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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
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CHILD EMPLOYMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 7 April 2011.)

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Public Sector Management, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Government Enterprises, Minister for Gambling) (17:02): There being no further contributions to the second reading, I thank members for their contributions to this bill and I am very grateful for their support, in particular the contributions of the Hons Tammy Franks, Rob Lucas, Dennis Hood and Carmel Zollo. This bill gives effect to this government's long-standing commitment to providing greater protection for South Australian children at work. Young workers under the age of 18 years are amongst our most vulnerable workers. This bill will enhance their protection in the workforce by complementing existing industrial laws. The bill is the result of extensive consultation over a number of years and I thank everyone who participated in the consultative process and highlight the importance of the collaborative approach in the development of industrial relations legislation.

The bill creates general duties to ensure the protection of children at work in South Australia to ensure that children's schooling is not adversely affected by employment. The bill also creates the machinery for the establishment of particular employment arrangements for particularly young people through regulations and industry-driven codes of practice. The regulations and codes of practice will only be developed through extensive and inclusive consultation to ensure that they are adequate and appropriate for the protection of children who work in South Australia.

In relation to the questions raised by the Hon. Rob Lucas, I can provide the following information. I have been advised that the vast majority of employers who employ or engage children in South Australia do the right thing. This does not mean, however, that children are not at risk in the workplace due to their particular vulnerability.

The government acknowledges that youth support agencies, such as the Young Workers Legal Service, have dealt with a number of matters involving exploitation of children in the workplace and these instances highlight the need for specific protections to go beyond the existing regulatory arrangements. These include the exposure of children to bullying and harassment at work in circumstances where children lack the ability or confidence to speak up.

Children are being pressured to work at times that interfere with their important schoolwork. Children are being made to work late hours during school time without access to sufficient breaks or rest time between shifts. Exposure of children to health and safety risks at work directly relate to their inexperience in the workforce.

In relation to children's working hours, national legislation does not prevent this parliament from seeking to regulate this area. Indeed, the commonwealth Fair Work Act 2009 and associated regulations are specifically structured to allow for state regulation of the times during which a child may be employed. I draw members' attention particularly to regulation 1.14 of the Fair Work Act 2009 Regulations, which expressly reserves to the state the capacity for them to regulate.

In relation to the regulatory gap that this legislation would fill, I can provide the following information. The Education Act provides for the compulsory schooling of children between the ages of six and 16. It creates an offence for employing a compulsory school-age child during school hours, but it does not sufficiently regulate the interaction between schooling and the growing number of school-age children who participate in employment.

The Education Act does not necessarily prevent a child from being employed to do inappropriate work out of school hours and/or during school holidays, and it does not deal with issues such as the supervision of children at work and the working hours of children. It also provides no protection to children over compulsory school age.

The Child Employment Bill is not limited to children of a compulsory school age and covers all children under the age of 18. This is because many children over compulsory school age work, sometimes in their first jobs and sometimes while they are in their important final years at school. The Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Act 1986 creates duties for employers and employees in relation to health, safety and welfare at work.

It provides protections that apply to all employees, but it does not cover all the issues relating to the employment of children who may have entered the workforce for the first time and have no experience in dealing with workplace issues. The Child Employment Bill fills a significant regulatory gap in South Australia related to the employment of children.

The Child Employment Bill creates machinery to establish some basic rules as to the type of work that children of various ages are permitted to do, the times when they are permitted to perform such work and the requirements for appropriate supervision. These issues are not appropriately covered by the current South Australian legislation. This bill strengthens and complements existing state regulations relating to children.

It may be appropriate that some regulations only relate to children under the age of 16, while others relate to all children under the age of 18 years. Regulations will only be developed out of extensive consultation with key stakeholders. On the issue of the consistency of penalties, I can indicate that the penalties are different under the Education Act and Child Employment Bill. However, the offences created by the respective pieces of legislation are different.

The Education Act relates specifically to a child's compulsory attendance at school and is not intended to provide protections for children in the workplace. The Child Employment Bill creates a broader duty on employers to ensure that the work a child is required to undertake does not adversely affect a child's schooling. For this reason, the Child Employment Bill introduces penalties of $20,000, consistent with the intention of providing broad protections for all children working in South Australia.

