SENATE

Monday, 27 February 2017 Senate Page 3
Senator McALLISTER: Welcome, Mr Pye, to your first estimates. I want to start by talking about enterprise
bargaining. We talked about this at the last estimates. I understand the current agreement expired in 2015 and
there was a process to restart the bargaining process, and that concluded on 30 January this year. Is that correct?
Mr Pye: That is nearly correct. The current enterprise agreement did have a nominal expiry date of 30 June
2015. We started a process to replace that and went through the usual round of bargaining. Towards the end of
last year,—and I do not have the date in front of me—out of an abundance of caution, we closed off one round of
bargaining and began a second round of bargaining, after having taken advice that other agencies also had about a
possible technical deficiency in some of the originating documentation. We continued with that, I guess, revived
process through the end of last year and the beginning of this year. We have had a vote on the enterprise
agreement. The access period was during the last sitting fortnight with the vote taken in the last sitting week, and
the vote was unsuccessful. We had 77 per cent of staff taking part in the vote, 72 per cent voted against the
proposal and 28 per cent voted in favour.
Senator McALLISTER: That is quite staunch opposition.
Mr Pye: It is.
Senator McALLISTER: Can you explain why the agreement was rejected?
Mr Pye: I would only be guessing if I sought to do that at the moment. The first thing I did, after receiving
advice from the people tallying up the vote for us, was to write to all of my staff to let them know that I would be
opening a period of feedback so that we can work out what the precise motivations of people were. One of the
difficulties, I think, with the way that enterprise bargaining has been working our department for the last couple of
rounds is that we do not have a lot of people around the bargaining table, so we get an indication of factors that
are motivating some people, but we do not how far that really goes into the views of the broader staff.
Senator McALLISTER: Are you saying that the people at the bargaining table are not representative of staff?
Mr Pye: No, I am saying that staff get to nominate themselves as bargaining representatives—there is,
obviously, a CPSU representative around the table—and staff can nominate other people to be their
representatives. We do not know how many people are genuinely represented around the table, so we are just
trying to seek broader views from everybody in the department who would like to give a view. The only thing, I
suppose, we know for sure is that there was a hefty vote against the bargain, and we would like to reset the agenda
a little bit as we go back into a new bargaining phase.
Senator McALLISTER: What is the timetable for the new bargaining phase?
Mr Pye: I do not have any particular time in mind. I have asked for staff to give feedback by 17 March which
is immediately before the next sitting fortnight. I imagine that it will be straight after that sitting fortnight that we
get a better sense of how we can proceed. I would rather we proceed faster rather than slower.
Senator McALLISTER: I understand that, in the offer that was rejected, the Department of the Senate
offered the maximum pay that was allowable under the bargaining policy, is that correct?
Mr Pye: That is correct.
Senator McALLISTER: Is the Senate bound by that policy? Is there any flexibility? Can you go above?
Mr Pye: I do not know that we can, Senator. It is not a question that has been tested. Over the nearly 20 years
that we have had enterprise bargaining at agency level in the Public Service, the parliamentary departments have
always followed the bargaining policies that have been set down. It seems to me that it may be counterproductive
to try to move outside that bargaining policy, given that the Senate department, like all other departments, is
reliant on the government in the appropriations sense to put forward the funding for the department. There is a
theoretical possibility, I suppose, that the parliamentary departments could take a different view, but we certainly
do not have anything in the Parliamentary Service Act that suggests we would be bargaining on a different basis
to the rest of the Public Service.
Senator McALLISTER: But you are now seeking to reach an agreement. You have been unable to reach an
agreement so far. If you did seek to move outside the bargaining framework, would it be possible? Irrespective of
whether or not it is desirable from your perspective, is it possible and how would you go about doing so?
Mr Pye: I do not know. It would be a question for the two Presiding Officers in the first instance, I suppose.
The question really is whether—
Senator McALLISTER: Can they make the decision?
Mr Pye: It would certainly be a discussion with them, Senator. Part of the current bargaining policy and
framework requires approval of policies by the Public Service Commissioner. I imagine that, if parliamentary
FINANCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION LEGISLATION COMMITTEE