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

One big fat zero!

So if it was such a great deal for employers, why wasn't there this rush of small businesses to get the same advantages as Coles and Woolworths? I will tell you why there was not such a big rush: because when you went and asked them, they said, 'No, no, no, it costs me too much money.' That is because workers got a penalty buyout. That is because workers got pay rises over and above the award. That is why. So these agreements are good. That is why workers vote for them, and that is why employers—often small employers—do not readily avail themselves of them.

I think we have to be very careful when we talk about enterprise bargaining. The member for Melbourne, who has now left the chamber after giving all of us his missives, should think carefully about getting into the same car as George Christensen and the Nick Xenophon Team, both of whom in the past have wanted to cut penalty rates—they are no friends of workers. You have to be very careful in this business about who you side with. More generally, I think that some of the member for Melbourne's criticisms of this bill are quite sensible, and he is right: of all the things in the industrial relations world that we would be talking about and that should occupy this parliament's time, why would you come in here with these fairly piddling, almost administrative rounding errors, now greatly amended by the Labor Party? I wonder why you would do that when the greatest threat to workers at the moment is enterprise bargaining agreements being cancelled willy-nilly?

You can talk about Coles, I suppose. There is a hearing on at the moment, so I will not offer my views, but there are a substantial number of Coles employees who face a decrease in their conditions. There are many other workers across the country who have the same problem. The CUB workers had an 180-day dispute when their employer terminated the agreement and tried to take them back to the award. It was hugely costly to CUB, in terms of their production, and hugely costly to those individuals who fought that battle. But they were fighting a battle on behalf of every employee who has an enterprise bargaining agreement.

But not everybody has unions. Not everybody has someone to protect them. Coates Hire is an equipment hire business. We have all been to Coates Hire. I have been to Coates Hire and hired machinery that I used well—or I hope I used it well! I hear the member for Moreton laughing! The workers there are always very helpful and always very decent. They faced a pay cut of up to 40 per cent unless they agreed with the company's position to slash wages and conditions. Talk about having a gun aimed at your head! I will finish on that note.

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