely to lose our position on proceeds in the most efficient manner, we still need to proceed with the matters in the package that we had discussion with the Democrats on. So I am moving amendments Nos 2 and 3 on that basis and await either hearing confirmation, or for the vote to determine confirmationm, of what had been discussed on this matter in the earlier debate.