Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect, Senator Siewert—through you, Mr Temporary Chairman—this is another manifestation of a fundamental disagreement about how we manage the transition process and our view that some certainty needs to attach to agreements, notwithstanding that we disagreed with those laws when they were passed. The government clearly have to deal with the reality that there are people who made agreements and therefore we have to have a transition process. A lot of the disagreement between us and the crossbenches, particularly the Greens, is due to different views about how to handle that—and I respect that that is a different view. In our view, the bill enables some limited variation of AWAs to deal with specified issues. Having made the decision we have made to allow existing AWAs to continue under the provisions that I previously alluded to, we do need to continue to be able to vary AWAs for specified matters only. I do make the point that the government’s bill does not allow ongoing substantive variations to AWAs. If parties wish to do that, the government’s view is that they can bargain under the transitional legislation and/or do so later on pursuant to the new substantive legislation that the government will put before the chamber.