The penalties are also consistent with those contained in industrial relations legislation generally. It is possible that the same set of facts could give rise to an offence under both the Education Act and the Child Employment Bill, but it is not uncommon that a particular set of circumstances may give rise to a cause of action under more than one law. Clause 16 of the bill ensures, however, that a defendant will not be punished more than once for the same set of circumstances where those circumstances amount to an offence under the Child Employment Bill and the Education Act, or the Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare Act.

In relation to the nudity provisions contained in clause 8 of the bill, I can indicate that the bill applies to nudity in the course of the performance of work. It is clear that where no work is performed, whether paid or unpaid, the bill will have no application. The bill's intention is that the age of five years is an appropriate threshold, after which a female child's bare chest should not be visible in the course of employment.

In relation to the general issue of protecting children's development, clause 32 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires nations to recognise the rights of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.

The duty imposed on an employer does not require employers to take on the role of parents. It ensures that children will not be required to undertake work that is harmful to their development. It recognises the special place of children in our society and ensures that their development into adult members of the South Australian community is not jeopardised by the work they undertake.

On the issue of the requirement of clause 9 of the bill to provide certain information to child workers, I note the interest of the Hon. Dennis Hood in this matter, as well as the Hon. Rob Lucas. I can indicate that a consistent message during the public consultation period was that children need clear information about their entitlements at the place where they are employed and that children, due to their inexperience in the workplace, lack information and knowledge relating to their basic rights and entitlements.

Clause 9 ensures that only employers who employ children of a class prescribed by the regulations will be required to provide such information. Regulations will be made only in full consultation with stakeholders, including business and employer groups. The government is fully aware of the need to reduce the amount of red tape that employers, particularly small business, are required to deal with, and red-tape reduction remains a primary focus of this government. It is likely that any regulations will complement requirements for the provision of information obtained in other industrial relations legislation while recognising the special requirements of young workers at the same time.

Concerns with the impact of the bill on the modelling and entertainment industry more broadly were also raised. I am advised that the entertainment industry has been broadly consulted, through various industry groups and individual employers, and the possibility of a code of practice for this sector has been raised by some stakeholders. Local modelling agencies will be included in ongoing consultations within this context.

It is important to note that the bill allows for codes of practice and regulations to be drafted to apply to specific age groups and not to everyone who meets the definition of 'child' for the purpose of the bill. It is possible, therefore, to have regulations or codes that apply only to children under 14 or under 16 years of age, for example.

Finally, I reiterate the important role of the Industrial Relations Advisory Committee (IRAC) as a tripartite representative forum in the development of any regulations and codes of practice that are made under this legislation. Such regulations and codes of practice will be made only on the basis of an identified need and in full consultation with all stakeholders, including employer and business groups.

Once again, I thank honourable members for their contribution to the second reading stage of this bill. I commend the bill to the house.

Bill read a second time.

Committee Stage

In committee.

Clause 1.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I thank the minister, on behalf of the government, for the reply at the second reading. Many of the issues to which the minister responded on behalf of the government, we will be able to pursue during the specific clauses of the bill. I just want to make some brief opening comments and ask the minister some general questions in relation to the overall nature of the bill.

The minister, in reply to the second reading, indicated that there had been broad consultation. I think a number of members have received correspondence from a number of business and industry groups in relation to their view of the consultation and the result of that. I want to read briefly from the Business SA correspondence, which states:

Unfortunately, the bill still does not address our major concerns as it is apparent that the comments and suggested amendments to the bill, which were provided by Business SA and other employer organisations have largely been ignored. As a consequence, Business SA advises you that it does not support the bill in its current format. We understand that the state opposition will table amendments to the bill in the house, which are based on the concerns that Business SA has raised in its submission. We strongly urge you to genuinely consider adopting these and have the bill amended accordingly.

I will refer to that submission, and to the submission of others, when we look specifically at the amendments.

I guess the general point I am making is that, yes, there has been a long period of consultation and discussion, but the consistent view of virtually all the employer associations and groups—I think I have consulted with close to 10 of them, and have had indications of support for the various amendments from eight or 10 of those organisations—is that they were consulted, but the government, in particular the former minister the Hon. Bernard Finnigan, who was handling this bill on child employment but who is no longer the leader of the government or a minister, had, for his own reasons, largely ignored the submissions made by business and industry groups.

I guess their plea to the Legislative Council is that, first, if the government proceeds with the legislation, in the absence of the Hon. Bernard Finnigan, to get some answers to the questions they have been putting to the government but for which they have not been getting answers and, secondly, to seek to amend the bill in some way.

