Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on documents relating to the Fair Work legislation and documents produced in response to motions that I moved for the production of documents—bilateral intergovernmental agreements arising out of the referral of workplace relations powers from the states to the Commonwealth. In terms of ensuring the mechanics underpinning the referral of powers from the states to the Commonwealth, Fair Work Australia itself—and its arms and legs—has a key role. In fact, section 649 of the Fair Work Act points out that ‘the President of Fair Work Australia must perform his or her own functions and exercise his or her own powers in a manner that facilitates cooperation with prescribed state industrial authorities’. Consistent with that, I seek leave to table a document. The document is advice provided to me by the Clerk of the Senate in response to various documents tabled in this place yesterday by the President, Senator Hogg.

Leave granted.

Those documents tabled yesterday by the President included a letter to the President from the Industrial Relations Society of Australia which was copied to all senators. That letter expressed the society’s view about the appearance of the President of Fair Work Australia at Senate estimates. The President of Fair Work Australia has now appeared at Senate estimates twice as a result of a Senate order that he do so. Of course, nothing has materially changed since the Senate made that order in October last year. In fact, all that has ‘changed’—which is no change at all—is that certain stakeholders and organisations such as the Industrial Relations Society of Australia have expressed their view on that state of affairs.

In the view of the Clerk of the Senate, the letter from the IR Society of Australia is an expression of its views but nothing more; it raises no new issues. In essentially rebutting each and every view expressed in that letter, the Clerk has made it clear that there is no convention that the Fair Work Australia President is not obliged to attend estimates. In fact, she points out that that is conclusively demonstrated by the fact that he has now attended on two occasions. Her advice points out that the President of Fair Work Australia, whomever he or she may be, is an officer within the meaning of Senate standing order 26(5) from whom committees may seek explanation as to items of expenditure. In reaching that conclusion, the Clerk’s advice builds on key points including that statutory bodies are accountable to parliament for the expenditure of public funds, that Fair Work Australia is a statutory body, that the President of Fair Work Australia is responsible for ensuring that Fair Work Australia is run efficiently to adequately serve the interests of employers and employees, and, finally, that the President of Fair Work Australia is obliged to present the organisation’s annual report to the minister.

Much has been made of there being some sort of mystique around the fact that the current President of Fair Work Australia also happens to be a judge of the Federal Court. The Clerk’s advice points out that that is irrelevant in the sense that Fair Work Australia is not a court, it does not exercise judicial power and therefore its president cannot exercise judicial power when he is exercising his powers as president. The Clerk’s advice goes on to say that the statutory responsibilities of the President of Fair Work Australia are comparable with those of heads of other statutory authorities who are expected to—and do—attend estimates. As to the extent to which inappropriate questions may be asked of the President of Fair Work Australia, he, like any other head of a statutory authority, is more than equipped to protest. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.