Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support and say amen to what the member for Bendigo said in relation to this issue. I rise to speak in relation to the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill 2017, and I support the amendment by the member for Gorton, the shadow minister. We want to make sure the modern award system is up-to-date, modern and meets the needs of workers and industry alike. While we have legitimate concerns about aspects of this bill, we agree with the broad intent and we are going to support it with a view to fixing some drafting mistakes through amendments in the Senate.

It is important to acknowledge that for many workers much more needs to be done, as the member for Bendigo pointed out. Procedural and technical changes are one thing, but they pale into insignificance when you consider that, in about 11 days, up to 700,000 Australians are going to have a pay cut. When cuts to weekend penalty rates are handed down on 2 July, those opposite will have been shamefully responsible. They have done nothing. This will be the largest pay cut that workers will have received in living memory. They could have stopped it. They sat silently and did nothing, sometimes complicit in urging it on. Sixty members of those opposite have supported the idea of pay cuts in their public comments.

While we support the bill today, we will never stop fighting the appalling indifference of those opposite which has been displayed on many occasions publicly and with the votes they have cast in this place in relation to the workers of this country. Two of the three changes proposed by the bill before us today are in response to the recommendations of the Productivity Commission over 15 months ago, while the third relates to recommendations made by Justice Heerey just over a year ago. They include: the abolition of four-yearly reviews, as recommended by the Productivity Commission's report into workplace relations, and there are provisions which would allow the Fair Work Commission to overlook some very minor technical and procedural errors when approving enterprise agreements where those errors are not likely to disadvantage employees, and that responds to a recommendation of the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission report into Australia's workplace relations system was handed to the government by 30 November 2015 and was publicly released on 21 December 2015, just before Christmas—almost a year and a half ago. The Australian public could well be confused about the government's response in relation to that. There has been no formal government response to the report. The government sat silently on the issue before the election and has remained almost mute since.

The only reason we are debating this bill today is the pressure brought by employer groups and unions to successfully push the government to do something about it. That is an all-too-familiar tale in relation to this particular government: indifference, lack of initiative, sitting idly and being dragged, kicking and screaming, to do something. This government seems to be a government paralysed by indecision. Even after all of that, there are legitimate fears that they have either not bothered to do anything properly or are incompetent to do anything at all. That is so characteristic of this particular government.

The Fair Work Commission has responsibility for ensuring modern awards, along with the National Employment Standards, provide a fair and relevant minimum safety net of terms and conditions. To do so, the commission has to be mindful of a range of factors, including the need to make sure the Australian award system is easy to understand, has simple language and is stable and sustainable to the Australian economy and the community. As a result, the four-yearly reviews of awards have been mandated as one of a couple of ways to make sure these objectives are met, the other being by way of application by employers or employees.

Both employers and employees, along with the stakeholder groups who represent them, have joined in criticising this particular scheme and claiming that it is a cost to the resources of both parties, as well as the Fair Work Commission. In fact, the current four-yearly review has been underway for about three years and is not set to finish until the end of the year, which runs extremely close to the start of the next review, which is set to begin in the new year.

Labor are not going to stand in the way of reforms that mean the Fair Work Commission can achieve its intended aims and outcomes. To that end, if the four-yearly review is not actually helping to achieve the modern award objectives due to its financially burdensome nature, we are going to support the legislation and amendments to fix that up. What we will not be doing is putting through legislation that is not properly considered and that will have unintended consequences.

The government has made clear that, while the removal of the four-yearly review scraps the mechanisms for a comprehensive review of modern awards, the capacity for variations of modern awards by application will continue. It is imperative that modern awards be able to be reviewed to ensure they meet the modern award objective. It is equally important that this be achieved through a process which is fair and makes sure that there is a fair balance between employers and employees.

While I was generally supportive of the object and the intent of the legislation, we wholeheartedly agree with the additional comments made by the Labor senators in the Senate legislative committee recommending further amendments, which Labor will move when the bill reaches the Senate. The bill, we think, should be amended to ensure the current four-yearly review process, described as 'award stage and common issues', can be completed; the current draft fails to make that clear.

Secondly, we believe that the provisions in the bill which require that the Fair Work Commission be constituted by a full bench are simply onerous and should be removed as well. There is absolutely no need for a full bench to hear this type of thing when you are talking about technical changes. Such an action makes it more difficult, so it needs to be removed.

The bill also gives the Fair Work Commission the power to approve an enterprise agreement which has generally been agreed to but for minor technical and procedural problems, provided the employees covered by the agreement are not likely to be disadvantaged by those errors. In this regard, technical errors can range from employers stapling additional pages to the back of forms to the use of company letterhead and incorrect phone numbers being used on notices. We support the intent of changing the act so that minor defects are corrected.

The use of the word 'disadvantage' in the proposed section 118(2) does not reflect the intent of ensuring enterprise agreements are genuinely agreed to. 'Disadvantage' has a very specific technical meaning in the Fair Work Act and, from listening to those opposite during question time and also during speeches, I do not think they really understand what disadvantage really is—certainly disadvantage with respect to industrial relations or enterprise agreements and agreements between employers and employees to vary those agreements.

