Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before calling the member for Wakefield, I must say that, given the events of the weekend, his timing could only be deemed to be exquisite.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not claim any prescience in this matter. I do not think anybody could, frankly. Nobody could have foreseen before this motion was moved the events that happened over the weekend. The original reason I moved this motion was to simply point out that the most important thing to a person is their job and the most important thing to workers is how they are treated and the conditions under which they are employed. The Fair Work Act has kept employment low—

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unemployment low.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, unemployment. I am glad to be corrected. It has kept unemployment low, increased participation and protected wages and conditions, particularly if you look in comparison to the United States of America or the United Kingdom, both of which have freer markets than ourselves and higher unemployment rates. I think we have put the lie that lower wages lower your unemployment rate to bed for all time. Obviously there are more complicated things that go on in the economy.

We know what happened prior to this. The member for Mayo knows exactly what happened under the Work Choices act that he was one of the architects of. We know that wages were cut. We know that penalty rates were cut and people were dismissed unfairly. We know that AWAs were used to undermine other agreements. And we know that the Australian people were greatly aggrieved by that act. We know that they did not like it, no matter how much the member for Mayo tries to say otherwise. Actually, I am never sure whether he is running away from it or running to it these days. It is a bit hard to establish. One minute he says, 'Oh, no.' But then he says things that seem to point you in one direction. But that is a debate within his own party, no doubt. He and Peter Reith are out there waging a policy war, and who are we to stop them?

We know that Fair Work Australia has also done a number of agreements, such as with Australia Post and Woolworths. In fact, there have been 10,800 agreements covering 1.5 million employees. All of these agreements have been done without fanfare or incidents. They have been completed by good faith negotiation and registered with Fair Work Australia. So we know that there is a great degree of cooperation out there in the workforce. We know that there are large numbers of companies, employees and unions all getting together, negotiating in good faith, coming to an agreed set of wages and conditions and then getting on with the business of making money and, for the workers, getting on with the business of doing their work.

Tragically, in the last couple of days I think we have seen a situation where a company has taken a very extreme path and we have seen our Flying Kangaroo turned into an angry leprechaun—an angry, nasty leprechaun—that wants to inconvenience the Australian public. Our national carrier has embarked on an orchestrated and premeditated assault on consumers; not on workers but on consumers. The flying public and the public interest have been completely disregarded, I think, in this whole process. It is one thing not to have good faith negotiations with your workers, but to inconvenience people who have paid for a ticket and expect to get home or to their holidays or place of business is pretty surprising. It is unusual that the national carrier would inconvenience people in such a regard.

It is worth establishing the facts of this dispute. It is about two things: wages and job security. Looking at what the unions have done, the TWU want a pay rise, and for people who work outside handling heavy bags I think that is quite reasonable. I think it is reasonable for baggage handlers to have a pay rise. I think it is pretty reasonable for them to expect that they should have some job security over the life of the agreement. They have had eight hours of protected industrial action. The pilots have worn red ties—oh my God!—and they have made some announcements over the PA, which we have all heard. The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association suspended their industrial action on 20 October.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not what it is about.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But look at the press release they put out. They suspended it. And that is an act of good faith, is it not?

Mr Briggs interjecting—

It is an act of good faith not to suspend your industrial action. This is not the unions behaving unreasonably. They have taken protective action under the act and it has been pretty moderate. They have not brought the place to a standstill. All they are trying to do is get a pay rise and protect their jobs, and it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

At the Qantas annual general meeting the boss got a 71 per cent pay rise. I noticed on Fran Kelly's program this morning he was arguing that there was a 30 per cent drop last year—but it is swings and roundabouts for some, I guess. So they found time to talk about that but they did not find the slightest amount of time to talk about the extreme path they were about to go down. They had a premeditated assault on the Australian public: 'Shall we tell the shareholders about that … maybe not.' Bizarrely, they then took some weird endorsement of the AGM for their action. I do not know quite how, and he did not tell anybody.

You have to have more front than a butcher shop, I think, to take a 71 per cent pay rise and then turn around and embark on such extreme action. It is a disappointing thing to see. We all know that people have been inconvenienced. We all know people who have been stuck in Melbourne—admittedly they might get stuck there for the races, so that might not be so bad. But if you were going to go to the Melbourne Cup you would have been pretty disappointed. There were people stuck in Perth, LA and Thailand and all sorts of places all around the world. There was no warning for the 68,000 people of what they were about to do. The fact that the government was given very little warning was confirmed by Alan Joyce on ABC radio this morning when he admitted that there had been some misreporting. I wonder whose fault that was—was it the reporters or was it perhaps the people who were briefing the reporters? I suspect that misreporting was not a mistake, as it were. Industrial relations extremism from our national carrier is disappointing. They are supposed to give 72-hours notice of a lockout. That is the requirement on an employer just as it is a requirement—

