Senator JACINTA COLLINS (10:16 AM) —What we are dealing with here is, essentially, the government's key amendments in the bill in relation to costs, a regime that the Labor Party does not support. In respect of this particular amendment, our understanding is that the Democrats pick up the lot, except for clause 4, dealing with the effect of a conciliation certificate on the decision to award costs. We generally oppose in principle the provision for costs in this jurisdiction. The purpose of this jurisdiction was to have a no cost, low formality jurisdiction to deal with industrial issues. Perhaps the first mistake was to let the lawyers in, but there is no way we should be countenancing the trend towards legality that legal costs awards encourage. The reality is that the commission loses the very things that make it attractive with this trend towards legality, and the Labor Party at least will try to defend the informal and accessible nature of our industrial tribunals.

We respect the fact the Democrats are attempting to provide some balance, but our position in this particular instance is that this attempt will only have a fairly marginal—if not somewhat questionable—effect and so, on this occasion, unlike the next two amendments, we will not support the change.