Joanna Gash (Gilmore, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As has been stated and restated in recent days, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 is a turning point in the history of industrial relations in Australia because it spells the end of Australian workplace agreements, which were first implemented in 1996. It is true that the federal coalition has championed statutory individual contracts for many years and has fought critics of the system. However, the election on 24 November 2007 delivered a convincing win to the Australian Labor Party as a result of the policies the ALP took to the people of Australia and the people of Gilmore. While there is continuing debate on the reasons for the ALP victory, there is no doubt that the debate on Work Choices and AWAs was highly public and a driving factor in many a person’s decision on election day. That being the case, the coalition is not going to stand in the way of the government’s industrial relations policy and its commitment to the Australian people with regard to Work Choices and Australian workplace agreements. However, I strongly suspect that the coalition would have been criticised for whatever stance we took on the issues.

The coalition is seeking one change to the bill, and I strongly urge the government to adopt the amendment. The coalition believes the Australian government should extend its temporary employment contracts, its individual transitional employment agreements, from two years to five years. This will allow greater certainty for employers and employees. The amendment the opposition proposed will not obstruct this bill but it will provide greater flexibility. The coalition will now focus on developing new policies to encourage individual employment arrangements using the framework of common law contracts. That said, the key to this entire debate lies in the bill’s subheading, ‘Transition to Forward with Fairness’. The 10-year National Employment Standards profess to provide a simple, fair, flexible safety net for all employees, and that is a commitment to which the alternative government will hold the Prime Minister and his government accountable.

Twenty-twenty hindsight is a luxury not afforded to new policy. We are not in a position to gauge the true impact of the new legislation; we can only hope it delivers what the government has said it will. It goes without saying that we need to be wary in these troubling international economic times. Already in some circles the 1970s term ‘stagflation’ has been resurrected and is being bandied about. The government has been elected to make laws for the benefit of the nation, not just for a select few. As a former small business owner and now parliamentary secretary to the shadow minister for tourism, my concern obviously turns to the business community, particularly the hospitality and service sector. The Australian Financial Review wrote on Friday, 15 February 2008 that employers were warning of a massive increase in costs and more restrictive work arrangements. Business groups also warned that the new industrial era being introduced will place more and more impositions on business activity and impact on the bottom line. There is no doubt that the less-structured approach to industrial relations from the reforms up to 2005 have brought us benefits. These concerns must be taken on board by the government as it moves forward with its changes. We left the Labor government a legacy of strong economic and employment conditions, a point acknowledged on both sides of this House. We left the new Labor government no debt and a massive surplus. We left this Labor government and its state colleagues a lot of economic wriggle room. The management of our industrial relations system is no easy task—and the Rudd Labor government now has its hands on the controls.

This bill is the government’s first major foray into the arena, and its impact will be monitored not only by the coalition but by the people of Australia—the working families and the business owners. As a backbencher my primary concern is towards my constituency and the impact this will have on one of the major industries in Gilmore—tourism, a major employer of young people. The new government’s policies are gradually unfolding and need to be monitored so as to avoid any deterrent to employment and potential to contribute to an increase in unemployment. The new government has before it the challenge of meeting the economic and industrial relations changes of a rapidly changing world. Our local tourism industry is at the cutting edge of that changing world and among the first to feel the impact of change to industrial relations legislation.

I talked to a number of small business owners in my electorate recently, asking how things were going. Without exception they expressed deep concern about where things were heading. They were concerned about how rough things have been in New South Wales for a very long time and that it did not seem like they were getting any better. In regional and rural areas trade has been down. These people trade on weekends and public holidays. That is when tourists visit and it is their best opportunity for making a living. They told me that many cannot afford to open because of the high cost of staff and that they are wary of a union driven wages break-out. One cafe owner said it cost him about $40 an hour for a senior shop assistant on New Year’s Day. That is a lot of lattes that he has to turn out every hour just to break even. But he says he needs to do that just to make sure his business has continuity. He has to cop any losses from that. He has a choice: he can do that or he can shut up shop. If he shuts, staff have no jobs and the tourists have no service. My point is that, in the face of a possible world recession, with the events unfolding in America this year, more interest rate rises on the way and further deterioration of consumer confidence, sound management of our industrial relations system is more crucial than ever—and now the new Labor government has the helm.