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They gave 72 hours.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They did, and then they grounded the airline. If a union did that the member for Mayo would be in here talking about wildcat strikes and there would be all sorts of outrage—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The honourable member for Mayo has had a fair opportunity.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet it is different when we see a lockout by an employer pulled on very quickly with no notice, which did not disadvantage the workers nearly as much as it disadvantaged the Australian people and consumers. It has damaged the tourism industry. It has damaged our faith in air travel. It has damaged consumer's personal interests and we have this bizarre vision of people literally being pulled off planes. They were on the plane and they had to get off because of this extreme action that was taken. There was alternative action that could have been taken by Qantas and they should have—

Mr Briggs interjecting—

No, all roads lead to Fair Work Australia. These are the things that Fair Work Australia could have done. They could have continued to negotiate in good faith. They could have sought their own orders to terminate action under section 423. They could have made their own application under section 424. They could have sought arbitration by consent or they could have called in a third party. At the very least they could have embarked on a bit of sabre rattling. You would think they might have given a bit of warning.

They did not do any of these things. They did not negotiate in good faith. They have acted contrary to the national interest and they have declared war on the Australian public. It beggars belief that the top end of town, the corporate class in this country, think that they can take massive pay rises and then lecture Australian workers about a wage rise or job security. It is absolutely extraordinary that that might occur. Corporate Australia is badly out of touch with the community and its expectations in this regard.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to follow on from the comments by the member for Wakefield because the events of the weekend were simply extraordinary. We had one of Australia's biggest companies use the flying public mums and dads as pawns in a game of industrial relations hardball. They had, as the member for Wakefield rightly pointed out, a number of avenues under the Fair Work Act by which they could have dealt with this situation. They were outlined a few moments ago and I will pick up the member for Wakefield's term of 'sabre rattling'. Even flagging that a move could be undertaken, for example, to suspend or terminate a bargaining period would be interpreted as a serious gesture that would have brought the negotiations into sharp relief, changed the nature of those negotiations and potentially averted the situation that we had on the weekend.

I imagine that if Qantas went to suspend or terminate the bargaining period they would have been required to outline in clear factual terms in front of Fair Work Australia why that course of action was necessary. My suspicion is that they know they would have been unable to justify or obtain orders for that bargaining period that allowed for industrial action to take place to be suspended. Why? It is because, as has already been pointed out and from what I am led to believe, not one minute of flying time was affected as a result of industrial action. The action that pilots had undertaken was in effect to create public awareness either through the heinous crime of wearing a red tie that had a union logo on it or, for example, by announcements in the plane indicating what was going on. That is what the pilots did. What did Qantas do? Qantas undertook action that affected 68,000 people, the flying public, across the globe. Their plans were disrupted because of what Qantas did. Taking protected action not only has to comply with the law, the Fair Work Act, but also has to be mindful of the wishes of employees of affected organisations: they have to vote in favour of action. You cannot simply go out and take industrial action. Union members and employees have to support that action.

To give you an example of how extreme Qantas has become, under the act, obviously the employer has to be given notice of action, but before anything takes place the employees themselves have to take some sort of action within 30 days—and this is a provision that has existed for some time—to ensure that that protected industrial action can occur at some point. But, for unions and employees, the preference will be to negotiate. A Qantas pilot notified Qantas through their union, the AIPA, that they would take token industrial action of two minutes to ensure that they complied with the law. The pilot undertook, with that fair warning, protected industrial action in a two-minute stop-work meeting. Qantas's reaction was to cancel the flight that that pilot was going to do, stranding the pilot and his family in China. They were stranded as a result of an advised two-minute stoppage by that pilot to ensure there was compliance with the law. This is the type of behaviour that senior management in Qantas are sanctioning.

It is disingenuous for Qantas to say, for example, as they did on the weekend, that they had to undertake this action and it was not premeditated, when it is clear that it was. Thousands of hotel rooms had been booked around the world from Thursday to ensure that this action could be undertaken. The couriers who delivered lockout notices to pilots were booked last week. On Saturday night, Qantas senior executive Lyell Strambi admitted in front of Fair Work Australia that operations preparation had begun on this 10 days prior, while Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan sent an email regarding the action to all Jetstar staff on Saturday evening that was mistakenly dated Wednesday. This is the type of action that Qantas have undertaken. I would be interested to know if Qantas have abused their air operator's certificate by compromising the safety of the flying public by using this industrial tactic.

