Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I browsed through the newspapers this morning, an Australian government advertisement caught my eye. It was headed ‘Collective bargaining—making it easier to do business, whatever the size of your business’. The advertisement went on to say:

Collective bargaining enables businesses of all sizes to work together cooperatively.

Small businesses can benefit by joining together to negotiate with a larger business, who is their common customer or supplier. Larger businesses can find it more efficient to negotiate directly with a group of small businesses rather than each small business individually.

All of this is made possible by changes made to the Trade Practices Act last year which allow a simpler notification process. According to the ACCC website, a notification can be lodged by any party to a collective bargaining agreement and a party can lodge a notification which can include other businesses that will be a party to the arrangement, or a nominated representative such as an industry association may lodge a notification on behalf of its members.

This government thinks that collective bargaining is good for business. When the measure came before this parliament last year, the Minister for Small Business and Tourism told the House:

This is a great day for small business …

She went on to say:

Certainly, all of the small business associations … are fully behind this amendment and they support it.

There are two things that concern me about the issue of collective bargaining for small business. The first is that, despite the optimistic attitude of the Minister for Small Business and Tourism, a check of the ACCC website today showed that not one collective bargaining notification had been received by the ACCC as at the end of April. In four months of operation, there had been not one collective bargaining notification. So much for the minister’s ‘great day for small business’.

The second issue I want to talk about is the two-faced approach to the principle of collective bargaining by this government. While businesses are free to engage in collective bargaining, subject to a public interest test, workers have every obstacle placed in their way if they wish to engage in collective bargaining, and the employer has the final say. If the boss does not want to have collective bargaining, then the unfair Work Choices laws back the boss’s stand. While collective bargaining is okay for business, and industry associations have a role to play, when it comes to industrial relations, unions can be locked out of the process and employers have the final say. But that is what the Howard government is all about—one rule for the bosses and another rule for the workers.