Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013

The majority voted in favour of a motion "that schedule 4 and part 5 of schedule 7 [of the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013] stand as printed."

In other words, the senators were voting on whether they supported that part and schedule, which 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 part and schedule. Since the majority voted Aye, the part and schedule remained unchanged.

Debate in Parliament

The motion on whether to support the part and schedule was put after Liberal Party Senator Eric Abetz introduced an amendment to oppose them.

Senator Abetz said that he did not have the opportunity to speak to the amendment in detail due to time constraints.(Read Senator Abetz's contribution here.) However, he did say that the expanded right of entry provisions contained in that part and schedule allowed trade union bosses “to invade the lunch room of every workplace in Australia in circumstances where only 13 per cent of the workforce are actually members of the trade union movement in the private sector”.

The Labor Government did not comment on the proposed amendment to oppose the part and schedule.

Background to the bill

The Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 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.

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