As I said earlier, to take industrial action under the act, you are required to give an employer 72 hours notice. Employers themselves pressed for this to give themselves certainty and to be able to make contingency plans in case their operations are affected. But employer initiated action like this does not require any notice. Imagine if the tables were turned and unions had taken this action on the spot. We would have all sorts of claims, as the member for Wakefield rightly pointed out, from those opposite that wildcat action had been undertaken. It is simply incredible that this type of situation could occur. The weekend's events set a terrible precedent, where employers sidestep justifying their moves—bear in mind that, as I indicated earlier, they could have moved to suspend or terminate the bargaining period and would have had to put argument and evidence forward to justify that—and instead move straight to lockout. Imagine if this occurred in another sector of the economy, like the banking system. Imagine if the banking sector took similar action, shutting down branches across the country as part of the lockout. It would be unexplainable and certainly unacceptable for them to do so, and they would have to be stopped in their tracks.

The Fair Work Act, which is the legislation we are referring to here, will come under review next year. Certainly, from my perspective, one area that does require review is the ability of employers to undertake this sort of wildcat action, affecting the public in the way that Qantas have, and the requirement that they too observe a minimum mandatory notice period—that is, where the employer gives notice, within the time frame of 72 hours, that they will effect a lockout. It is unacceptable that 68,000 people—mums and dads—have their lives turned upside down because the CEO and the Chairman of Qantas—the latter-day Don McGauchie, the latter-day Corrigan—want to effect a workplace relations agenda regardless of the impact on the public. Simply put, there needs to be even-handedness on both sides to ensure that the public is not affected.

I know those opposite have been calling for intervention and I love to hear that because I am certain that they have got this nostalgic, warm, fuzzy feeling in their balaclavas that they are getting a chance yet again to intervene in industrial disputes. Their intervention comes with alsatians. If it does not come with alsatians then it comes in the form of WorkChoices. Whenever they talk about intervention, the public should know they have not learned a thing. When they move to involve themselves in any industrial dispute around the country they ensure that the government will pick sides—that is what they are calling for in intervention. It is extraordinary. They say WorkChoices is dead, buried and cremated but certainly somewhere within that body the heart is well and truly beating for WorkChoices and we will see it yet again over the course of this debate and beyond. They do not have a policy but they have an intention and that intention is to bring back the son of WorkChoices in some way, shape or form.

If we are to have a system where we have economic growth at the level it has been that is the envy of the advanced world, with 700,000 jobs created in a period—

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. Peter Slipper ) : Under the standing orders, I am required to ask the member for Chifley whether he will accept an intervention.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would love to hear this.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member would he comment on the efficacy of Australia's wharves today after the unnecessary action he speaks of.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thanks, and no. We should ensure that with our economic growth wealth is fairly distributed through industrial agreements that are fairly negotiated. (Time expired)

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A part of this motion I do agree with and that is that the Fair Work Act is operating as the Labor Party intended it to operate. On the weekend we saw no greater proof of its operation than the thousands and thousands of Australians stranded at airports because of an ongoing dispute—a dispute which has reached this point purely because the Labor Party changed the law. This is why we are in the position we are in. We are in this dispute because the Labor Party changed the law and allowed matters to be bargained which were outside of the employment relationship. That is what this is all about.

The member for Chifley, and the mover of the motion the member for Wakefield—the member for the SDA union and the member for the communications union—said this has been extremist action by Qantas, that Qantas has taken on these poor union officials who are just operating in good faith. They did not want any of this; they did not want any of this industrial disharmony; they cannot believe it is happening—except that earlier this year Wayne Forno, who is the New South Wales TWU secretary, said:

Meanwhile our members at Qantas are in for their biggest fight ever for their EA ... Our members have the power to make Qantas grind to a halt ...

He said that on 14 July, three months before. What they have engaged in since that time is strike after strike. They call a strike, make the airline withdraw services and at the end say, 'Oh, we will call off the strike'—like Qantas can just automatically put the planes back in the air. This is an action where unions have forced Qantas to this point. Steve Purvinas, the Federal Secretary of the ALAEA, the engineers union, said just two weeks ago he would not book with Qantas between now and Christmas. Is that acting in good faith, Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper? I ask you: is it acting in good faith to say to consumers, 'Go and screw the company'?

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The honourable member for Mayo will not defy the chair.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Mayo willing to give way?

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not wasting my time with the member for Shortland.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was your answer?

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. This is too important a motion to speak to, to put on the record why the Labor Party is utterly to blame for the position we are in today with this industrial dispute. They changed the law and their only response is to try to conjure up a scare campaign. As Barry O'Farrell said a couple of weeks ago quite clearly—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Wakefield will remain silent.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

this is the McCarthyism of the new parliament—that you cannot talk about the failure of these people to manage this issue. Because they are wholly owned subsidiaries of the trade union, they cannot see the wood for the trees when it comes to this dispute. They all represent collectively the different unions that are at the table. And we know that one of the major protagonists in all this is not driven by getting his workers better rates of pay, because he agrees with the offer. Tony Sheldon has said that he agrees with the offer that Qantas have made.