Although the question of the reintroduction of unfair dismissal provisions has not yet been raised, it would appear likely. The prudent approach should be to explore the consequences of any such step. Again, this is a case of the government being given the reins of control. We as the alternative government have the responsibility of making sure that due diligence is followed in the formation and delivery of the government’s industrial relations policy agenda. When business operators, the people who provide and create jobs, are telling us to take it steady, we should listen.

Of primary concern for me and the people of Gilmore is the creation of jobs and the maintenance of employment. Job creation or job preservation strategies are critical elements of any government’s industrial relations legislation. We need to avoid pressure mounting on the domestic tourism industry. Added pressure will come if this government does not control inflation. It is all very well blaming the former government but, sooner or later, the government have to accept responsibility and act on the fact that they were voted in because Rudd said they would do a better job. If the unemployment rate starts going up then it is a clear sign they have failed. This failure will be accentuated if the government fail to reduce the unemployment rate in Gilmore.

My concern is to protect and to build on the jobs we have, and the people of Gilmore would expect no less of me. We need to address the issue of job prospects in the Gilmore electorate and particularly in domestic tourism. Gilmore has the reputation of having one of the highest unemployment rates in Australia. During the last campaign Labor promised to make it a priority to address the chronic unemployment issue in Gilmore by addressing the infrastructure bottlenecks and the skill shortage crisis. In fact, I have purposely kept a record of the words used by my Labor opponent during the campaign with regard to this issue and many others. I might remind Labor that the unemployment rate in Gilmore under the previous stewardship was as high as 17 per cent and was brought down to 7.8 per cent as of September 2007. Labor now has to bring that figure down significantly if its promise is to have any meaning at all. Labor needs to make some serious investment in the Gilmore electorate and one of the first places to start would be the local tourism industry, which is the major cornerstone of the economies of Kiama, the Shoalhaven and Eurobodalla.

I have no qualms about working with the government to achieve this and have already taken steps, through approaches to ministers, to put some rubber on the road. I strongly encourage Minister Albanese to place the Princes Highway at the top of Infrastructure Australia’s priority list. A commitment to the improvement of our main transport artery would be a positive early sign that the government is determined to do as it promised and govern for all Australians. As far as I am concerned, we cannot afford to be caught up in arguments over ideology. Industrial relations management is too important. Sound management of an incredibly complex system is what, in the end, puts bread on our tables and clothes on our children’s backs.

Businesses in my electorate are very concerned at what could be coming over the economic horizon, as are mortgage holders, mums and dads, builders, casuals and young people about to leave school and their parents. These concerns will not be easily allayed, but a steady approach to industrial relations management will go a long way towards doing just that. Again, Work Choices is no longer coalition policy and the coalition will not block the abolition of AWAs as this bill passes through the House.

However, over coming months and years the government should be aware that it is on notice that the people of Australia and Gilmore are dependent on it to deliver on its election 2007 commitments. Policy that reduces flexibility and returns modern workplaces to the mandatory collective agreement dominated days of the past will be rejected and stunts and posturing will also be rejected. The people of Australia, particularly the people of Gilmore, stand by the coalition when it says that Labor has the controls but it does not have a mandate to destroy jobs and damage the economy.

Our people want to work and we need the jobs for that to happen. It does not help when the government axes programs like the local liaison officer program that was of great assistance to local members in their efforts to assist, for example, job seekers. The new Labor government also needs to closely investigate the impact of abandoning programs like Sustainable Regions. The coalition had committed $15 million under the Sustainable Regions Program to encourage business initiatives and job creation on the New South Wales South coast. While I appreciate the new government is in a stage of review and renewal, I strongly urge it to look at the need for such a commitment in Gilmore. A similar commitment by the Rudd Labor government to the people of Gilmore would be a clear indication that the government is determined to deliver on its commitment to govern for all Australians.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today on St Patrick’s Day, wearing my green tie, I am proud to speak in favour of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 and join the Rudd government’s support for Australian working families. I think St Patrick is credited with getting rid of snakes in Ireland, so it is a good omen for this piece of legislation. Australians have spoken loudly and clearly—they do not want the coalition’s unfair Work Choices laws. This bill honours the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to return fairness to Australian workplaces and the incredible efforts of the hundreds and thousands of Your Rights at Work activists and union members who dug into their pockets and did the hard yards on work sites and street corners all over Australia in the lead-up to last November’s election. This Rudd government bill will also ensure that we never again return to a system where Australians are forced to trade away their entitlements. We will not be leaving a legacy of poorer working conditions for our children, which, unfortunately, was the case under the Work Choices legislation where, for the first time in the history of the Australian Federation or white settlement, we would have been leaving our children with a poorer set of working conditions in the workplace.

