Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 [Provisions]
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The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 [Provisions] October 2019 © Commonwealth of Australia 2019 ISBN 978-1-76093-001-1 (Printed Version) ISBN 978-1-76093-001-1 (HTML Version) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Printed by the Senate Printing Unit, Parliament House, Canberra Members Chair Senator the Hon James McGrath LP, QLD Deputy Chair Senator Louise Pratt ALP, WA Members Senator Perin Davey Nats, NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi AG, NSW Senator Deborah O'Neill ALP, NSW Senator Matt O'Sullivan LP, WA Participating Members Senator Tim Ayres ALP, NSW Senator the Hon Don Farrell ALP, SA Senator Nita Green ALP, QLD Senator Jacqui Lambie JLN, TAS Senator Rex Patrick CA, SA Senator Tony Sheldon ALP, NSW Senator Anne Urquhart ALP, TAS Senator Jess Walsh ALP, VIC Senator Murray Watt ALP, QLD Secretariat Dr Jane Thomson, Committee Secretary Ms Pothida Youhorn, Principal Research Officer Ms Kate Campbell, Senior Research Officer Ms Leonie Lam, Research Officer Ms Jade Monaghan, Administrative Officer Committee web page: www.aph.gov.au/senate_eec PO Box 6100 E-mail: [email protected] Parliament House Ph: 02 6277 3521 Canberra ACT 2600 Fax: 02 6277 5706 iii Table of contents Members ............................................................................................................................................. iii Chapter 1—Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Conduct of the inquiry ....................................................................................................................... 1 Structure of the report ........................................................................................................................ 1 References ............................................................................................................................................. 1 Reports of other committees ............................................................................................................... 2 Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills ........................................................... 2 Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights .............................................................. 4 Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................................. 5 Chapter 2—Background and provisions of the bill ...................................................................... 7 Purpose of the bill ................................................................................................................................ 7 Recent reviews ...................................................................................................................................... 8 Schedule 1—Disqualification of individuals from holding office ................................................ 8 Automatic disqualification—definition of 'prescribed offence' expanded ....................... 9 Court ordered disqualifications .............................................................................................. 9 Offences for persons disqualified from holding office ...................................................... 12 Schedule 2—Cancellation of registration of organisations ......................................................... 12 Schedule 3—Administration of dysfunctional organisations ...................................................... 15 Schedule 4—Introduction of a public interest test for the amalgamation of registered organisations .......................................................................................................................... 16 Chapter 3—Key issues...................................................................................................................... 19 Is there a need for the bill? ................................................................................................................ 19 International conventions ................................................................................................................. 24 Registered organisations verses corporations ................................................................................ 26 Standing provisions ........................................................................................................................... 27 The Minister ............................................................................................................................. 27 Person of sufficient interest ................................................................................................... 29 Designated findings and designated laws...................................................................................... 31 Distinguishing between serious criminal offences and minor infractions ..................... 32 Effect on organisations ........................................................................................................... 34 v Corporate equivalence ........................................................................................................... 35 Schedule 1 – Automatic disqualification ........................................................................................ 36 Schedule 1 – Court ordered disqualification .................................................................................. 38 Not a fit and proper person ................................................................................................... 38 Process relating to disqualification ...................................................................................... 40 Schedule 2 – Cancellation of registration........................................................................................ 41 Deregistration and evidence of the Royal Commission ................................................... 42 28C – Conduct of affairs of organisation or part of organisation .................................... 43 28G – Obstructive industrial action ...................................................................................... 44 Alternative orders ................................................................................................................... 46 Requirement to cancel the registration where a ground is met ....................................... 47 Schedule 3 – A remedial scheme ...................................................................................................... 49 Schedule 4 – amalgamation of organisations and the public interest test ................................. 51 Committee view ................................................................................................................................. 53 Standing ................................................................................................................................... 54 Grounds .................................................................................................................................... 55 Schedule 1 ................................................................................................................................ 56 Schedule 2 ................................................................................................................................ 57 Schedule 3 ................................................................................................................................ 57 Schedule 4 ................................................................................................................................ 58 Labor Senators' Dissenting Report ................................................................................................ 59 Australian Greens Senators' Dissenting Report ......................................................................... 81 Centre Alliance Senators' Additional Comments ....................................................................... 83 Appendix 1—Submissions and additional information ........................................................... 87 Appendix 2—Public hearings and witnesses .............................................................................. 91 vi Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 On 4 July 2019 the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 (the bill) was introduced into the House of Representative by the Hon Christian Porter MP, Minister for Industrial Relations.1 1.2 Following the recommendation of the Senate Selection of Bills Committee, the Senate referred the provisions of the bill to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee (the committee) for inquiry and report by 25 October 2019. 2 Conduct of the inquiry 1.3 Details of the inquiry were made available on the committee's website.3 The committee also contacted a number of organisations inviting submissions to the inquiry. Submissions were received from 67 organisations and individuals, as listed at Appendix 1. Submissions are available on the committee's website. 1.4 In addition, the committee received 1116 pieces of correspondence expressing opposition to the bill. This included a