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

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the Tax Laws Amendment (2006 Measures No. 3) Bill 2006, which contains amendments to our tax laws. Of particular interest among the many and varied matters that are contained in this bill is the introduction of capital gains tax exemption for grants paid under the Unlawful Termination Assistance Scheme and grants paid under the Alternative Dispute Resolution Assistance Scheme. Despite the fact that grants made available as a result of Work Choices legislation are difficult to access, I am pleased to see that the government is acting to at least exempt them from capital gains tax.

I am sure the 10 million hardworking Australians who have had their employment placed at risk, who have had any sense of job security ripped from underneath them, appreciate the fact that they will not be completely cruelled by the Howard government should they be eligible to receive one of these Work Choices grants. I am sure they would prefer not to have to make an application for such a grant at all, because if they do find themselves in the position of needing to make such an application it means one thing. It means they have been sacked. It means they have had the full impact of the Howard government’s industrial relations agenda thrust upon them.

It is possible to refer to the capital gains tax exemption, although a relatively standard exemption for recipients of government grants, as a positive thing. It may be the one and only positive thing in the Work Choices legislation, but referring to it as positive is drawing an extremely long bow. Removing the rights of working Australians, outlawing the contents of employment agreements, introducing draconian penalties are not positive outcomes for any working Australian family. Members opposite know that the introduction of Work Choices was nothing more than the culmination of the Prime Minister’s 30-year ideological dream for industrial relations reform. It is the Prime Minister’s fantasy brought into reality, and typifies this government’s obsession with cutting take-home pay and conditions for working Australian families.

Recently, I was prevented from giving voice to some real and legitimate concerns that were expressed to me by my constituents in Werriwa, and no doubt some of the constituents of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, who is at the table, in Macarthur have expressed them to him. They were concerned about the issue of Work Choices. A gag was placed upon me. I noted the advice from the parliamentary secretary at the time to use other forums to get these matters out or to voice these matters in the parliament. I think it is incumbent on all of us who are representatives of our local communities to make sure that the issues that are legitimately brought to our attention by our constituents are given ventilation in this place.

The Work Choices legislation has set about turning employment relationships on their heads, it has set about weakening the position of employees, it has set about undermining the living standards of working Australians and it has set about forcing good employers to act badly solely so they can stay in business. A great many people in my electorate are extremely concerned about the introduction of Work Choices. Ever since the government’s announcement that these sweeping changes were coming, I have spent time at railway stations and shopping centres and at meetings and functions of community groups picking up that vibe—and, if anyone is listening out there and doing their jobs as local members, I am sure they will be picking up the same vibe. They will be hearing from the lips of constituents their concern about this government’s extreme industrial relations agenda and the impact that it is going to have not only on their take-home pay and conditions but also on their families.

Not only are they worried about trying to maintain their wages and conditions into the future but also most of them are worried about their kids. They worry about how they are going to fare under this negotiation system, which could be typically referred to as ‘catch and kill your own’. I notice there are a lot of flagpoles going up around my electorate. I know the minister attends many of these ceremonies and I welcome him when he turns up in Werriwa. I have talked to teachers, and they are worried about how hard some of their most forthright and bold students are going to find standing up to a potential employer—the negotiation of a better deal, one on one, between an 18-year-old and possibly some representative of a multinational company. I do not think there is anyone on either side of the House who really believes the rhetoric that both the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations have put on the issue of flexibility. By the way heads all seem to go down whenever anyone mentions Spotlight, I find it difficult to believe that government members would be willing to swallow that sort of rhetoric. After all, their constituents have to account for their integrity and their intelligence when they front up to the ballot box and decide on who is best able to represent not only the individual constituents in their electorates but also the constituents’ families.

I mentioned earlier that I was gagged, and I do note the member for Macarthur pointed out to my local newspaper that there are other ways to introduce these subjects into the House. I do take his advice, as I am always grateful for advice from the member for Macarthur, but at that stage during the MPI debate it was very interesting to hear what the member for Deakin had to say. The member for Deakin said that, if you take it as a whole, people are better off having a job than having no job at all. I do not think people are arguing that it is better to have people unemployed. But the nub of this MPI debate, when it got down to the cut and thrust of it, was that no-one is forcing you to take the contract, so do not take the job. I think the words were to the effect of they do not have to take the deal that they are offered. He is right, they just do not get the job. That is the view that pervades the members opposite, and it is certainly selling Australian workers and Australian families short.

It is regrettable that my friend the member for Macarthur—I say ‘friend’ because I do regard him very highly—who joined in the debate only recently, is reported in the local newspaper the Macarthur Advertiser as saying there is nothing wrong with no overtime pay, no meal breaks, no penalty rates and no leave loading. He was also reported as saying that people should consider themselves lucky to have a job. Those comments are misplaced and draconian. Mr Deputy Speaker, you could anticipate that that might be the view of the Prime Minister trying to bat away questions in question time or the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations trying to do another doorstop. To give the member for Macarthur his due, I think he does try to represent constituents with all due diligence, but to demean people and their families to the point of saying that they should consider themselves lucky to have a job does not say much for some of us as representatives of our communities.

