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

The member for Wakefield always has some contribution to the debate, but it is usually not very helpful. Today is a bit like Groundhog Day. Again we see this Labor government trying to rush another bill through this parliament. As a result, once again, there is concern about a lack of clarity that was identified in a number of submissions to the Senate committee. This bill has been rushed right past interest groups, including employee and employer groups that made a number of suggested amendments which focused heavily on improving the wording of provisions to provide greater clarity.

The bulk of this rushed bill does not even deal with the recommendations arising from the Fair Work review. But are we really surprised? Prior to today, this bill was geared to provide significant additional rights to union bosses. Furthermore, it glosses over many things that already occur in Australian workplaces, because at the end of the day employers and employees in the majority of cases work together for the best outcomes for both parties. However, seeing that the government has addressed the bulk of the coalition's concerns we are now in a position to support this bill.

Earlier this week, I spoke about a number of broken promises by this Labor government. We almost added another to that list, because the Prime Minister said there would be no changes to union right-of-entry laws. Since the Fair Work Act came into effect we have seen an onslaught of visits. These visits usually serve two purposes: either to hunt for potential members or to intimidate. Eighty-seven per cent of the Australian private sector workers who actively choose not to join a union will be constantly badgered by union bosses to sign up for membership. It was recently reported that the Australian Workers Union made 156 site visits to BHP's Worsley aluminium site in 2012 and 175 in 2011. The Pluto project experienced more than 200 union site visits in the first 90 days of the act. You can imagine where these numbers would have led to with even more power being given to unions before today's changes. Thankfully, the government has decided not to proceed with the right-of-entry provisions.

The bill still makes a number of amendments to the Fair Work Act, which include the modern awards objective. First, the bill inserts a new modern award objective to protect penalty rates. The Fair Work Commission will have to take into account the need to provide additional remuneration for employees working overtime, unsocial, irregular or unpredictable hours, or on weekends, public holidays or shifts. As a coalition we do not believe the parliament should be in the business of legislating the detail of each and every modern award, taking account of flexibility that may be required in a range of different sectors of employment.

Secondly, the bill seeks to extend the right to request flexible working arrangements to employees: for example, those with caring responsibilities, those who are parents or responsible for the care of school-aged children, those who might care for someone older or with a disability or those supporting immediate family members or household members. The bill also explicitly states that employees returning from parental leave have a right to request part-time work. Those issues in the bill are perfectly sensible.

However, most of it already happens in workplaces across this country and the need to actually legislate these provisions is an additional red-tape burden and regulation on the business community. The proposed legislation also inserts a new subsection 65(1A) that sets out a 'non-exhaustive' list for 'reasonable business grounds' to refuse these requests. This includes an excessive cost of accommodating the request; a lack of capacity to recognise other employees' work arrangements to accommodate the request; the impracticality of any arrangement that would need to be put in place to accommodate the request, including the need to recruit replacement staff, significant loss of efficiency or productivity; and a significant impact on customer service. What this essentially means is that the government is legislating something that already exists in workplaces right around the country—the ability to request flexible working arrangements from your boss.

The bill also talks about genuine consultation on changes to rosters and hours. The bill provides for insertion in awards and agreements of a new 'genuine consultation' requirement for changes to rosters or working hours. It will be mandatory for employers to consult on proposals to change hours or rosters that do not amount to 'major workplace change'. Employers must give the employees information about the change and invite the employees to air their views about the effect of the change. Again here we see for the first time the government attempting to legislate conditions around roster changes. Seriously, I would suggest that it is common practice that employees are consulted on changes to their rostering arrangements. If employers want to have good, productive relationships with their employees and in their workplaces, I would suggest that these changes are regularly discussed with the affected employees before any changes are made.