Mr Champion interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Wakefield has made his contribution.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What he wants to do is manage the company. He also wants to manage the Labor Party. He is running for the presidency of the Labor Party—what a surprise!

Mr Champion interjecting—

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Wakefield will remain entirely silent!

Mr Champion interjecting—

Order! The honourable member for Wakefield will not defy the chair. He will remain silent for the rest of the contribution made by the honourable member for Mayo.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can put it no better than how the government is to blame for this than Professor Judith Sloan, who wrote this morning—

Opposition members interjecting—

Oh, they all are. Of course, they are now attacking economists. I recently heard you were not allowed to attack economists. Here we go: the Labor Party just want that on the record. All four of them across the way have just attacked Professor Judith Sloan. She put it very clearly, very simply this morning when she said this in the article in the Australian:

While there are differences in the three separate negotiations—with the long-haul pilots, the licensed engineers and the ground staff—there is one core stumbling block. This related to the right of the company to manage its operations, including using contractors and labour hire employees, changing work practices and separating the working conditions of staff across the various parts of the company. Negotiating the wages and conditions of staff is one thing; restricting the ability of the company to remain competitive is another thing altogether.

She sums it up this way, perfectly:

The key issue is that under the act—

under their Fair Work Act, which they are celebrating here this morning; celebrating this dispute, as intended—

there is essentially no prohibited content in agreements. And because of this, protected industrial action is available for the pursuit of virtually any matter.

That is what we are seeing here. We are seeing the unions empowered and on a frolic, trying to tear down an icon of our country. Tony Sheldon talks about job security for Australians. I tell you what: keep going the way you are going, Mr Sheldon, and you will send this airline offshore, because you will destroy it as they destroyed Ansett before. These people are completely biased when it comes to these matters. They see it from one side and one side only. We have seen that in the last 24 hours. We have seen attack after attack. The member for Throsby was on Twitter on Saturday night after Alan Joyce. The member for Chifley was out there—

An honourable member interjecting—

I am sure I missed the member for Wakefield's contribution. They are all out there personally attacking Alan Joyce and personally attacking Qantas. They will not see the wood for the trees on this issue. They cannot. They are wholly owned subsidiaries of the trade union movement in this country. You cannot expect them to say anything else.

The Leader of the Opposition is dead right when he says that the government should have acted sooner. He is absolutely right, so much so that Professor Andrew Stewart, hardly a friend of this side of the parliament—he helped write the Fair Work Act—said in the Sydney Morning Herald two weeks ago:

It has got to get to a point where it's something more than the ordinary type of industrial action—

that has to happen. He told them this was coming. He told them that this was going to happen, that it had to happen, because Qantas were bleeding. They have bled $68 million in this industrial dispute—and the unions were out there telling people, 'Don't book with Qantas before Christmas.' Apparently, this is all the fault of Qantas management. It is all the fault of Qantas. It has nothing to do with the unions at all; they were all acting in good faith. What a load of bollocks! This act is as the government intended it to operate. They wrote this act for this sort of dispute to occur. There is nothing surer. As Peter Costello, very rightfully, put it yesterday on TV: 'This is a dispute about who manages the company. It is not about conditions, not about pay; this is a dispute about the unions wanting to manage this company.'

We are here not to make decisions on who is right and who is wrong in industrial disputes, because, inevitably, people on both sides do things in industrial disputes which none of us will agree with. Disputes are nasty and they cause a lot of damage. We are not here to make those judgments, even though those on the other side continue to do so. And you just heard, again, the rant from the member for Chifley about the waterfront—the waterfront where, the unions told us, you could not get from 16 to 30 crane lifts per hour at the time. We now average 32. What a surprise! It actually worked.

Those people opposite are obsessed, they are wholly owned subsidiaries of the trade union movement and they cannot see this issue. They automatically take sides. Our job here is to write law so we do not have these sorts of disputes, so we do not encourage one side or the other to take the action that we have seen the unions pursue in the last few months, draining the blood from Qantas, so much so that we saw the absolutely extraordinary intervention this morning by John Borghetti, a competitor of Qantas. He is quoted in the Australianas saying:

But I think, generally speaking, given the perception of Australia overseas at the moment, this would certainly be damaging to Brand Australia …

