Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister update the House on how the government’s workplace relations reform is benefiting Australian employees and their families? Is the minister aware of proposals to reregulate the Australian labour market? How might these undermine employment and wages?

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for O’Connor for his question. As he and other members of the House know, since the introduction of Work Choices we have seen 175,000 jobs created in Australia—great news for Australian families; great news for Australian workers—and, at the same time, wages have continued to grow in this country and industrial disputation has fallen to the lowest level on record. So this is great news for Australians and great news for the economy.

As the Prime Minister indicated in answer to an earlier question, over the weekend we had the Leader of the Opposition quietly slip out a policy which amounts to sheer economic vandalism of this country. This compulsory union bargaining policy means, in effect, that union officials would be able to march into any business in Australia and demand to have a collective agreement put in place. As part of this process which Mr Combet and those in the trade union movement have been outlining, they would be able to seek to open up the financial affairs and the books of account of all these businesses as well. That is what compulsory union bargaining under the Labor Party means. Let us make no bones about this: this will be a job-destroying move if it is ever implemented in Australia.

Not only that, there is a great contradiction in what the Leader of the Opposition says. On one hand he says, ‘If a majority of employees want to have a collective agreement, then we’ll legislate to allow them.’ But just remember what else he said: ‘If a majority of employees want to have an individual Australian workplace agreement, we’ll ban them.’ So there is not even any internal logic in this place. We have to ask why is it—

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Beazley interjecting

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an important interjection. He says, ‘You all know that they can have a common law contract.’ Anybody who knows labour relations 101 knows that a common law contract involves the terms of the award. So what he is saying is—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They can laugh.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well done! He has just shown, by either his connivance or his sheer ignorance, that a common law contract in his language means the old award system. So this is either a collective agreement that is demanded or an award going back to the Keating days of industrial relations in Australia—going back to the 104 working days lost per 1,000 employees when he was minister for employment; going back to the 10.9 per cent unemployment rate when this man was allegedly responsible for employment in this country.

But why is he doing this? This is the most important question. The member for Franklin let the cat out of the bag last week. I think most people regard the member for Franklin as a decent and honourable man, and he let the cat out of the bag. He said that the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition was under pressure from the mates in the New South Wales Right. What happened? A few months ago, John Robertson from Unions New South Wales started a campaign against the Leader of the Opposition. So the Leader of the Opposition rushed off to their conference and said, ‘We’ll rip up Australian workplace agreements.’ Now there is another campaign against the Leader of the Opposition, which the member for Franklin has honestly told us about, and the Leader of the Opposition has gone out once again and said, ‘I’ll do the bidding of the unions in New South Wales.’ This has nothing to do with the national interest; it would destroy the national interest. This is simply about looking after the vested interests of the Leader of the Opposition.

Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. I refer to defence service provider Serco Sodexho Defence Services, a contracting company employing more than 6,000 people nationally in defence related services. I also refer to the fact that Serco has been awarded a contract to provide cleaning services to defence facilities here in the ACT. Is the Prime Minister aware that Serco is adamant that it will offer its ACT cleaners an Australian workplace agreement only? Isn’t it the case that Serco cleaners have made it clear that they want to negotiate a collective agreement? Doesn’t this mean that the only choice here is the employer’s choice? Will you tell the Serco cleaners who are here in the gallery today why they cannot have a say rather than being told to ‘take it or leave it’?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aware in general terms of this situation. I am aware that the company mentioned by the member for Fraser has won the contract from another company. I am also aware that the former company employed many people under an AWA—though not all of them. It is the right of an employer to decide how to manage his business. In a free enterprise society, employers do have the right, subject to the law, to manage their businesses. This proposition that the government should tell somebody who has invested their capital in starting a business how to manage it and micromanage their business for them is not a proposition that I accept. The purpose of industrial relations legislation is to set a framework, and within that framework businesses should be able to manage their own business—

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on, Joe; give him a hand. He’s really struggling.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and employees, if they wish, should be able to negotiate. Under this government, both employers and employees have more freedom of choice than they did under the former government. If the Labor Party were to win the next election, it is obvious that the Leader of the Opposition, from what he has said over the weekend and today, would be hell-bent on going back to a situation where managers will be denied the right to manage their own businesses. That is a recipe for reducing the entrepreneurial spirit of this country. It is a recipe for returning to the days when real wages hardly moved at all. I say not only to workers employed by a particular company but, indeed, to workers all around Australia: look at how your real wages have increased under this government and compare that with what happened when presumably you were living in the nirvana of the workers under the former Labor government. There is no comparison.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Snowdon interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Lingiari is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What the Leader of the Opposition has conveniently done today is to remind us that good faith collective bargaining is to hand back control of industrial relations to the union movement of this country. We now know that Greg Combet was deadly serious when he said in Adelaide, ‘The unions used to run this country and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if they started doing so again.’