South Australian Employment Tribunal Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 16 October 2014.)

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (17:19): I rise to speak only briefly to the Employment Tribunal Bill because personally I have treated the debate in the Return to Work Bill as a cognate debate—although I know it is not technically that—and we have addressed our comments on behalf of the Liberal Party during debate on the Return to Work Bill. In speaking briefly to this bill, we indicate that our general position is as we have outlined in the Return to Work Bill, that reluctantly we have adopted a position where we will see a role for the employment tribunal for a period of three years through until July 2018, but we have drafted amendments and circulated amendments so that the work of the employment tribunal would conclude in July 2018, and it will be transferred to the SACAT in July 2018.

I outlined the reasons for that in clause 1 of the committee stage of the debate, and I will not repeat them again here for the moment, but for those who just read this particular debate I indicate again that our preferred position was to transfer this to SACAT from July 2015. For a variety of reasons as I have outlined in the Return to Work Bill debate, we have accepted the advice to us that it will be more sensible not to do it in July 2015 but to delay it to July 2018 and we will adopt a consistent position obviously in this bill as we have outlined in the Return to Work Bill.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.