Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 — Consideration in Detail — Right of entry

The majority voted against a motion to amend the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013.(More information about the bill and the context surrounding it can be found here. The text of the proposed amendment can be found here. )

The amendment was introduced by Liberal Party MP Sussan Ley and would have removed the right of entry provisions from the bill. These provisions expanded the rights of permit holders (such as union officials who have received a permit from the Fair Work Commission) to enter work premises for investigation and discussion purposes.

Someone who voted Aye supported the amendment. An equal number of members voted Aye and No so the Speaker had to give a casting vote to break the tie. As there is a principle that a casting vote on an amendment should leave the bill in its original form, the Speaker voted with the Noes. This means that the amendment was unsuccessful and that the right of entry provisions remained in the bill.

(Note: there is an error in Parliament's data that incorrectly shows this division as drawn. We're working to fix this problem.)

Debate in Parliament

The day before this amendment was introduced into the House of Representatives, the Labor Government and Coalition Opposition had reached an agreement to remove the right of entry provisions from the Bill. However, the Government subsequently decided to keep the provisions.

Labor MP Bill Shorten, speaking on behalf of the Government, said that the right of entry provisions were based on recommendations made by the independent Fair Work Act Review Panel and that the provisions “better balance the right of unions representing employees to be able to represent their members professionally, with the need for their employers to go about their business productively”.(Read MP Shorten's contribution here. )

Liberal Party MP Sussan Ley said that the Opposition was concerned that union officials would take advantage of the provisions.(Read MP Ley's contribution here.)

Background to the bill

This bill was partly made in response to a review of the Fair Work Act 2009 (‘the Act’) by an independent review panel in 2012. The Panel found that the Act was broadly meeting its objectives and so its recommendations were mainly technical. Approximately one third of these recommendations were implemented by the Fair Work Amendment Act 2012 and this bill was introduced to implement several more of the recommendations as well as other reforms.

References