The view of a number of the organisations—and I think Business SA summarises this as its view—is, in the first instance, where are the examples of the abuse of children's employment that cannot be resolved by the existing legislative framework? The then minister, the Hon. Bernard Finnigan, in his second reading speech, indicated that, under the modern awards of the national Fair Work provisions, we in South Australia are not able to regulate working hours, rates of pay and those sorts of conditions.

They are issues that have now been referred to the federal jurisdiction; they are covered by the so-called modern awards, and at this stage, even if we wanted to, we are not allowed to poke our nose into those particular issues. When you talk about children's employment, a lot of the issues are about young people being ripped off in terms of what they are paid, the hours they are working, and those sorts of things. The former minister the Hon. Bernard Finnigan indicated in his second reading explanation that all those issues are not for the state parliament or the state jurisdiction; they are covered under the federal arrangements under the modern awards, under the Fair Work Act.

We have this little niche market I suppose, if you want to talk about it like that, which is, in some way, the interrelationship with the Education Act and the impact on learning. When we get to those provisions, I disagree with an aspect of the response the minister gave in terms of the distinction with the Education Act. The Education Act provision that is there does not just refer to the requirement to go to school; it talks about the impact of a job on a child's educational schooling, or words to that effect. I guess we will explore that in detail when we get to that particular clause.

As I said, the position of Business SA and a number of others is, first, 'Convince us where are the abuses that cannot be covered by industrial commissions or the occupational health and safety laws that exist or the current Education Act.' Essentially, their position is 'Hey, we don't really think you need this legislation.' We, in the parliament and the state Liberal Party are prepared to consider the legislation and we are seeking, obviously, to amend it in a number of ways. However, the position of employer organisations is that, as I said, you have not demonstrated yet where the abuses are that cannot be fixed by the current industrial legislative framework.

That question was put to the minister and, with the greatest respect to the minister, the speech drafted for her does not actually highlight examples of current abuses which cannot be fixed by modern awards, the Fair Work Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act or the Education Act. Again, we put the question to the minister to give some specific examples of particular abuses that cannot be fixed by the current legislative framework. As I said, that is the general position of a number of employer groups who think that, given that we have handed over all our industrial relations powers to the commonwealth, by and large, there is not a convincing case for even having a child employment bill in South Australia.

My specific question to the minister at this stage is: under the provisions of the Education Act, as the minister has noted, there are penalties of up to $5,000 for breaches of the Education Act. Can the minister advise the chamber how many successful prosecutions there have been under those particular provisions of the Education Act against employers?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I will have to take that question on notice and bring back a response.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I wonder whether the minister, through her advisers—and I accept the fact that she will need to take it on notice in terms of the actual number—can say, in general terms, if there have been some prosecutions? It is just an issue of working out how many; it is not an issue of whether there have been or have not been any.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: I will need to clarify that and I am happy to take it on notice and bring back a response.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I think it is an important issue. We are being told that there is a problem and there is abuse of young persons in employment as defined as under 18, but this provision in the Education Act is under 16. When one looks at that—and the minister is taking it on notice—that particular provision of the Education Act says that a person must not employ a child of compulsory school age or compulsory education age during the hours at which the child is required to attend school or to participate in an approved learning program, as the case requires, or (b) states:

In any labour or occupation that renders or is likely to render the child unfit to attend school or participate in an approved learning program as required by this part or to obtain the maximum benefit from such attendance or participation. Maximum penalty $5,000.

That second provision under paragraph (b) is, as I said, the area where I take issue with what the minister said in the second reading; that is, there is a specific offence which says that you cannot, as an employer, employ a child of compulsory school age (which is under 16) in any occupation that renders or is likely to render the child unfit to attend school or to participate in an approved learning program. I think it is important, in terms of the justification for the bill, to find how many examples of successful prosecutions there have been under paragraph (b) over recent years and, similarly, under paragraph (a) where it states 'during the hours at which the child is required to attend school'.

We will come to these provisions later on but my question to the minister at this stage is: given the modern education system—and many of us perhaps went to school when the traditional school day was 8.30 or 9 o'clock through to 3.30 or 4 o'clock or whatever it happened to be—these days school extends over a much longer period. One may well undertake some subjects at a TAFE or at a workplace away from the school site or, indeed, at another school, particularly if you are in a regional area, or you may undertake it by distance education, for example, at night.