This dispute is very complex. Even the competitors are saying that this matter has to be sorted out. The Prime Minister knew this was coming. She should have acted when she had the opportunity to act. Make no mistake: the government wrote the law to allow this scenario to occur. Every single one of you is responsible for the 68,000 people who were stuck at airports over the weekend. Every single one of you is responsible for what is going on–the industrial chaos which is now affecting our mining companies, wharves and Qantas. They are trying to kill Qantas, by allowing this outrageous and ongoing campaign and by extending the matters that can be included in disputation. The unions are acting out of control and are being supported by their sponsors in the parliament. They should be ashamed of themselves. This act is a disgrace. It must change. Unless we change it, the economy will suffer. Shame on you.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I say at the outset that, firstly, I am amazed at the tenacity of the member for Wakefield in not pulling his motion that he proposed for debate today on the Fair Work Act. In the circumstances of the preceding 48 hours, one would have expected the member for Wakefield to generally follow in the footsteps of his party and run away from tough issues, because we well know that members of the Labor Party, made up from the union movement, today run away from major issues because they can and because they have no solid investment in the problem at hand. This private member's motion asks, amongst other things, that we note that the industrial system under the Fair Work Act 2009 is working well, with low unemployment and low levels of industrial disputation. What monumental words.

The reason we have low unemployment is that we have a couple of states in this nation, regardless of union activity, that are still forging ahead, that are supplying world markets and doing it well and that are employing everyone who has a head, two arms and two legs. Certainly, we have low unemployment, but we do not have low unemployment as a result of the Fair Work Act 2009. Nothing could be more certain.

In relation to low levels of industrial disputation, dear oh dear, doesn't the member for Wakefield now regret this motion? The last 48 hours have seen action, unprecedented in this country, taken by Qantas that has resulted in 70,000 passengers being affected, 600 flights cancelled and seven grounded aircraft. We have had rolling strikes by unions whose members have chosen to send the 'Flying Kangaroo' to the ground permanently, if not offshore. There is no way that all the talk, all the bluster or all the protestations can deny the fact that this is the aspiration of the union—quite simply to make sure that the Flying Kangaroo is brought to its knees and certainly sent offshore.

Mr Champion interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Opposition members will desist from interjecting.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For anyone ex-union in the government today to propose that this has not been their intent from the very first day of industrial action is hypocrisy indeed. So I suggest to the member for Wakefield that he is the bravest of men in this place today, because he is following a dream.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the member for Durack willing to give way?

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. Only foolish members of the government would take questions in this situation. Over these last 48 hours we have seen a situation bringing pain to the travelling public, that you are presumably interested in—not just Australians but visitors to Australia and moving from Australia around the world. They are being held to ransom by the most dishonourable group one could ever imagine, because their intention is false; their protestations are false and their representation here, I would suggest, is false on the basis of being interested in the best interests of Australians. The Fair Work Act 2009 has created an opportunity for the travelling public to be inconvenienced in a manner that they have never, ever been inconvenienced in before. The last time we saw this sort of action it caused the end of an airline. As the member for Mayo pointed out moments ago, the intention of the union from the outset was to destroy Qantas.

Mr Champion interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will be heard in silence.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am all right, Mr Deputy Speaker, they can mouth on as much as they like with their hypocrisy. It will not get through to the minds and hearts of the Australian people, because they speak with forked tongues. They purport to represent Australians and their best interests but they represent a group of Australians—unionised Australia.

Mr Champion interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unionised Australia will at every turn choose to bring the employer down because this is a battle that was born some hundreds of years ago and they have never matured to the point where they are over it. They still believe that they are fighting to get the small children out of the depths of the coal mines, and because there are no small children in the depths of the coal mines today they have to pick on someone else. Who suffers? The travellers of this world have suffered in the last 48 hours, needlessly, because of the games that they play. They do not have the intestinal fortitude, the wherewithal or the motivation to invest their money like the shareholders of this company do in service industries that provide and make assets and life better for Australians. They do not endeavour to keep their unions down so they can be on top dictating, looking from on high; they absolutely represent the worst aspects of a small group of the Australian population and they ought to be damned for it.

I have no fear of going out into my electorate and facing unionists, because in the main, in my vast Durack electorate, unionists these days are members of unions because they have been forced into it. It is not a voluntary situation, because the industrial laws today still demand on building sites in Western Australia that they be members. We still have the jackboot attitudes of union leaders in Western Australia demanding that unionists are such and have a job or they leave the site. They still use their jackboot tactics and disrupt concrete pours. I wonder if you guys know about concrete pours. What do you know about hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of concrete, and reinforcement estimations—

Government members interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will be heard in silence.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that are destroyed because of unions calling for strikes on building sites? It would be hypocritical for any one of you sitting opposite to declare that you were interested in the progress of Australia. That would be a rare event. I would like to hear you loudly declare that you are interested in the activities of Australians today.