Finally, in response to the recommendations of Justice Heerey's report, the bill applies the complaint-handling powers of the Minister for Employment and the President of the Fair Work Commission to Fair Work Commission members who formerly held office in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. There are some sensible changes enabling the parliament to establish a commission to investigate and report on alleged misbehaviour or incapacity of a Fair Work Commission member. These sensible changes, however, are victim to yet another government failure in leadership and taking on reforms. The Heerey recommendations flow from a report commissioned by the government in the wake of what I call the Michael Lawler saga. The Fair Work Commission plays an important role in industrial relations in this country and must be respected. Justice Heerey's report into this sorry saga was tabled in the Senate on 15 March last year, just over a year ago, and we are only now seeing the legislative response to that put forward. I can only assume the government has delayed putting this bill before the House for so long in the hope that enough time will pass to distance the Prime Minister from the issue. It is important to acknowledge—and I want to make this point today—that Justice Heerey's report vindicates the actions and conduct of the Fair Work Commission, particularly the manner in which the president of the commission dealt with that particularly challenging situation.

But, for all the talk of protecting workers, the government has gone completely missing in action in relation to the amendment that has been put by the member for Gorton. It is very happy to launch attacks on the trade union movement and the trade union leaders who represent workers each and every day in workplaces. But, in just 11 days time, over 700,000 of Australia's lowest paid workers, many of them vulnerable and working in the retail, hospitality, fast food and pharmaceutical sectors, are going to be hit with a big wage cut of up to $77 a week. Many of the 6,317 retail workers and 3,086 food and accommodation workers in my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland could be affected. For these people, penalty rates are anything but a luxury. They deserve reward for the sacrifice they make in terms of the time away from their families and friends as they head to work on a weekend. When it comes to paying the bills, they need this type of work. It is important to put food on their table, clothes on their children and petrol in their car, and to pay school fees and school expenses for their kids.

The timing for such a cut could not be worse. The figures clearly bear out that Australian workers are receiving the lowest share of GDP since 1959. The ABS data shows that labour's share of GDP in the third quarter of last year was down from 54.2 per cent to 51.5 per cent. Profit's share of GDP went up from 24.5 per cent to 27.5 per cent. Last year, the annual percentage growth in company profits was 39.7 per cent, but wages were flatlining at 0.9 per cent. That information was released on 5 June this year. In the first three months of 2017, company profits were up six per cent but wages flatlined at 0.3 per cent. Income inequality is worse than it has ever been before, or at least in the last 75 years that we have been measuring it. In its last quarterly update, the Bureau of Statistics revealed that nearly 1.2 million Australians are underemployed, at a rate of 8.2 per cent.

Australians are feeling the heat when it comes to cost-of-living pressures. The out-of-pocket cost of a GP appointment has risen across the board. In my home state of Queensland, it has gone up by an unbelievable 11 per cent since December 2014—an increase of $7.70 each time you take your kids to see the local GP. Energy costs are continuing to increase across the country. Thanks to the internal divisions of those opposite, costs will only get worse as they argue amongst themselves. Thanks to the government's budget, many low-paid workers will be hit with an increase in the Medicare levy. As a result, the tax bills of workers earning $30,000 or $40,000 a year will go up, while millionaires will get a tax cut from 1 July of $16,400. How can that be fair? It is simply not. Where are the LNP members in Queensland's regional and rural areas? Hospitality and pharmacy workers are absolutely critical in terms of the economy in country towns across Queensland.

In the midst of all of this, the government has decided that now is an opportune time to begin slashing workers' pay. If those opposite were serious about doing anything to improve the lives of Australian workers, they would support Labor's bill and support this amendment to protect the take-home wages and pay of over 700,000 Australians. While they feel the need to give $65 billion of tax cuts to the biggest companies in Australia, apparently ordinary Australians deserve to do more with less money in their pay packets. We know that cuts to penalty rates will not end there. This is the thin edge of the wedge. We know that those opposite will support—as their friends in the business community will, also—cuts to penalty rates in other sectors of the economy. We know this because those opposite have spent years making the point that penalty rates, allegedly, according to them, are a thing of the past. Over 60 members of the government, including the Prime Minister himself, have called for penalty rates to be either cut or abolished altogether, while some have gone so far as to describe that as a gift to young people. While they might fight amongst themselves about the Finkel report or marriage equality, something that brings unity to those opposite is the idea of stripping away the pay and conditions of Australian workers.

There is a total lack of regard for how tough people are doing it, particularly in regional and rural areas. Nurses, cleaners, paramedics, ambulance officers and people who work in pharmacy, hospitality and retail are all terrified. If you are not listed in those occupations and sectors which have been hit by the pay cut from July, you are worried sick that you will be next. If the government were genuine about doing something, they would stand up for these workers. They would put a line in the sand and stand up to support Labor's amendments in the Labor private member's bill. We will not oppose this bill progressing to the Senate, but we stand ready to amend it to make sure there are necessary changes once it gets there. It defies belief that those opposite will not support Labor's position in relation to that and stand up for workers. They are the voters and they are their constituents. They should stand up. They are elected to this place to stand up for their constituents, but they are not.

A $77-a-week pay cut is simply not good enough. It is cruel and indifferent behaviour from those opposite. I call upon them to do the right thing. If those opposite truly want to implement significant reforms for working people and benefit working people, the solution is simple: support Labor's bill to protect take-home pay and support the amendment of the member for Gorton. Unfortunately, this government seems far more interested in handing out tax cuts to millionaires and multinationals than actually doing their jobs and standing up for low-paid and vulnerable workers across the board.

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