Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I have a concern with these provisions but sympathy for them. My concern is that a number of the states had unlimited award allowability—the award was constructed with whatever the parties agreed should be in it whereas the federal system was much more constrained and confined to 20 allowable matters. I support the intention of the opposition fully with respect to federal awards—I think they should be fully covered—but my memory is that some state awards probably expanded unnecessarily into extraneous matters. Essentially, you are arguing that there should be no disadvantage across the award. That is so, isn’t it?