Mr Stephen Jones interjecting—

There is silence. There is silence in that regard—

Opposition members interjecting—

from the three members opposite because they cannot genuinely, hand on heart—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The members of the opposition will cease interjecting.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

say that they are interested in Australians. They are interested in tearing down big business because there are no small children in the coalmines to save anymore. If they had any gumption, motivation or intestinal fortitude, they would be out investing their own money in free-market enterprises, not trying to kill the services.

Government members interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my right will cease interjecting.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So there we have three of those who represent hypocrisy in this nation.

I remind the chamber in these closing moments of reports over the last 48 hours that Qantas had extensively briefed Prime Minister Gillard and the government, including Minister Albanese, over an extended period. That included a visit by Alan Joyce to Anthony Albanese's office on 21 October. The first action that Julia Gillard could have taken would have been to invoke the powers of section 431 of her Fair Work Act—her act. This would have meant that, rather than waiting for Fair Work Australia, the dispute would have been terminated immediately—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, that's not true, Barry.

Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, we expect only the truth, don't we, Mr Deputy Speaker? We expect only the truth! Instead, people were sitting at airport terminals around the world—because this government was sitting on its hands. There are powers under the act that Prime Minister Gillard could have used to avert this crisis, but she chose not to. She chose not to because until she is forced into a corner she does not exhibit leadership. Until such time as she has no way out, she is totally boxed in, she will not make decisions, certainly not rational ones. All we had, in fact, was the member for Maribyrnong fronting up at Fair Work Australia to intervene—on behalf of the people of Australia or on behalf of the union movement, I wonder? Or was it simply part of his tilt at leadership of this government of rabble? These laws are Prime Minister Gillard's laws. She wrote them and she would have known what to do and how to do it— (Time expired)

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to speak on this motion, and I thank the member for Wakefield for bringing it before the House, because industrial relations has been a central issue of federal politics since the very Federation of this great nation. It has been a debate fought out at just about every election and it has been a central debate, certainly for those on this side of the House, because we understand that it represents the bringing together of those core economic and industrial rights issues that go to the heart of what drives the people who elect us to represent them in this place.

It is a central issue when you think of the architecture of our industrial relations system, and the national wage case—that yearly coming together of members of the Fair Work tribunal, where they consider the movements in prices and the need for workers' wages to keep pace with the costs of living. That represents a shift in wages, take-home income, for about a quarter of Australians—and, if you think about it, Mr Deputy Speaker, it has a bigger impact on their lives. I know that is of little interest to the member for Durack, but it has a bigger impact on the take-home pay of the sorts of workers that I know the member for Wakefield used to represent: low-paid workers. It has a bigger impact on their working lives than the annual cycle of budgets and tax cuts will ever have on them because of the take-home pay increases that are made possible by those decisions.

You will not hear those opposite talk about that, because those workers are invisible to them. Similarly, they have little interest in the award provisions that were protected by the Fair Work Act—after their 11 years of assault on them—like penalty rates, overtime and others that ordinary Australian workers rely on to make ends meet. They talk a lot about the cost of living over on that side of the chamber because that is what their focus groups are telling them. What they do not understand is that these provisions that are contained in the industrial instruments are how ordinary Australians make ends meet. These are provisions that are protected by those on this side of the chamber, but those that are of absolutely no concern to those on that side.

I was amused to follow the easily amazed member for Durack who gave a speech which would have made any class warrior on any side of politics proud in the 10 minutes that he stood here before us. The member for Durack would probably be unaware of this, but I note that he is wearing a red tie today. He is probably unaware that one of those unionists that he was disparaging—the pilots—if they wore that red tie to work a few weeks ago, they would have been stood down. That is the sort of industrial action we are talking about that these tyrants of the union movement were engaged in—wearing a red tie to work to show their solidarity. If he wore that red tie—if he were a pilot—he would have been stood down. The member for Durack might have done himself the favour of actually informing himself before engaging in this debate.

Those opposite obviously have as many positions on the IR debate as it is possible to have. You have got those who are the wolf in sheep's clothing—that is, the Leader of the Opposition. This is the man who ran around the country between 1996 and 2000 encouraging employers in the coal industry to lockout their workers and then encouraging the industrial tribunals to do absolutely nothing about it who is today egging on the Prime Minister to intervene to terminate the bargaining period and to arbitrate on this dispute. He has had a Damascus like conversion over the last decade. Then you have the wolves in wolves' clothing and that is the member for Mayo over here. I am pleased that he is at least honest—and he has been consistently honest in this debate—and I must say that I disagree with the member for Durack on many things but he is consistently honest in this debate too. They have no time for industrial laws, except those that go to the hearts of worker's rights. We have the wolf in wolf's' clothing over here and the wolf in sheep's clothing represented by the Leader of the Opposition. The real test of a successful industrial relations system is the jobs that it creates—over 750,000 jobs created—the rights that it protects. We make no bones about the fact that we protect take-home income, penalty rates and overtime and that protracted disputes like Qantas can be resolved, as they will be over the next 21 days. (Time expired)

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(I am sure that the member for Wakefield had honourable intentions when he drafted this motion and perhaps has become a victim of bad timing. However, this reflects the core problem of the industrial relations legislation that he is lauding. It has not brought industrial peace; it has only brought uncertainty.