Since Australian workplace agreements were forced upon working Australians we have heard countless examples of how pay and conditions have been stripped away. I have certainly heard it throughout my electorate of Moreton. This new bill means no new AWAs for working Australians, no more ‘my way or the highway’ workplace negotiations. Now we are returning to the long cherished Australian tradition of employees and employers sitting down at the table like civilised human beings and discussing what is best for the long-term interests of the business.

This is music to my ears and to those of people on this side of the House. It is music to the ears of the millions of mums and dads—the millions of working Australians—who have been let down by AWAs. Also, it is a huge relief to the many seniors and pensioners who were horrified at what the Howard and Costello government foisted on the country of the fair go. The country that they had worked so hard to create was being chipped away by the Howard-Costello legislation. This bill puts in place sensible and fair transitional arrangements to allow those employers and employees who have been using AWAs to prepare for the full implementation of the Rudd government’s new system in January 2010. During the transition period, employers using AWAs as at 1 December 2007 can offer individual transitional employment agreements to new employees and employees already on AWAs.

This bill also addresses John Howard’s failed fairness test. Never before in the history of literature have we in this parliament come so close to Orwellian language. George Orwell would be spinning in his grave, in a little country graveyard in England, over that so-called fairness test. This John Howard-Joe Hockey ‘unfairness test’ failed to protect working Australians. It failed to protect all award conditions. We have heard in parliament, from the Deputy Prime Minister, tale after tale of lost entitlements. In fact, when data was collected it showed that 100 per cent of AWAs ripped off workers’ entitlements and that they failed to adequately compensate employees for the loss of so-called protected award conditions. Quite frankly, the Howard government’s fairness test wasn’t worth two bob. It almost brings a tear to my eye when I think of all the money that was wasted on the ads that I saw promoting this so-called fairness test. This bill will ensure that all agreements approved by the Workplace Authority pass a true no-disadvantage test against the full applicable award or the full applicable collective agreement in the workplace, if there is one.

The opposition would have us believe that unions are irrelevant and no longer have a role to play in Australian workplaces. Well, I think the election in November last year showed that this could not be further from the truth. Unions have played a vital role when it comes to ensuring proper standards of occupational health and safety, and they will continue to do so for many years to come. We all expect that when we go to work, be that in a service industry or a mine or a school, we will be safe. As well, we expect that when our children go to work they will be safe and come home. We have unions to thank for many of the workplace health and safety conditions around the country. I think of my younger brother’s experience on a building site. Unfortunately, two people were killed in a workplace accident right next to him. Changes have been made since then because of union involvement in response to that accident. Our trade union members and leaders across the country are working to ensure that basic working conditions, like overtime and penalty rates and the ability to make a few dollars if one has to work in a coffee shop on New Year’s Day, are being properly protected.

I said at a forum at Yeronga State High School, in my electorate, way back in early 2005 that I thought the union movement’s response to the Work Choices legislation would be the union movement’s finest hour—and it certainly was. It certainly showed that when people have worked out how they are going to be treated unfairly it will move them off their couches and onto street corners to do great things. I contrast that with the agenda of the former member for Bennelong—and it is great to see the current member for Bennelong here. What happened reminds me of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. That novel was set in the Depression, a time when there was a race to the bottom as to what workers would tolerate. If someone was prepared to work for 15c an hour, an employer would say, ‘Well, there’s someone here prepared to work for 14c an hour.’ That would then lower the rate. That race to the bottom is not the way of the Rudd government. We are finetuning the economy. We have a plan for the future. We disagree with what is being suggested by the opposition in terms of what was handed on to us. We had 16-year-high inflation rates. We had 10 interest rate rises in a row. We had a productivity rate of zero handed over to us, Commonwealth spending at record levels, at up to nearly 4½ per cent, and 5½ years of monthly trade deficits—22 shameful quarters in a row of trade deficits. That is the economy that was handed on to us.

