Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Very briefly, this suggestion that the Howard government did not make any progress on getting a national workplace relations system is quite laughable. It was the Howard government—and it pains me to say this, as a federalist—that used the corporations power to extend a national scheme which the Labor Party and the trade union movement fought all the way to the High Court and lost. Please, do not try to lecture us on that score.

Back to the bill that is before us: it is, as I said before, a bill rushed in with clearly unintended consequences. As I understand the government amendments at items 18, 34 and 35, it is intended to exempt local government from this legislation. In the government's rush to get this legislation forced through, local government was going to be included—so, clearly, something happened, between the bill's being passed in the House of Representatives and its coming to the Senate, which has required the government to move this amendment. What was the motivation? Was the government lobbied, for example, by the Australian Local Government Association? What is the driver for this amendment? Clearly, it is an unintended consequence of a rushed and very hashed piece of legislation.