The consistent theme that I hear from businesses across my electorate of Bennelong is the need to operate in an environment of certainty. The Fair Work Act in tandem with this inept government's woeful management of the economy, has clearly not provided any such certainty in business conditions. Kept afloat by the mining boom, the gap between the two speeds in our economy grows wider every day and increasingly a higher price is paid by small businesses and, subsequently, the workers supposedly cared for by the member for Wakefield's former paymasters at the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.

Last week I visited the Epping Floral Centre in Bennelong. The lady at the counter spoke of her need to work 80 hours a week without breaks, without sick leave, annual leave or overtime entitlements. Before the SDA put on their orange polo shirts and set up a picket line outside this business, the lady I spoke to is the owner of the business and she needs to work those hours under those conditions just to keep the doors open. She commented that ideally she would employ a staff member to ease her load, which would also contribute back to the economy and to our local community; however, she could not justify this financial commitment in such a restrictive workplace relations environment and with the looming threat of the carbon tax.

Several months ago I addressed a local business forum and was asked a question about Work Choices and penalty rates. I stated our party's policy mantra that Work Choices is dead, buried and cremated, and I repeated some of the stories that had been told to me by local business owners about their genuine experiences of running an enterprise in the current environment. One story, replayed over and over, was that small retail businesses like cafes and hairdressers could no longer afford to open on weekends because the costs associated with penalty rates had become prohibitive. As a result, business owners are angry as they cannot afford to open their doors, workers are angry as they have been priced out of a job and customers are angry as their favourite shop has closed. The economy suffers.

Without detailing any alternative policy, I conclude by saying there must be a better way. The result was a conga line of government MPs misrepresenting my comments as a call for the reintroduction of Work Choices and the abolition of penalty rates. This story is representative of the desperate levels this government will stoop to in order to rekindle the fear that was so successfully installed in the community in 2007.

I am sure that at the next election the streets of Bennelong will be crowded with orange polo shirts fresh from another strike action with Customs staff, weathermen or whatever occupation is their target that particular week, telling all who will listen that the sky will fall in. However, these local business examples represent a far more serious story that was repeated in actions this weekend. Qantas, just like the small business owners, were forced into such desperation by the regulatory environment they operate under and by the militant nature of the unions—supposedly employed to safeguard the rights of their workers. The only way they could ensure the future viability of their business was to shut the doors. Surely, there must be a better way and, surely, this motion should not be supported.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to commend the member for Wakefield for propitiously bringing this motion forward. If there is to be a fair go at work there must be a decent and comprehensive safety net. I spent 20 years as an employer and employed dozens and dozens of people in that time. I was a senior partner of a Brisbane CBD law firm and I can tell you the best way to redistribute wealth in this country is to employ someone. I found that simplicity, fairness and equity were crucial when sitting across the table negotiating arrangements with employees.

The Fair Work system gives Australians an efficient, fair and balanced national system with a stable regulatory framework. It provides workplaces the opportunity to enhance productivity in a real way to become more competitive and at the same time it allows fairness and balance. Despite the opposition scare campaign, the majority of employees and employers are using the Fair Work system to work out their differences in a mature and proactive way. In the year to June 2011, there were 22 fewer disputes than in the previous year. Since the Fair Work Act took effect, on average 3.6 days were lost per thousand workers per quarter compared to 13.5 days per quarter during the Howard coalition government. The Fair Work Act restored unfair dismissal protection to millions of Australian workers who were denied the basic entitlement under Work Choices.

I make no apologies for supporting security from the fear of unfair dismissal to about 2.8 million Australians and their families. Individual statutory contracts were a vehicle by which wages and conditions were diminished in this country. Under Work Choices 64 per cent of AWAs cut annual leave loading and 63 per cent cut penalty rates, to the shame of those opposite.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

The Leader of the Opposition is under pressure from the member for Mayo and all the modest members opposite to reinstate Work-Choices-like legislation. I am struck by the tone and language of the Leader of the Opposition in his press conferences recently, because the devotee, the disciple of John Howard, lives and breathes not just in the member for Mayo but in the Leader of the Opposition. It is in their DNA, their blood, their sinew and their fibre.

