Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 2:48:33 to 2:52:29
The committee reviews the consultation process for the construction industry discussion paper. Discussion covers the number of submissions received, the themes of productivity and labor hire, and the government's discretion regarding the publication of confidential submissions.
Topics: Workplace relations, Infrastructure
Speakers: Sarah Godden, Speaker 20, Senator Matt O'Sullivan, Senator Jess Walsh
Uh there were um five themes that were covered by the discussion paper, Senator. Um certainly theme two productivity, fairness and industrial practices encompassed the enterprise bargaining uh process and theme three around workforce development and job quality included the appropriate and inappropriate use of Labor hire. Um certainly there was uh broad consultation through the discussion paper and those sorts of feedback on uh on those sorts of issues was absolutely welcome.
So the May first statement gave some assurance that there also would be no intention of replicating Queensland's former best practice industry conditions scheme or BPIC as it's commonly known. Um so how are those different from BPI?
Uh so Senator Um my understanding of the Queensland best practice industry condition scheme was that it prescribed a set of employment and workplace conditions that applied to um major Queensland government funded uh construction projects through procurement and that that imposed um requirements. Beyond the minimum legislative and award obligations that are included very detailed requirements on how work was organised and undertaken on those projects.
The submissions closed on the 16th of October. How many submissions were received?
I might ask Ms. Platts to assist us with that, Senator. We did also grant a number of extensions.
Fair enough.
At least until the 23rd of October.
Thank you, Senator Natasha Platt's Acting Assistant Secretary, Construction Policy and Reform. Hello. So we received 51 submissions as at yesterday, as recent yesterday, as part of the submission process, the department did grant a number of extensions, 22 in total, and there are still three that are outstanding.
So will they be published? Will all submissions be published?
As part of the submission process, applicants could uh to I notify the department if they were happy to have their submissions uh published. So there will be there will be some, but they'll that will be considered as part of wrapping up the consultation process.
Um but there will be it's a matter for government, Senator. Whether those submissions are published as well.
What's the uh so in the discussion paper uh you know the the government does retain discretion about publishing and sharing information and redacting any parts and there was uh um an opportunity for uh stakeholders that did provide a submission to indicate if they did not want their submission published or if it contained any confidential information? So that will be part of the um you know consideration process before publishing.
Minister, what on what grounds would the government uh not publish a submission? Um you committed to open uh openness and transparency and accountability, so I think the official has been confident that there will be a full disclosure.
I think the official has just outlined some of the circumstances where it might not be appropriate to publish submissions where that may be, but in the interests of you know, confidentiality for submitters where they may have provided information that it would be detrimental to them to have published.
Okay, thanks.