So, the minister may well need to take this on notice as well. That is why, I guess, I might as well put these questions to the minister now so that she can seek advice, either from the new Minister for Industrial Relations or, I guess, probably the Minister for Education as well.

How are these particular provisions to be interpreted when we are looking at potential offences for employers, during the hours at which the child is required to attend school or to participate in an approved learning program? If a child is going to participate in an approved learning program which involves after-hours or early evening study at a TAFE or in another workplace, is it an offence, under the Education Act, for an employer to even employ a child of compulsory school age (which is under 16) during those particular hours?

I also ask the question of, for example, the increasing number of children involved in homeschooling. How are these particular provisions of the Education Act, and offences for employers, to be interpreted for children of compulsory school age who are being homeschooled, or does the current exemption for homeschooling exempt employers of those children from these particular provisions of the Education Act as well?

If you are being homeschooled by your parents, you are not being homeschooled just between 8.30 and 3.30. You can be homeschooled at any hour through the day or evening, or indeed, on the weekend as well. So, are the current provisions of the Education Act—and the government is saying that these new provisions are going to complement the provisions of the Education Act—making it an offence for an employer to employ anyone under the age of 16, for example, who is being homeschooled, given the hours?

As I said again, too, a student under the age of 16 could be undertaking a TAFE course, for example, or work experience course, as part of their school program, or community service. If you are undertaking the International Baccalaureate, you have compulsory volunteerism or community service as part of your school program; the International Baccalaureate is an approved learning program. Some schools even in the government system (some schools in the government system are part of the International Baccalaureate) are requiring community service and community attendance as well, as part of their approved learning programs, which gain accreditation.

Certainly, in the early years—these would be some under-16s who would potentially be in year 10 and some advanced students who would be in year 11—we have, for example, accelerated programs in a number of government schools where young people under the age of 14 and 15 are participating in SACE subjects because they are intellectually gifted and talented and are accelerated through various programs. They would be participating in SACE projects. Some of those students are, indeed, undertaking university study at that age.

With those, anyway, who are studying subjects outside their normal school, in another high school, for example, or in a TAFE or something like that, where they are undertaking an approved learning program after school hours, is it an offence under the Education Act for an employer to employ that student in after-hours work, for example, from four o'clock to six o'clock at the local delicatessen or supermarket?

The student may well be studying up until six o'clock at a particular education institution for one or two days a week, but on those other days of the week, may well have a job at the local supermarket or delicatessen. Are the provisions of the Education Act such that it is already an offence for an employer to employ a child of compulsory school age, or compulsory education age, during those particular hours?

The key ones are really those participating in an approved learning program because that, obviously, is undefined and therefore can cover a multitude of learning programs, from homeschooling right through to approved learning programs for gifted and talented students, or students with disabilities who may well undertake, again at their local TAFE, for example, specific community learning projects or programs because the facilities at the TAFE may well be better than either their local primary school or secondary school, for example, in cooking or those sorts of domestic chores. A number of specific programs for students are engaged in that way.

We also have behavioural learning centres. I put this question, through the minister, to the Minister for Education: we have children of compulsory school age (under the age of 16) who are expelled or suspended from their government school but they are attached, compulsorily, to a behavioural learning centre. So, they are still of compulsory school age and they are still required to attend the behavioural learning centre, which may or may not reflect the normal school learning hours.

In some cases they do not because, again, they have a different program, an approved learning program, which may well involve TAFE, voluntary programs, work experience, as well as alternative learning environments. They are all students under the compulsory school age. My question is: in their expulsion or suspension from the government school system, are these provisions still operative on them in their alternative learning environment, such as a behavioural learning centre, etc.?

As we seek to understand and explore potential amendments in the committee stage to the bill, I think all of us need to understand what the existing provisions of the Education Act are, which, depending on how they are to be interpreted now that there is to be a new focus, could be quite onerous already in terms of whether or not you are entitled to even employ a child under the age of 16 during certain hours.

I would imagine that there are some students at year 10, who may well be 15 (under the age of 16), who are already involved in part-time study because they have permission to do so, or who are attending school through various hours and may well have part-time paid employment. When we get to the area, for example, of modelling and acting, etc., I understand that there are specific provisions there.

