Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The government was elected on a platform of responsible economic management, delivering for working Australians and working families under financial pressure and, on top of that, investing in the future. One of those areas where working families have faced a real challenge in their family budgets is the industrial relations system called Work Choices left to them by our predecessors—an industrial relations system which empowered employers to strip away penalty rates, overtime and other basic additions to their working wage with no compensation whatsoever. That is the industrial relations system those opposite supported; that is the industrial relations system which, to this day, they remain committed to reintroducing should they be returned to office.

Therefore, the government have acted on our pre-election commitment to do two things. We have acted, firstly, to abolish AWAs for the future and, secondly, to ensure that we have a fair and flexible industrial relations system for the future. A cornerstone of a fair and flexible industrial relations system of course consists of a basic safety net which applies to all workers in the federal industrial relations system. When you stand back from the industrial relations debate and look at the flow-through impact on the budgets of working families, what you get in your pay packet—in penalty rates, overtime and basic add-on conditions—is very important to your ability to cope with cost-of-living pressures from petrol, from groceries, from food, from rents and from mortgages.

When it comes to the impact on mortgages, those opposite, who presided over 10 mortgage increases in a row, should bear in mind the additional burden which their period in government delivered to the families struggling with cost-of-living pressures. So, in addition to the industrial relations pressures, through the system that they presided over and implemented, which impacted working families across the board and which they were committed to continue into the future, there were 10 interest rate rises in a row—all flowing through to workers suffering financial pressure.

Prior to the election we promised to get rid of AWAs for the future and through legislation we have honoured that commitment. Beyond that, we said we would also introduce a fair and flexible system, the cornerstone of which is a system of National Employment Standards. Today, the Deputy Prime Minister and I have launched these 10 National Employment Standards. This represents a basic protection for workers right across the country—fairer for workers and simpler for employers. As a simple test of how easy it is to get through this system relative to what preceded it, the equivalent of employment standards in the previous government’s regime added up to 149 pages of their so-called Fair Pay and Conditions Standard. What we have launched today, covering 10 National Employment Standards, is a document of just 50 pages.

If you go to the content, what we have now is important new protection under the National Employment Standards so that parents of young children have a right to request flexible working arrangements. Secondly, families have 12 months additional parental leave because each parent will have a separate entitlement to up to 12 months unpaid parental leave. Thirdly, employees will have a statutory right to redundancy pay, an award entitlement that was never protected by the previous government. On top of that, employees will have a basic right to workplace information. These standards will also apply to same-sex couples in line with the government’s recent decision to remove all forms of discrimination against same-sex couples in areas such as tax, superannuation and employment conditions—and this side of the House is proud of that reform as well.

The government remains committed to the implementation of its full industrial relations package. This is part of it. These National Employment Standards are core when it comes to restoring decency to the workplace and to ensure that we have fairness for all workers into the future. It is the first step in constructing this new system—important for the family pay packet and important in terms of the ability of working Australians and working families to deal with the cost-of-living pressures which they are now under.

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