The bill extends from three weeks to eight weeks the concurrent unpaid parental leave that eligible members of an employee couple can take. The bill also goes on to extend to pregnant employees with less than 12 months service the right to be transferred to a safe job if they are fit for work but are unable to continue in their current position because of illness or risks to their pregnancy. If there is no safe job, employees who have longer than 12 months service will be entitled to unpaid leave. The bill will also provide that taking unpaid special maternity leave does not reduce the employee's entitlement to unpaid parental leave—restating, interestingly, the Work Choices position.

The bill also had a clause in relation to antibullying. The bill gives workers the right to seek rapid remedies through the Fair Work Commission if a worker is bullied at work by an individual or group of individuals and the conduct creates a health and safety risk. We take the issue of workplace bullying very seriously and are disappointed that the government did not see fit to deal with this issue in a separate bill to ensure the necessary and thorough oversight.

With this in mind we would at least like to see the following amendments included in the bill: insert a filter mechanism which will require claimants to approach an independent regulatory agency such as the Fair Work Ombudsman or Safe Work Australia confirming that the behaviour in question does or may constitute bullying and that alternative remedies have been considered prior to the claim lodged with the commission. This is something that has been supported by the government's hand-picked Fair Work reviewer, Professor Ron MacCallum. Also, specifically include all forms of bullying, including that conducted by union bosses.

There are also some minor technical amendments to the bill to correct the rushed first amendment bill. I would like to add here that it would be very helpful for everyone involved if the government took more care when drafting bills. I point to this particular amendment as a result of what happens when this government continually rushes bills through this parliament for political purposes, without the appropriate time for consideration. Two or three days is not an appropriate amount of time to consider such matters. To say that this government has form in this regard would be an understatement. We only need to look at the past few days with the education bill and the budget bills. There is a whole long list of bills where this is exactly the case. We constantly come back to this place seeing amendments and changes made to correct drafting errors or bits they have missed out. It is an incredibly inefficient way to govern this country and gives nobody certainty or consistency.

There is a better way. The coalition has recently released our policy to improve the Fair Work laws. Our policy will improve the prospects of real higher wages for Australian workers, lift standards of behaviour in trade unions, make it easier for small business to employ people and lift Australia's productive capacity. All Australians want harmonious, productive and smart workplaces where effort is rewarded, loyalty is encouraged and where businesses and their employees share in the success of that enterprise. We want to see the take-home wages of Australian workers increase, just as they did under the coalition government from 1997 to 2007. Average real wages grew by 21.5 per cent.

Under our policy, no Australian worker will be worse off and business will be encouraged to grow. The real priority for our real solutions plan is to build a stronger, more productive and diverse economy that delivers more jobs, higher wages and better services for all Australians. That is why we can say with certainty that no Australian worker or business will go backwards because of this policy. This policy will, however, make life more difficult for militant building unions and dishonest union officials who continue to abuse their position. We make no apology for that. Australians have seen enough from the excesses of the Health Services Union and allegations surrounding the AWU to know something is very wrong with the standards and culture of some important national unions. We know that those who profit from such abuses will fight against these common-sense changes.

Our policy seeks to improve the current Fair Work laws by providing common-sense solutions to practical problems such as ensuring that right-of-entry provisions are sensible and not abused, providing practical help to small businesses within the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman and tackling lawlessness on building sites and construction projects by re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission. These sensible and common-sense measures will address the flexibility, militancy and productivity problems that exist within the operation of the current system. Our changes are about helping our workplace relations system work better for all concerned.

Unlike Labor, who say one thing before an election and do another thing after it, we will keep our word. We will not deliver less than our policy and we will go no further. If elected, these are the only changes that an incoming coalition government will make in a first term. The centrepiece of our economic agenda is to create one million new jobs within five years and two million jobs within 10 years. We will achieve this aim through dynamic, harmonious and productive workplaces where employers and employees share the benefits of growth. It is through our commitment to deliver stronger workplaces, lower taxes and more efficient government that the next coalition government will deliver a strong, prosperous economy and a safe, secure Australia.

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