Modelling agencies and theatrical agencies have indicated to the opposition that there are many examples where students of a compulsory age are not attending school—if there is a film shoot, for example—for weeks at a time. They may well be engaged in distance education, which is an approved learning program, it is an approved way of education, but they are actually working during compulsory schooling hours when they are under 16. I think the government, in that section of the bill, seeks to get over that with parental approval, and we can explore that when we get to it.

What I am canvassing at this stage is that there is a clear need for this chamber to understand the existing provisions in the Education Act, because the government is not changing that. It says that it is there, but it is obviously saying that it does not believe that it is tough enough, strong enough, or covers the field enough, and that, therefore, we need the specific provisions in the Child Employment Bill.

If that is the government's argument, then we need to understand what it is that the current provisions of the Education Act are doing, how often have they been used and how does the government see them being interpreted in the large number of examples that I have just given, and which I think this chamber needs to have answers to.

The reality is that this is Thursday afternoon and we are certainly not going to get through the committee stage this afternoon. The minister has taken on notice a number of questions and I would hope that she would take on notice some of these others, which I am the first to admit that she cannot be expected to respond to now. Some of them will, obviously, be reliant upon advice from the education department and the Minister for Education in relation to how those existing provisions are being utilised.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: Yes, some of the questions, as indicated, I will have to take on notice—the numbers of prosecutions and I will also need to get some legal advice around home schooling. However, in relation to some of the span of hours questions around different schooling environments, I have been advised that the Education Act states that you have to be at school when you are required to be at school, or attending an approved learning program, so whatever those hours might be. It takes into consideration a full scope of different potential hours and, as I have been advised, it accommodates for different hours, according to whatever the various obligations might be.

I have also been advised that there is an employer defence in employing a child of compulsory school age during school hours. The employer's defence under this bill states that there is a defence if the employer did not knowingly employ a child of compulsory school age when they should have been at school. The act requires simply that the employer, in employing a school-age child—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas: Sorry, do you mean the proposed bill or the Education Act?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: This current bill I am now talking to requires that the employer puts their mind, when they are employing a school-age child, to the impact that their employment might have in employing a child of compulsory school age. They are the parameters of consideration that are required under this act, and the guidance given in the Education Act.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I think it is useful to raise some of these issues, and the minister clearly can get legal advice, and others. I think the legal advice needs to apply not just to the home schooling but also to the issues of the accelerated students and the approved learning programs that are outside school hours, for example, TAFE and others. I guess that is an issue for the government to respond to.

When you look at this proposed bill, when we get to later clauses, we are actually talking about children under the age of 18. This is an issue that needs to be debated. Earlier, we were talking about compulsory school age; there is a compulsion and you actually understand that. Under this bill, we are going to be talking about 17-year-old young adults who are not required to be at school, and yet the provisions state that an employer must, in respect of each child, ensure that the child is not required to undertake work that adversely affects the child's schooling.

So, we are going to have a position where, at least with the under 16s, you understand that it is a compulsion, other than home schooling and all those other exemptions that we have to explore. However, for most of them it is a compulsion; you have to be at school under the age of 16. However, at 17 you are a young adult and you do not have to be at school; it is voluntary whether you are at school or not. Therefore, this notion of what is school and school hours, which I have asked earlier in relation to the Education Act, is not necessarily directly relevant to the 17 year old—it might be, but it also might not be.

We are going to be asked to look at this when we get to these clauses. If we leave it at 18, which is one of the amendments we are moving, we think there is just going to be huge confusion for these 16 and 17 year olds within the system. In essence, if you look at clause 7(1) it states:

An employer must, in respect of each child—

that is, under 18—

employed by the employer, ensure so far as is reasonably practicable, that the child is not required to undertake work that...adversely affects the child's schooling.

In those circumstances, as an employer—it is not compulsory for the 17 year old to be at school—how do you understand all of the ramifications of that child's schooling?

Again, schooling is undefined. Compulsory attendance at school is at least something we can understand, because you have to be at a school and it is a defined education institution, and all that sort of stuff. We still have these other exemption issues that are a problem, but generally you can understand that. We have in this proposed bill the concept of schooling—'affect the child's schooling'.

We need to understand—there is no definition—whether the government is saying that the legal interpretation of schooling will be education provided at a school (I suspect it is probably not), or is it going to be education provided of a school-type nature, for example, at a school, at a TAFE, at home schooling, at a university or at a training institution if you are undertaking an apprenticeship or traineeship? If you are doing community service at an old aged home and you get credits towards your SACE, for example, through community service, there are any number of credits that are approved learning programs towards your South Australian Certificate of Education or your International Baccalaureate, and they do not occur within the school, but they probably occur within the definition of schooling.

