28th Nov 2019, 5:01 PM – Senate Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill 2019 - in Committee - Agree with bill as amended

The same number of senators voted for and against agreeing with the bill as amended during the committee stage, meaning that the bill failed because it wasn't supported by a majority.

What is the bill's main idea?

The bill was introduced in order to:

• include certain serious criminal offences as a new category of ‘prescribed offence’ for the purposes of the automatic disqualification regime in relation to registered organisations;
• establish an offence for a disqualified person to continue to act as an official or in a way that influences the affairs of an organisation;
• allow the Federal Court to disqualify officials from holding office in certain circumstances or if they are otherwise not a fit and proper person;
• allow the Federal Court to cancel the registration of an organisation on a range of grounds;
• expand the grounds on which the Federal Court may order remedial action to deal with governance issues in an organisation;
• expressly provide that the Federal Court may appoint an administrator to an organisation or part of an organisation as part of a remedial scheme;
• introduce a public interest test for amalgamations of registered organisations; and
• make minor and technical amendments.