Labor yet again is resisting scrutiny of its draconian IR Bill.
Today in the House of Representatives Labor refused to support the Opposition’s proposal that the 278 page industrial relations Bill should be referred to a parliamentary committee.
A parliamentary committee inquiry would be an appropriate and wholly orthodox next step as the Parliament considers this long and complex Bill with profound economy wide implications.
But Labor’s refusal to allow this scrutiny of the Bill follows a regrettable pattern.
Yesterday Labor refused to support an Opposition proposal to adopt an orthodox timetable for this Bill, resuming debate in the next but one sitting week, to allow MPs to study the details of a 278 page Bill which was only made public yesterday.
Even before the Bill was introduced, Labor took extraordinary steps to avoid scrutiny, forcing the handful of people who were consulted to sign legally binding non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from disclosing publicly what they had been told about the Bill’s contents.
When a government goes to such efforts to avoid its legislation receiving scrutiny and examination, there is only one conclusion: it knows how bad the Bill is and is trying to hide the details as much as it can.