Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Only last week we had the Prime Minister crowing about the fact that we had just witnessed the signing of the millionth AWA in this country. Predictably, people such as Peter Hendy, not to be done over on air time, tried to claim that this is a reason why the Labor Party should change its approach and not pursue a policy of ripping up Work Choices. I have to say it is a funny thing when you actually look at what they are crowing about. These AWAs, the ones that came in post Work Choices, are even worse than the ones that were there beforehand. At least the ones that were there before March this year were subject to such things as the no disadvantage test. The ones that have now been brought down, which are now permissible under this new federal law, mean that there is no no disadvantage test for individual contracts and that people can legally be put on with terms and conditions which are below the award. They are not subject to review by an independent umpire. Employees can be coerced to sign these agreements. They can be legally forced to sign a contract or to not take the job.

The Prime Minister has made that point time and time again—when he refers to the dispute at Boeing or anywhere else: you either sign a contract or you do not take the job. They are the facts. Of all the agreements that were signed up until June this year that were reviewed by the Office of the Employment Advocate, it was found that, for every single contract entered into, at least one of the award conditions was extracted from the contract. Two-thirds of the agreements reviewed had the leave loading and penalty rates removed. Nearly one in four did not have a pay rise during the agreement. Almost one in five had their award conditions withdrawn or replaced in these new AWAs. These are the new AWAs which came in solely with the advent of the Work Choices legislation.

I was very interested to hear the member for Ryan refer to the position of women, because I also heard that when the member for Chifley spoke. Women were, quite frankly, right at the front end of this legislation. One of the first instances was industrial agreements being forced on workers at Spotlight. As you will recall, for women working in local haberdashery stores such as Spotlight, there was no overtime payment for excess hours and no overtime payment for Thursday evening work. There were no overtime or penalty rates for public holidays and weekend work and no rest periods—all of that, for a lousy 2c an hour. And what was put by this government? ‘If you don’t like it, don’t take the job.’ That is precisely what the view of this government is. This government had its view articulated by the member for Macarthur. The people of Spotlight must have found cold comfort from the words of the member for Macarthur when he said that he had no problem with jobs that pay no overtime, that do not allow for meal breaks or that pay no penalty rates.

Through the local media, he went on to tell these people, ‘If they don’t like it, they don’t have to take the job.’ He went on to say, ‘They can always go and start their own small business.’ I have to say that for the people who work in Campbelltown at the local haberdashery store—

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