Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

The Fair Work Act provides rights for employees to take protected industrial action in support of claims and corresponding rights for employers to take protected response action to respond to employee industrial action. It is not appropriate for the Senate to support protected industrial action by one of the parties and oppose it for the other party purely on partisan and selective grounds. The Senate has no knowledge of the issues in dispute and is unable to assess the respective bargaining stances. It should not embark on a partisan and unbalanced intervention seeking to support costly industrial action and deny other parties their legislative rights to advance their interests.