Senator WONG (8:52 PM) —I want to place on record a couple of points: the first is that Labor supports these amendments. The second point is to indicate to the chamber that the anti-union contribution that the minister falls back on as his kind of reflexive contribution in so many of these debates in relation to occupational health and safety and in relation to industrial relations more generally has just been demonstrated again. The provision that he is so worried about or so opposed to includes something as simple as providing a list of health and safety representatives to an employee or an employee representative, whether that is a union or some other representative.

Senator Abetz —No.

Senator WONG —That is what item 8 inserts, which is one of the amendments that the minister addressed. You can say ‘no’ but that is actually what you said.

Given what we know about the importance of tripartite arrangements, given what we know about how effective those have been in improving health and safety in the workplace and given what we know about the unacceptably high incidence of workplace injury in this country, it is extraordinary that the minister’s best response to a suggestion from the Democrats, supported by the opposition, about giving people a list of who is a representative in their workplace is the kind of response that says, ‘We do not want unions to have a privileged role.’

Senator Abetz —That is just wrong.

Senator WONG —The minister summed it up in his remarks or perhaps earlier in the committee debate—I think this is right—when he used the phrase ‘that we are about removing unions’ privileged involvement’. That is the agenda here.

The agenda is not how we set up an arrangement which is most likely to minimise workplace injury. The agenda is not one of sound public policy. The agenda is not what is effective. At its heart, this legislation is about the government’s difficulty with anything that has collective employee representation involvement. It is about your dislike of the trade union movement. You cannot help yourself when you are confronted by reasonable amendments put in this place. You have to go yet again to that same old reflexive union-bashing agenda that we have heard so many times in this place from this minister.