Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. What impact have Australian workplace agreements had on the take-home pay of hardworking Australians?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I echo the words of the Prime Minister in answer to the earlier question from the member for Bendigo. Of course working families rely on decent minimum wages. They also rely on a decent safety net at work; that is, a safety net that cannot be stripped away from them. Today I am in a position to outline some further information about the way in which working Australian families had the safety net ripped away from them by the Liberal Party in government, the party of Work Choices.

I want to put these statistics in context. It is very difficult to get statistics about the impact of Australian workplace agreements on Australian working families, and that is because the former government—the Liberal government, the party of Work Choices—knew that Australian workplace agreements were hurting working families and they deliberately wanted to cover that information up. They therefore went through no systematic analysis of what was happening with Australian workplace agreements. They kept them in the black box. They did not want them looked at. They did not want them scrutinised. The amount of information that has been in the public domain has been limited. There was some at Senate estimates. There was some that leaked. There was the ABS data that the Prime Minister referred to in the House earlier today.

Of course, there were two systems that the former government operated in relation to Australian workplace agreements. The original Work Choices system meant an Australian workplace agreement was valid provided that it passed just five minimum conditions. Then last year, under acute political pressure, the then government in the lead-up to the election lurched for a so-called fairness test. Beyond that point, Australian workplace agreements were only valid if they were assessed against a set of protected award conditions. In order to understand the statistics that I am about to give to the House, people need to understand that transition point. This is an analysis of agreements that were filed in the two months from May last year.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These are new statistics. What we need to understand about these statistics is that, in that time period, employers may have been broadly aware that there were some changes to the workplace relations system, because the government had had a press conference and had bought some advertising. We can assume that in that period when they could get no hard information about the operation of the fairness test, because no hard information was available, employers were continuing to file with the Workplace Authority the kinds of workplace agreements they had been filing prior to that time. What do we find when we look at those Australian workplace agreements?

Opposition Member:

They’ve all got jobs!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They’ve all got jobs—the party of Work Choices speaks! Thank you very much. That is a big tick for Work Choices from the Liberal Party backbench. The party of Work Choices is once again revealed as the party of Work Choices, using exactly the same arguments it used in the lead-up to the last election. But looking at this sample of 670 Australian workplace agreements filed in this period, which were assessed against the protected award conditions and would have been examples of the kinds of agreements that used to be filed prior to the fairness test, what do we find? These statistics are truly startling. Approximately 45 per cent of these AWAs provided between $1 and $49 per week below the required rate of pay for the protected award conditions—that is, they ripped people off for between zero and 50 bucks a week. That was approximately 45 per cent of them. When we go further, we find that approximately 50 per cent provided from $50 to $199 per week below the required rate of pay—50 per cent provided less than people should have got by a margin of $50 to $199 dollars. Approximately five per cent provided $200 to $499 per week below the required rate of pay, ripping people off by that amount week after week. Approximately 0.5 per cent—half a per cent—provided more than $500 per week below the required rate of pay.

In the last few days, we have heard a lot in this House from the Liberal Party about so-called compassion. I would ask Liberal Party members in this House to look at these new statistics which would be indicative of the kind of Australian workplace agreements which were filed under the previous government.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those on my right, ignore the member for North Sydney.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were perfectly legal under those laws and are indicative of the kinds of agreements that used to pass their Australian workplace agreements test, ripping working families off for $100, $200, $300, $400 or $500 a week. I would ask members opposite to consider what they have done to working families and to try and square that with their new-found rhetoric about compassion. This is laughable hypocrisy from a party that not only authorised the rip-off of working families but delighted in it—and they continue to do so.