Mr McMULLAN(12.27 p.m.) —The opposition will not be opposing this motion. The Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1997 is now being pared back to what I guess is a bare minimum for the Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business (Mr Reith) to be able to get through and have some sort of success with. Most of these matters being rolled through are technical matters with which we have no disagreement. We did not support some amendments, and we regret that other amendments to which the minister alluded are not proceeding at this time. We thought they were good amendments, but the Democrats have come to an agreement with the government about not proceeding with them. That is a pity, but it is not a matter that is effectively before us.

I want to speak briefly to the consequences of one part of the Workplace Relations Act as a whole, with this bill included, that we have expressed concern about in the House and in the Senate and that we are still concerned about: that is, the continuing operation of the Office of the Employment Advocate and, in particular, his role concerning Australian workplace agreements. I have over time made a number of very specific remarks about the performance of the individual and have raised questions of accountability that I will not rehearse again today.

We have always said that the provisions for the interrelationship between the operation of Australian workplace agreements and the Office of the Employment Advocate—that is, the provisions for secrecy and for non-reviewability—have had the potential for profound concern. We have a number of aspects that continue day by day to reinforce that concern. Today I want to refer to the fact that these secrecy provisions have created the legislative framework that have allowed the Dubai industrial mercenary project to go ahead. Without that legislative framework, this sinister project could not have occurred. Let us not be in any doubt about that.

There is one interesting question that I understand the media has asked the minister and me: has the Office of the Employment Advocate approved the Australian workplace agreement circulated by and apparently in operation between Fynwest and these ex-military personnel? The answer is that nobody knows and we will not be able to find out. That is another element of this secrecy. Without it, the project could not have proceeded. It is living proof that some of the concerns that we have been expressing are absolutely valid. Some of the other concerns are validated by other activities that are not relevant to today's discussions. I will not waste the House's time with them.

When you have covert strike-busting operations, it is absolutely crystal clear, as it was always to anybody who read the bill but probably wanted to see the public evidence of it, that the secrecy provisions of the Workplace Relations Act as they relate to Australian workplace agreements and the operations of the Office of Employment Advocate made these sorts of activities possible. It is not a development that is healthy for Australian society or for Australian industrial relations. It is part of an emerging pattern of worrying trends in Australian industrial relations and in Australian society. I think Australians are entitled to be and should be concerned about this propensity for secrecy, this propensity for non-reviewability.

It is true that the Employment Advocate refused these things but, I have to say, he has a very weak microscope and nobody can assess effectively how well he has done. Even if he were a person in whom I had more confidence than the current incumbent, it is the structure, the process, that causes me concern. We have in yesterday's revelations and in those which are still to come the proof that operations such as those in Dubai—those covert, strike-busting operations—are facilitated, made possible, and the legislative framework for their operation created, by the interrelationship between the Australian workplace agreements provisions and the Office of Employment Advocate provisions of the act. (Time expired)