Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Contrary to the Howard government’s promise that life would be better for women under Australian workplace agreements, ABS data released today clearly shows that it is not. Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the employee hours and earnings for May 2006. The data indicates that women on Australian workplace agreements are earning less than Australian women on collective agreements. Australian women on AWAs who work full time earn on average $2.30 less per hour, or $87.40 less per week, based on a standard 38-hour week, than those on collective agreements. Australian women on AWAs who work part time earn $3.70 less per hour, or $85.10 less per week, based on an average 23 hours per week, than those on collective agreements. Australian women on AWAs who work as casuals earn $4.70 less per hour for every hour they work than those on collective agreements.

These statistics clearly show that under AWAs largely entered into before Work Choices, when the no disadvantage test applied, there is a big earnings gap between women on AWAs and those on collective agreements. If this gap existed when there was a no disadvantage test, you can only imagine just how wide the gap is now, when AWAs can strip women’s working conditions back to five minimum conditions. The ABS statistics support research by Professor David Peetz that showed that almost 20,000 employees are losing award coverage every month under the new industrial relations laws and that pay for female workers is falling.

The claim by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations that AWAs are economically beneficial to women has absolutely no basis in fact. Key findings of the research by Professor Peetz are that women’s pay has dropped significantly under the new IR laws, with real average earnings for women in the private sector falling by two per cent and a majority of award workers suffering a real wage cut averaging almost one per cent under the new minimum wage setting processes. Almost 20,000 workers are losing award coverage every month and are being put onto AWAs or other non-union agreements that remove formerly protected award conditions including overtime, penalty rates, rest breaks and other important conditions.

The research also shows that the federal government has exaggerated the employment effects of the new industrial relations laws and that jobs growth was in fact higher in the previous year before Work Choices was introduced than it has been in this year. I note that the government has not sought to refute the claims made in this research but only ridiculed the credentials of the academic who produced them. There is no evidence of significant economic benefits for women from Australian workplace agreements. In fact, the opposite is the case. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations was completely unable, in question time today, to show how AWAs are good for working women. When confronted with the ABS figures today, the minister simply blustered.

The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has made the claim that AWAs are good for women without any evidence, and he was unable to defend the claim in the face of statistics that clearly show he is wrong. I fail to see how the minister can make the claim that women will be better off on AWAs if they are in fact earning less money. The government is very adverse when it comes to releasing statistics about AWAs. The only statistics the Howard government has ever released showed that 100 per cent of Work Choices AWAs have removed at least one protected award condition, more than 60 per cent have taken away penalty rates and more than 50 per cent have taken away shiftwork loading. The government has refused to release any further statistics on AWAs. The minister has been challenged by Labor to release statistics on AWAs but has consistently refused to do so.

If the government is so proud of what Australian workplace agreements have done for women’s wages then why will it not produce statistics to back up its claims? If the government is so proud of what AWAs have done for the working conditions of women, why does it not release statistics to back up its claims? The minister’s blustering is no substitute for the reality—the reality we saw today with the release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics information. Women are earning less on AWAs than under collective agreements. They are not better for the working conditions and wages of women; they in fact undermine them. The minister is really just full of hot air when it comes to the conditions and wages of working women in this country.