Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am amazed at the ability to extrapolate, but I do not think that is an assumption that you can make, quite frankly. It is not something that necessarily flows from one to the next. It is not a reasoned argument, I would put. The position I have outlined is the correct position. There are award modernisation processes in place and the Industrial Relations Commission is dealing with that. The consequential provisions deal with, in part, the effect of award modernisation in terms of employees, particularly part 10A, as I outlined. The issue at the heart of this is that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has put in place an award modernisation request to be read in conjunction with part 10A of the Workplace Relations Act. It deals with the circumstances that I have outlined this morning and says:

2. The creation of modern awards is not intended to—

I will not go through them all again, but clearly I have been using—

(c) disadvantage employees;

(d) increase costs for employers …