They believe in Work Choices and they will bring it back. No longer is the Leader of the Opposition the workers' mate, the battlers' friend. He is out there supplying succour and assistance and words of comfort to the management of Qantas. This is the management that had this in place—and this is the evidence—for days before their annual general meeting. They gave a 71 per cent rise to senior management and are at the same time trying to lock out workers and stop Australian commuters from getting across the country. This is not just. This is the fault of the Qantas board. It is an irritant to international travellers and it is causing domestic disruption to the Australian economy.

If a union did this those opposite would be bleating. There would be hellfire and brimstone threatened by those opposite. But, guess what? It is the management of Qantas. The opposition side with big business always. That is in their real fibre; it is what they really believe. They come in here with their concern about living conditions and workers wages and this sort of stuff, but it is simply nonsense. They do not believe it. You see the class warfare from those opposite: the member for Durack and the member for Mayo. They really show what they truly believe. I hope everyone listens to this—the workers, the working families across the country, the pensioners and the people who are doing it tough. When they listen to the words of the member for Mayo and the member for Durack they really get what these guys are really about. If this mob were ever on this side of the chamber again they would bring back Work Choices. They would not call it Work Choices. The member for Mayo's private member's motion has Work Choices in it. His private member's bill has Work Choices in it. He is an architect, an author, of Work Choices. That is what this side really believes in. They talk about freedom, flexibility and productivity. That is simply a code word. We know what it is about; it is about driving down wages and increasing profits for big business. They are not interested in a cooperative and collective approach in workplace enterprise bargaining. Here they are—the Leader of the Opposition, the market's friend, urging draconian work. (Time expired)

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is so much good material, where do you start? At the end of the day an IR framework is designed to give people job security and to give them jobs. No amount of attempting to blame the Qantas management for an issue that the unions created in the first place by creating uncertainty is going to change that.

The Fair Work Act is another example of Labor's approach to an industrial relations reform that again centres around emboldening the union movement. There are plenty of examples over the years of where the union movement's own agenda has cost workers their jobs. Again, it is an example that is going to be a detriment in the long term to the employees.

This motion is just farcical. This weekend we have seen the Qantas dispute where the government's mismanagement has forced Qantas to take these drastic actions.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Poor managers!

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not the first industrial action that has tested Labor's industrial relations dispute resolution process. At the end of the day the quality of this process is based upon how it handles the disputes, not when things are going well.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As there have been up until now.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There have been disputes at Toyota around pay issue. There have been disputes at BHP's coal mine—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There were disputes under Howard. Tristar under Howard held up the whole economy.

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Wakefield will cease interjecting.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So then we have BHP's coalmine dispute, there is Customs, there is police, there is transport. The list goes on. Qantas is being held to ransom by the unions. On Saturday night, we saw the end result of that with Qantas grounding their flights. Passengers were stranded in airports all over the country as well as internationally. Included in the list of stranded people were dignitaries, journalists and staff who attended CHOGM. It is not a good look for promoting our industrial relations process in action. What an embarrassment for this government. It just adds to the long litany of government mismanagement on BER, border protection, live cattle industry—

Government members interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, order! Government members will cease interjecting.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to support my community.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You guys voted against it.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is all a bit late for that. How many other businesses have been affected by this industrial action not to mention investor confidence and productivity? This whole fiasco must surely taint travellers' perceptions of visiting Australia. The tourism industry has already reported a five to 10 per cent drop in the number of bookings for the Christmas period and rolling strike actions are not going to win over any ambivalent tourists.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are not rolling strikes.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The rolling strikes or threats of strikes prior to Saturday.

Government members interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Customers who have been lost, who have decided not to come Down Under for a holiday, will mean tourist operators will need to win them back. The managing director of Webjet indicated in an interview with Business Spectator that if the strikes continued, they could have a knock-on effect impacting the whole Australian tourism industry. There are the related industries that go with that. Due to these threats or strikes that have occurred and are being scheduled to occur over the coming months, we are only going to see a decline in people wishing to travel to this country.

It is not QANTAS that are changing the goalposts. They have not implemented any changes to the legal framework for industrial relations introduced by the fair work system. The dispute resolution umpire has done little to credibly assist in bringing this dispute to an end. If anything, they could be accused of undermining the rights and conditions that have been collectively bargained. As the member for Mayo pointed out, the dollar figure for pays is not an issue, it is about allowing the management of the company do what it needs to manage the business in the model—

Mr Champion interjecting—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, job security is about changing the requirements and framework of what needs to be done in the jobs to reflect the new technology that has come in with new planes. They are happy to cost Qantas $15 million a week or $70 million over the process—

John Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.