Senator ABETZ (Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) (5:07 PM) —It is a bit of a sad reflection, isn’t it, when a person who has carriage of this legislation in this chamber is asking when the consolidated legislation may have occurred? You would have thought that, if somebody had a burning interest and desire to know about this topic, they would have known that the consolidated legislation had been around for over six months. The reprint was done on 15 December 2006. This is just another example of the degree of sloppiness that we unfortunately find from those opposite.

The penalty that might apply to an employer whose agreement is found to be not fair is that the agreement is void, and the entitlements that the employee would have otherwise been entitled to are fully recoverable by either the Ombudsman or the employee. We have arrangements in place that would assist and facilitate the employee in doing that through the Workplace Ombudsman.