This bill offers a fair and balanced approach to workplace relations, one which ensures that employees are getting proper protection, when it comes to their basic working conditions, and offers more than enough flexibility for business. I commend the bill to the House.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, with regard to my electorate of Forrest, in the south-west of Western Australia. My electorate has a full range of industry, from small business to retail, contracting and those in the very large mining and resources sector. I have found that the majority of people have not been fazed by the introduction of Work Choices and are well aware that AWAs are nothing new as they have been available since 1996. It is plain that federal Labor are using the Work Choices legislation as the excuse to roll back and then to end AWAs and individual contracts. However, they are keeping them under the new name of individual employment transitional agreements, or IETAs, but only until December 2009, when a no disadvantage test will apply. As AWAs were subject to a fairness test anyway, this really means that federal Labor intend to keep individual contracts but to promote union collective agreements over individual contacts.

In my electorate we have the Bunbury Chamber of Commerce. This particular group has over 800 small business members, with 80 per cent employing fewer than four employees. Work Choices gave these particular businesses significant confidence to expand and employ more staff. I also have larger mining and resources companies in my electorate. Wespine, for example, has 80 per cent of its workforce on AWAs. This has been the case for a long time. It believes that if these contracts cannot be renewed federal Labor will make it more difficult for the company as it has been able to incorporate flexibility into the contracts to cater for the needs of individual employees. I have another major firm in my electorate, a contract cartage and heavy haulage business, whose workers have the opportunity for a wide variety of agreements—and it is that flexibility that makes the difference for both the employer and the employees in that particular business.

Another company, Piacentini & Son, an earthmoving and mining contracting company in Picton, in the south-west, has been able to operate very successfully with AWAs not only in Western Australia but also in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. AWAs have been very good for both this company and its employees because they have offered flexibility to workers and have streamlined the rules and pay for similar activities.

With AWAs the employer could deal directly with individuals and discuss the issues that were relevant. Different levels of pay were available for different levels of activity. The company reported to me that it needs to retain this flexibility in its workforce to remain competitive in tendering for contracts right across Australia. AWAs benefited both employers and employees because they provided an alternative to a discussion platform. It was akin to having competition in the workforce as opposed to having only a union to negotiate with. The power was not confined to just one group, and it gave people the capacity to negotiate.

The Minister  for Employment and Workplace Relations has said her government must talk with employers, employees and those who will play a role in our new workplace relations system. There are a number of employers and employees in my region. I seriously hope that the minister consults with them in this process, because they are working very well with AWAs, probably because they are on non-union sites. I would strongly encourage federal Labor to get in contact with the various groups and businesses in my electorate. We need certainty, and these businesses are already contacting me looking for certainty and looking for what the rules will be going forward. An expanding business needs increased productivity, and employers and employees are happy when they work together. I am a small business person myself, and the one thing that I hear from other small business people is how much they value very good workers. We hear about workers being dismissed. In this House the employers whom I meet value their very good employees because they are part of the productivity and the future of their businesses. Employers cannot do their jobs without good employees and they value those employees. In fact, with our unemployment rates as they are in Western Australia, the good employees certainly are able to negotiate very good outcomes for themselves. My colleagues who have spoken previously to this bill have also confirmed the coalition’s position that Work Choices is no longer coalition policy and the coalition will not oppose the transition of this bill in the House.

In my electorate of Forrest the mining sector is a very high earner, followed by forestry and agriculture—including horticulture and viticulture—and tourism. All of these businesses require flexibility in the workforce. Another issue is the fact that small business is also often the engine room of many small towns and communities in general. I was the president of a football club in my small community, and the support for that football club came from small businesses. Their economic position came from flexibility in the workforce and the capacity to negotiate with their employees. Small business has the capacity to be significantly impacted by major changes. A number of those businesses have contacted my office in relation to this issue. Small business is a critical part of our economic and social fabric in regional towns and centres right across Australia, but particularly in my electorate of Forrest. The majority of these small businesses are family owned and run. Small business is a major employer nationally and is effectively the cornerstone of our society. The one thing that is often overlooked is the fact that small business is actually a critical player in strengthening competition in the marketplace. My electorate is one that has a vast range of tourism opportunities, but its workforce needs to be a flexible workforce. The same is true of the agricultural sector, particularly in dairy farming, where there is a real need for flexibility in the workforce. I have also looked at what has happened in relation to infrastructure. We have some very clear infrastructure needs throughout my electorate. I hope that the Labor government strongly supports their election commitments, particularly in relation to the infrastructure projects and the Bunbury outer ring road. Again, a raft of these initiatives will be based on the capacity to engage a flexible workforce.