The government is asking us in this to change the legal concepts of the compulsory attendance at school to this undefined concept of schooling. We are making offences now of $20,000 to an employer that, if in any way they adversely affect a child's—that is, a 17-year old's—schooling, there is a penalty of up to $20,000. The government needs to come back to us when next we sit (before would be useful if we could all get copies of the advice) with an understanding on what is the legal advice the government, the former minister, the Hon. Bernard Finnigan in drafting this bill, was using in relation to schooling and insisting that it apply to 16 and 17-year olds over and above the provisions as they relate to education.

There are literally dozens and dozens of other detailed and specific questions this committee will have to explore, I assume not this evening but when we next return. They are some fundamental questions and threshold issues where the government's advice to us, both legal and educational, needs to come back to us as to exactly what it is they are talking about and how they will ping employers in relation to adversely affecting a child's schooling.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: As indicated, I am happy to take those matters on notice and bring back a more detailed response to the issue of how we approach the span of hours in different educational institutions and their different requirements. Are there any other questions the honourable member wants to put?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: If we have a brief period before 6 o'clock I can raise a number of general ones on which it may be worthwhile getting advice. The minister in the second reading referred to a United Nations declaration or something in relation to how we are to interpret development. In that I think she referred to 'physical, 'mental', I think 'moral' and 'social'. Again this will be one of the amendments we come to later, and that is why I am interested in the government's advice on this, particularly as we come to some of the later provisions. Health and safety are concepts we are all familiar with.

We have had legislation on occupational health and safety, etc., and we understand in broad terms what we are talking about. We will have this issue of adversely affecting a child's schooling, or in the Education Act we have this issue of 'likely to render the child unfit to attend school'. I guess that is a bit more specific in terms of those particular provisions but, when we come to the issue of an employer adversely affecting a child's moral and social development, we are raising some huge issues in terms of the responsibilities on employers.

The employers are saying, 'Hey, fair go. We are talking about 17-year old apprentices in the workplace and you are putting on us that we cannot affect the 17-year old's moral or social development and, if we do, then it may be harmful to the child's health or moral or social development. You are saying to me that some of my employees at 18 or 19 could in some way adopt a practice which is harmful to the moral development of the 17-year old in the work site. Give me a break!' That is what the Hon. Bernard Finnigan and the government are asking us to do in relation to this. The minister has read out what this is based on: it is based on that United Nations whatever-it-was, and we are definitely talking about moral and social.

We understand health and safety, but when you start getting into the area of a 17-year old apprentice, for example, how do you interpret that and how is that to be ruled on in terms of an employer employing, for example, a 16 or 17 year old and their moral or social development? This development issue is really going to be a significant debating point.

The employer groups tell me that in the early drafting it included 'physical, mental, social or moral' and there were questions raised so those specific words were taken out but, even though they have been taken out, clearly, based on the advice we have got, 'development' does cover those areas. It may well cover other areas as well, for example. You do not just have to look at the United Nations to give you the definitive definition of 'development'. 'Development' could cover a whole range of things. Does it cover spiritual development? Does it cover a whole range of other notions of development? Just because the United Nations says it is physical, mental, social and moral does not mean that is how a court in the end is going to determine it. They are the issues the employer groups are raising with me.

We are getting close to conclusion this afternoon and I want to indicate that, in relation to the series of amendments that I have foreshadowed this afternoon, in the consultation process that I have had, not only have Business SA indicated their support for the amendments and their concern about the current government bill drafting but also the Master Builders Association, the Australian Hotels Association, the Civil Contractors Federation, the Motor Trades Association, the Wine Industry Association of South Australia, the Housing Industry Association and the Self Insurers of South Australia.

I think that is a reasonable cross-section of employer organisations who have all now looked at this bill, have felt that they have not been listened to, have looked at the amendments that the Liberal Party is proposing to move and, at the very least—as I said, some of them would actually say, 'We don't think we need the bill and you should defeat it—they are saying to this chamber, 'Please ask the questions and please, at the very least, support the amendments that the Liberal Party has placed on file.' I think it is useful at least that that be placed on the record at this early stage of the committee.

Progress reported; committee to sit again.


At 17:50 the council adjourned until Tuesday 17 May 2011 at 14:15.


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