The workplace relations legislation has started a race to the bottom. We have seen it with Spotlight. That case was probably one of the most unwanted developments in the workplace relations debate so far. Most people in the inner city areas probably do not know too many abattoir workers—inner city Sydney is a long way from Cowra—but they understand when you talk about what is happening to people in Spotlight and the mothers who work in the local haberdashery store. As Pat Farmer knows, we share a Spotlight store in Patrick Street, Campbelltown. Spotlight is an organisation that has put paid to this concept that there is any negotiation out there. There is no negotiation. You will find Spotlight’s template Australian workplace agreement on its website. It is not ashamed to put it on the website. It has it there. It goes back to what the member for Deakin said, ‘If you don’t want the job, don’t sign the contract.’ It is not a case of, ‘Come in, let’s negotiate; let’s try to work our way around an acceptable position for an incoming employee.’ That is not the case at all.

When push came to shove on this issue, the defence of Spotlight’s general manager of marketing was, ‘I didn’t write the legislation; all I’m doing is implementing the legislation of the federal government.’ In other words, ‘If this government is going to allow us to cut corners, we’ll do it.’ Another interesting piece of information came out at about the same time. Far from trying to rail against the position of Spotlight, the National Retail Association applauded Spotlight’s position. Not only did they applaud it but they said that they had encouraged their members to do the same. Will we see managers of the stores in the main street of Campbelltown being seriously encouraged to take away overtime rates and penalty rates for workers who work on shopping nights on Thursdays and Saturday afternoons? Is that what this government stands for? That is what the legislation allows. If members make trite comments to the media about standing behind the legislation so solidly, they have to be accountable. The simple fact is that the cutting of wages and conditions and the undercutting of award terms and conditions of employment is not appropriate. To do so may generate new jobs out there, but at what cost?

The evidence presented to the estimates hearings shows that 6,200 individual contracts have been lodged with the Office of the Employment Advocate since March this year—since Work Choices came into effect. In the OEA’s role as the examiner of agreements, it looked closely at 250 random samples of all the agreements that had been lodged. Unsurprisingly, it found that the vast majority of agreements eroded the take-home pay and conditions of Australians. It is not me or the Labor Party asserting this. It comes from the Office of the Employment Advocate, which the government appointed; hence, I have no hesitation in accepting the figures that were put out by this statutory office-holder.

The AWAs examined will cut family budgets and make it even harder for many families to keep their heads above water. There is no doubt about that. The evidence provided to the estimates hearings shows that every single one of the 250 individual contracts examined by the Office of the Employment Advocate excluded one protected award condition: 64 per cent removed leave loadings, 63 per cent removed penalty rates, 52 per cent removed shift loadings, 40 per cent lost gazetted public holidays and 16 per cent excluded all—every one—of those conditions. They simply relied on the government’s five minimum standards.

In addition to that, nearly one in four individual contracts removed leave loading, penalty rates and shift loadings. How did the government respond to that? The only response offered by the Prime Minister when he was presented with these facts in question time was that 84 per cent of the contracts examined resulted in higher rates of pay than the relevant award rates. The recent individual contracts offered to the new Spotlight employees also had a higher rate of pay than the award—a full 2c an hour higher than the award rate of pay.

Of course, while the wage rate might have been higher, when you take into account the removal of shift penalties and overtime payments, the take-home pay of employees certainly was not higher. The take-home pay for employees on wages a whole 2c an hour higher than the award was less than that of their colleagues who were being paid award rates of pay and who still had all those other award entitlements accruing to them. In outer Western Sydney and, I imagine, just about every other location, take-home pay is what is relevant to Australian working families. We can talk about individual rates but, at the end of the day, it is about what workers’ take-home pay means to them and what they need to sustain their families.

Even more staggering was the government’s defence of the actions of Spotlight. It tried to excuse it by suggesting that new stores had been opened because they could pay lower rates of pay. What rubbish that is. I cannot believe the government would genuinely believe that a new store would only open in Mount Druitt simply because Spotlight did not have to pay award rates of pay. Like other members in this place, prior to entering the parliament, I was in business. I know the member for Macarthur referred to me as a union lobbyist, but I was in business. I actually helped the development of other organisations. Sure, I was retained by the Police Federation of Australia to assist them as well, but I would not necessarily see that as meaning I was just a union lobbyist. From my background in working in business development, let me say that businesses do not work out where they are going to set up a new venture just by looking at how cheaply they can pay their employees.

Businesses go out to expand by looking at the marketplace, at the customer base and at how their goods and services are positioned in a market. They present a business plan. I do not know any business—maybe members opposite do—that has in the forefront of its mind when it wants to set up a new business: ‘How can we undercut the award wages and conditions of hardworking Australians? How cheap can we get it? That will be our business model.’ Maybe those ones who want to go offshore, do their manufacturing offshore and embrace the Chinese approach of living on $5.80 a day in some of the provincial areas think this. If that is what they are advocating for Australian workers, let them be upfront and say that.

Let me simply say that what has occurred at Mount Druitt was a prime example of how this government is encouraging new jobs by allowing employers to undercut terms and conditions of employment, to undercut award wages and to force people onto individual contracts which only satisfy the five minimum conditions and are not even at the same level as those for existing employees. It is an utter nonsense. I would also indicate that this is not a matter that is only relevant to new employees. Think about the position of the other 6,000 Spotlight workers if it is now appropriate and legal for their management to employ 35 new people to whom they do not have to pay overtime, penalty rates and leave loading. If they work side by side on the same shift at that Spotlight store, one group is going to get paid $90 a week less than the other group. What do you think is going to happen to the other group? I will tell you: the next contract they get offered will not have those penalty rates in it. It is not only these 35 new people that Spotlight want to recruit at Mount Druitt; it is the 6,000 other people in that store. This is all being done, according to the general manager of Spotlight, on the basis that it is government legislation— (Time expired)

See this speech in context