I am concerned that recent job advertisement figures show the total number of jobs that are being advertised is actually falling. The three latest surveys indicate that business confidence is eroding and, as a result, there is a real and genuine possibility that unemployment may rise. Last month’s Sensis business index showed support for the new government dropped by 30 percentage points. This was followed by the Olivier job index, which recorded a drop in job advertisements for the first time in three years. Business, and in particular small businesses, is facing an uncertain future under changes to unfair dismissal laws. The Labor government wants to abolish AWAs but not enable negotiations beyond these in a way that is effective for both employers and employees. No new employees can go onto ITEAs; there will be no new agreements beyond December 2009. Only 700,000 workers—that is, eight per cent of workers in Australia—are on individual contracts, mostly in the mining sector, but they are a significant check and balance for businesses. They are a check and balance; I repeat that. We need flexibility of individual contracts as well as collective agreements. We need flexibility in the labour market for productivity gains. Individual common-law contracts are needed for contracts where employees earn over $100,000. I believe all employees should have the right to negotiate their own conditions, whether they earn above or below this level, but this sends the wrong message and separates these workers into an elite class. I maintain that we need to retain flexibility in the labour market. The amendment bill seeks to lengthen the life of ITEAs to five years. I support the amendment bill and commend it to the House.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise with a lot of pride to speak in relation to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. If there has been a bill in the last 50 years that has been more important to redressing the imbalance in workplaces in Australia then I am yet to see it. This is a bill that is supported by the vast majority of Australians, one that on 24 November galvanised Australians all around workplaces to vote for the Labor Party to see the end of these rotten laws.

It was with some amusement that I noted the member for Gilmore’s comment chastising Labor, saying that we cannot afford to be caught up in ideology. Dear me, if there were any piece of legislation in the last 50 years more caught up in blind ideology than the Work Choices legislation then I would be astounded. The Work Choices legislation was inherently unfair; it inherently played on the imbalance between an individual worker at a workplace and the powers that a corporation can bring to the bargaining table. How could anyone argue that an AWA could not take advantage of that inherent imbalance of power?

The statistics in relation to AWAs speak for themselves. Between April and October 2006, 89 per cent of the 1,700 AWAs that were lodged excluded one or more protected items. That means literally almost nine out of 10 agreements that were lodged took away what were meant to be protected items. Quite clearly, the argument that individuals can be in some sense empowered to be on an equal standing when they bargain with their employer is an absolute nonsense.

Before I came to this place, I represented workers in the health industry. I was constantly asked by ambulance officers, radiographers, pharmacists, nurses and aged-care workers: ‘how is it fair that a government can bring in laws that strip away our conditions?’ How is the economy improved by an ambulance officer losing his penalty rates or by a nurse losing her shift allowance? These were questions that were asked of me constantly and ones to which I could only say: the laws are unfair and need to change.

Another terrible effect of the Work Choices laws was the insecurity of hours that workers suddenly found themselves with. People were not able to plan when they were going to be at work. People had their whole shift patterns eroded. These sorts of things put great strains on family life and on community life and made it difficult for people who want to volunteer for a range of community activities. The death of Work Choices means that these opportunities are there again.

Looking at the aged-care industry, where over 80 per cent of employees are either part time or casual, where over 80 per cent of employees are female and where workers earn less, on average, than you would working in McDonald’s or KFC, what is the effect on the quality of care for the elderly when the few conditions that workers have are eroded and their working patterns are disrupted? Back in 1962 in New South Wales, by agreement with the employer, awards were changed so that broken shifts were outlawed unless there was a specific agreement. That meant that people going to work would not be asked to work for three hours, have two hours off unpaid then return for another three or four hours. With Work Choices, we saw the return of this practice in nursing homes. We saw people becoming chained to their workplaces. It was not creating flexibility for mothers, as is often put by the opposition. It was not creating a more friendly workplace. It was creating a workplace that you could never leave, even when you were not being paid. These are the effects of Work Choices. They need to be addressed and changed, and this legislation is the starting point in relation to that.

In my electorate of Dobell, we have high unemployment. We are in a very different position from the electorate of the member for Forrest. In fact, unemployment in Dobell is almost twice the national average. For the citizens of Dobell, the former Prime Minister’s boast that working people have never been better off sounds very hollow indeed. It was worse for people in Dobell because we have close to 30 per cent of the working population commuting for up to two hours to Sydney. You need to ask: how can working people travel to Sydney for two hours, be asked to work a broken shift where they will work for three hours on the job, take four hours off on their own time and spend another three hours back at work, then travel home at the end of the day? Clearly, this has an effect on communities and it had an effect on my community—it made sure that people understood that these laws were inherently unfair for working families.

