Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:24:01 to 1:28:59
Officials discuss the timeline of policy development and briefings provided to the Minister leading up to the July 2026 announcement of a new Fair Work Court.
Topics: Workplace relations, Law reform
Speakers: Senator Paul Scarr, Simon Duggan, Greg Manning, Unknown Speaker
Uh thank you very much. Uh and hello, Mr. Manning. Um my grandfather's middle name was Manning. Have you heard of the Manning River? Thank you. All right. Uh so the Prime Minister announced at the ALP National Conference on 23 July of the establishment of a new Fair Work Court. Uh which I'm sure we're all familiar with. Uh the Department in its senior report noted that, quote, it developed policy that informed the Australian Government's July 2026 announcement of a new fair work court, end quote. When did that policy work begin?
Uh Senator, it would have been I'll have to say take on notice the exact dates that first discussed it, but it would have been towards the um start of this year, potentially late 2025, you might have had a discussion about it.
So it was underway when you appeared at the last estimates on 2 June?
Yeah, certainly um uh two June.
Well, and truly underway.
Well, it would have been underway in the sense that yeah, we would have been um thinking about options and and knowing about the potential for that work to proceed, yes.
Okay. So I wasn't here on two June. But it it raises the question as to why it wasn't raised during estimates.
I don't recall getting questions about it, Senator, I'd have to check the hands up, but certainly if we had been asked questions about it, we would have spoken about it should we have been able to.
But you can't ask questions about something you don't know about, can you? Yeah.
Well, Senator, not really our prerogative as officials to announce a government's intention to announce a policy.
So did the department provide a brief costing or new policy proposal before to the Minister or the uh Prime Minister's PM and C prior to 23 July?
So Senator, we did provide a series of briefings to to the Minister and just to add to Mr. Manning's evidence.
So do you have a chronology secretary? Yes, we do.
In fact.
Could you could you walk through the chronology after after you provide the introductory comments you want to provide, but then if you can walk through the chronology?
Yeah, I'm very happy to, Senator. So just to add to Mr. Manning's uh evidence. I mean, there have been discussions about reforms to the fair work dispute mechanisms that have been going on for some time now. In fact, there have been a couple of reviews that have been undertaken where the idea of a standalone industrial relations court has been prominent to the recommendations of those reviews. The first time we started to have conversations with the Minister and her office around the prospect of a fair work court was towards the end of the end of 2025. We've then provided a series of of briefings, including written briefing in the lead up to the um to the announcement by the Prime Minister. And in fact, under FOI, we received a request for dates of briefings to the Minister, which we provided under FOI, and we're happy to take you through, Senator.
So who initiated the commencement of that work at the end of 2025?
For my collection, it's the Minister's Office in discussions with the Department, Senator.
So Minister's Office initiated the commencement of that work, is that correct?
That's that's my recollection, said I, but I'll take a notice and confirm that for you.
If you can, and can you walk us through the dates of those briefings, Secretary?
Yes, I can provide you with the briefing um the briefing uh chronology in broad terms. These are written briefings, and of course, you know, we will have had conversations with the Minister's Office and with the Minister outside of that. But in the lead up, in the lead up to uh the Prime Minister's announcements, we provided a briefing on the 11th of May, the 7th of July and the 15th of July, and then again on the 20th of July.
Sorry, just those July dates that I've got the bells ringing.
7 July, 7 July, 15 July, and 20 July. Sorry, the last one, 2020 July. And then as you noted, the uh announcement was from my recollection on the 23rd of July.
So you provided between this over that period of two weeks between 7 July and 20 July, you provided three briefings. So presumably there was a very intensive engagement between the Minister's Office and the Department during that time.
Yeah, so Senator, my recollection of that time is that yes, in preparation for putting the Minister in a position to be able to support the Prime Minister's announcement, there was quite an active engagement through that period on it and is on the issue of a fair work court.