Wood MichaelHon MICHAEL WOOD (Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety): Thank you Mr Chair. And I do thank and acknowledge the members for their questions that relate to Part 1. If I can address them in order starting with Mr Penk's questions around bargaining sides and the definition and language that is used here. So for the benefit of the committee there are effectively two bargaining sides who will be involved in the negotiation of a fair pay agreement (FPA): one representing employers and one representing employees. Each bargaining side will be made up of bargain parties. On the employee's side bargaining parties will be eligible unions; on the employer's side bargaining parties will be eligible employer associations. The requirements to be eligible are set up relatively clearly in the in the Employment Relations Act (ERA)—those organisations must represent the interests of those parties. They must have within their constitutions a purpose that relates to the bargaining or fair pay agreements as well. On each of those sides those bargaining sides will have a good-faith obligation that goes back to everyone that they represent for the purposes of that bargaining. Mr Penk raises the question around the language of bargaining side". It simply reflects the relatively well-known and used language that would be used in collective bargaining generally at the moment that there will one side representing employees and one side representing employers. From my point of view it's reasonably clear language and I don't think it particularly denotes anything especially conflictual. If the member's got particular suggestions there I'm open to hearing them. In respect to his question about different kinds of organisations—for example charities and NGOs—the member was right in his comments of course that very often these organisations by definition do need to engage in the employment system and in fact many of them already do engage in collective bargaining processes so they're relatively familiar. Much of the funded sector for example is covered by collective bargaining arrangements. It would be a much higher proportion for example than other parts of the private sector. So I don't think there will necessarily be a great lack of familiarity with collective bargaining processes there. Those organisations often do have organisations that currently represent their collective interests that they draw advice and support from around employment relations matters and they will be free to continue to be represented by those organisations through the FPA process or to be represented by other associations who partake in that process. It will be up to those individual employers which organisation they choose to be associated with. But a really really important point here is that whoever is the organisation at the table whoever is the bargaining party on a bargaining side that bargaining side has a fundamental duty of good faith back to all of the organisations be it the businesses or the employees that they represent. So whoever is at the table has to act in the good-faith interests of whoever they're representing—be it a private business be it a Government agency be it an NGO. That links into a couple of the questions from Camilla Belich who I know worked very hard on this in the Education and Workforce Committee. It is really important to note that quite a few of the key concepts which are reflected here in the definitions in the bill are concepts which come directly over from our broader employment relations system framework in the Employment Relations Act itself. So really important to note—because frankly there has been disinformation about this in the public arena at times—that the core provisions around freedom of association that are inherent in an Employment Relations Act and the rest of our system just copy over to the fair pay agreements legislation and that is reflected in plain black-and-white wording in Part 1. It's the same around good faith and in fact there've been some minor changes made here to ensure effectively that the way in which a "duty of good faith" is described is basically consistent with the way that it is described in the Employment Relations Act. So all of those duties of good faith between parties and from parties to those that they represent will apply in a broadly consistent way to what everyone is familiar with now in the existing Employment Relations Act and its regime which has been in place now for 21 years—so quite well-understood concepts will come over and continue to play out there.Camilla Belich also asked another question around the purpose statement. I do think that the recommendations from the select committee are helpful there both in respect of the clarification around the ERA playing a role sometimes in determining FPAs—that just reflects the reality. So it's important that the purpose statement does do that. And secondly that there is clarification here that the purpose of fair pay agreements is to improve conditions. Look that is the Government's policy objective here; it is not a policy-neutral piece of legislation—the intention of the legislation right throughout. I think this will be reflected in every statement that I and other representatives of the Government have made: the purpose of fair pay agreements is to improve conditions for workers where we think that should happen. So I think it is appropriate and just frankly transparent for that to be reflected in the purpose statement. Mr Goldsmith had a number of questions around interpretation as well primarily focusing around the definitions of "covered employee". Again here I think the changes that have been made are just quite helpful just in terms of clarity. These are changes that have come through from the select committee in response to as I say submissions actually from all sides of the debate. And I do acknowledge submitters even those who didn't agree with the bill quite often provided helpful submissions around how the bill can be as workable and practical as possible. And I think this is one of those areas. So the definitions of "covered employee" make it really clear that it is about the work that is done. And we then do have the real clarity around the 25 percent test and that's about avoiding for example an absurdity where let's say you know I once worked in Hugh Wright's men's clothing stores—great job in the early part of my working life—and we'd spend 10 minutes in the morning sweeping or vacuuming the floors. Now it would be an absurdity if a person in that situation ended up being covered by an FPA that was for cleaners. And so the 25 percent test is about having a rational threshold that focuses on what is really the focus of people's work. And again where there were multiple FPAs it will be the FPA that covers the most work that that person does. So it's really about clarity in this area. In respect to Mr Goldsmith's particular example I imagine that as a writer he wasn't—well I don't know but I'm not sure if he was an employee of anyone so I wouldn't necessarily relate to that example that he gave. The other key bit of specification that the select committee has brought in here which again is really helpful is around how coverage will be defined as crisply as possible. And that recommendation is to make use of the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO) and the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) codes which are well known by employers which are effectively the standard way in which different types of employment are defined. And so in the coverage that a union puts forward when a fair pay agreement is initiated coverage will need to be described using ANZSCO or ANZSIC codes unless there is a really good reason not to—perhaps there is a very peculiar type of occupation that doesn't quite fit into those. But the starting point will be using ANZSCO and ANZSIC codes which I think will provide significant clarity. So I hope that's helpful in answering the questions of members."