Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Some of the legislation that comes to this chamber is very straightforward—almost administrative. Some of the legislation that we vote on is complex and significant, like this week's landmark Respect@Work package, which was the result of years of work by Kate Jenkins. Inquiries, reports and consultations are all processes that keep the public informed, and they provide opportunities to contribute to the shaping of policy. They are processes that make legislation stronger.

To date, the Albanese government has been consultative, collaborative and collegiate when it's come to the significant reforms that it has pursued—the Climate Change Bill and the National Anti-Corruption Commission, in particular. This secure jobs, better pay bill was introduced just 10 days ago. We've had three sitting days with this bill, two since the government briefed the crossbench on this package. There are 243 pages of legislation, to start with, and this week we've been sent pages of government amendments to their own bill. The government is, in effect, writing this legislation almost in real time. This is not the way that legislation should work.

I regularly meet with and speak to early childhood educators, teachers, aged-care workers and disability carers who live and work in Kooyong. Had this bill been provided to parliament sooner or had the vote not been pushed so hurriedly, these workers would have had the opportunity to understand the proposal being put to parliament on their behalf, and I would have had the opportunity to hear and represent their views. The people of Kooyong, like the rest of the Australian public, have not had an opportunity to understand what is being proposed by this government in these complex and significant reforms.

Over the last week, I've been briefed on this bill by half a dozen peak body groups, here in Parliament House, led by professional lobbyists with parliamentary access, all of whom were given an opportunity to read and analyse this bill before it was introduced to parliament. Many of them saw this bill before the crossbench did. Those briefings have been the source of much of the information that the crossbenchers have on this bill. We have not had enough time to consult widely. We have not had enough time to properly analyse this complex, contested legislation. We have not had time to canvass the constituents that we hope to represent. This is not politics done differently.

Despite all of this, I will be voting to pass this bill. It's clear that we need to support our lower paid workers better, especially those in the feminised industries—child care and aged care. We know that inflation and the recent increase in the cost of living, in concert with the failure of wages to increase with the CPI, have resulted in real stress and real difficulty for many Australians.

I welcome the government's move to narrow the unacceptable gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent by appointing commissioners to address pay equity and to focus on the care and community sector. I welcome the improvements to the better off overall test and the move to improve sexual harassment and other discrimination protections in the workplace. Removal of pay secrecy clauses will increase transparency. Streamlining approvals of enterprise agreements makes sense. Prohibiting illegal pay rate advertisements is the right thing to do. Sunsetting zombie agreements—none of us have anything against zombies but this is a good change to the law.

There are, however, concerns about the more complex aspects of this bill. The proposal that a single employee can initiate bargaining on behalf of all employees in an organisation means that employees could face repeated or ongoing challenges to pay scales. This bill treats small businesses with 15 employees the same way it does those with 50,000. While Bunnings and Coles are in a position to take on complex workplace negotiations with lawyers and HR personnel, it's not reasonable to expect the same from a grocer in Hawthorn, a cafe owner in Balwyn or a nursery owner in Surry Hills. Many business owners are feeling anxious about what they've heard about multi-enterprise bargaining. They worry that their staff will be forced into agreements, forged by other businesses, that they can't afford or that won't work for their business, with only a conciliation process.

This is not what this IR bill proposes but business owners are right to feel anxious. The changes that the government is proposing have not been properly explained to the public, and business owners have not been afforded the opportunity to contribute to this discussion, to ask questions of the government or their MPs, to wrap their heads around this huge bill. Small-business owners, in particular, have been struggling for years now and I believe that they deserve to be included in these important policy reforms.

This legislation markedly expands the role of the Fair Work Commission. Appointments to that commission will now take on even greater significance. We heard in this House yesterday, from the Attorney-General, that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was stacked with political appointees in the last government. What assurance do we have that this will not happen with this government and the Fair Work Commission?

I have concerns about detail of parts of this bill, but I will vote for the bill because I'm not convinced that there's any evidence behind the claims that some lobby groups are making about it, particularly that multi-employer bargaining arrangements, closely supervised by the Fair Work Commission, could lead to mass strikes in the street; and because I do believe that affording employees a bit more standing in negotiations with their employers will increase their likelihood of securing reasonable pay rises and improved workplace conditions.

For years now the stagnant wage growth and slowing of productivity increases in this country have impacted on what all Australian workers want and deserve: reasonable shift allocations, job security, decent pay. The government shouldn't enter into every workplace in the country and tell employers what to do with their staff and with their business. Those negotiations should happen in workplaces and businesses between an employer and the people that they employ. This bill means that more of those sorts of negotiations are able to begin, and that if there is a stalemate they can be bumped up to the umpire to resolve fairly and, hopefully, quickly.

My concern is that the devil may be in the detail and that we have not been afforded sufficient opportunity to study the detail of this bill. This is a big, complex omnibus bill. If the wheels fall off the omnibus it's on the heads of this government. I'm not entirely satisfied with this legislation, but I believe that people across this country who work hard as carers, educators, factory staff—those many Australians who are essential workers throughout the pandemic; those who are finding it harder and harder to afford the basics, to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, to send their kids to school camps, or to have that holiday that they have been denied for three years—deserve a better shot when they ask for a pay rise. I believe that the clearly positive parts of this bill outweigh the unclear, contested parts of it.

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