During the election campaign a gentleman came to see me who had been given an AWA at a large retail store where he was to be made the manager. By being made manager, he found his AWA said that he would have to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The AWA had another provision in it which said, despite that clause, ‘This should not limit the number of hours that he may be called upon by his employer.’ I am not quite sure what hours outside seven days a week, 24 hours a day someone can be asked to be available, but that was what happened with the AWA this gentleman was asked to sign. Members opposite may say, ‘Yes, but he was rewarded through an increase in salary.’ He was offered a salary of $25,000 to be available seven days a week, 24 hours a day, only made possible by these Work Choices laws. In the seat of Dobell this was the biggest issue that had people changing their votes.

The economic argument that is put forward by the opposition from time to time is about flexibility in wages so that we can compete. Well, quite frankly, I do not want to see an Australia, and I do not want to see the citizens of Dobell, having to compete on wages with India and China, who are a couple of our biggest trading partners. It is a nonsense. The way for us to compete internationally is through working smarter and that is why the Rudd government’s education revolution is so important for this country.

What does the opposition actually stand for today in relation to Work Choices? We have heard speaker after speaker saying it is no longer the policy of the opposition to support Work Choices, but we all know they still believe it. You have to say to yourself: ‘If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck then it still is a duck.’ We just had the member for Forrest extolling the virtues of AWAs and saying how important AWAs were for this country. I certainly did not get the impression that the member for Forrest thought that Work Choices was not a good thing for this country.

Look at the way in which the then government tried to frame the argument in relation to Work Choices. It was framed as an attack on union bosses. There are a couple of points that need to be made in relation to this, the first being: what is dishonourable about looking after workers? I have spent 19 years looking after health workers, ambulance officers and pharmacists, and can I tell the House that I am damn proud of that work and think that it was an honour to be a union official given that responsibility.

Legislation, though, was not aimed at the unions; it was aimed at ordinary working families—and that is the problem that the opposition have in relation to their position on this particular issue. They chose to attack the most vulnerable. They chose to attack ordinary working families, to make their lives more difficult. They made it more difficult for them to pay the bills by weakening their bargaining position. Do opposition members really think that employers just came to the workplace one day and said: ‘G’day workers, today we are going to give you four weeks annual leave; tomorrow we are going to give you penalty rates, workers compensation and long service leave’? These things were argued and fought for by unions and, for that reason, the union’s role in relation to the workplace should be spoken about with honour rather than derided as the opposition continue to do.

The Australian public were very clear on 24 November 2007: they were voting to get rid of these rotten work laws. The important legislation that is before the parliament today is the first stage in the Rudd government’s commitment to have fair and balanced workplace laws in Australia, and I commend the legislation to the House.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the House has an opportunity to take an important step in building a modern Australia that delivers for working families facing cost of living pressures. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 makes the first step towards a new balanced approach to workplace relations that delivers for the economy and delivers for working families—the first step towards a system that is designed to increase rather than reduce productivity growth, the first step towards a genuine safety net for working families, ensuring that employees will no longer have basic conditions stripped away by unfair AWAs, and the first step towards a modern industrial relations system, a modern workplace relations system, that is consistent with the core Australian value of a fair go for all.

Just over three months ago, Australians voted overwhelmingly against the extreme workplace relations policies and laws of the Liberal Party. For the Liberal Party, this policy was the centrepiece of their fourth term in office. It was their No. 1 priority. From July 2005, they had control of the House and the Senate—the first time that such power had been enjoyed for three decades. What did the Liberal Party do with this power? It used this power to ram through the legislation that reflects their deepest beliefs and deepest values—that is, Work Choices. This deepest belief is that working families and their children should be left to fend for themselves in an industrial relations system that has one organising principle and one organising principle alone, and that is the survival of the fittest: a system where hard-working people working in shops, offices, hotels, restaurants and workplaces of every kind could have the most basic award entitlements stripped away from them without any compensation. Make no mistake about it: the Liberal Party is the party of Work Choices, by Work Choices, for Work Choices. This is the policy supported in the party room and in the parliament by every one of them who were in this place before the last election, and by every one of them who, as candidates, defended this industrial relations system during the last election.

The Liberal party spent $121 million of taxpayers’ money trying to convince Australians to accept this extreme workplace relations system. That of itself is an obscenity. What is a double obscenity is the fact that this money was taken from the pockets of working families to try to sell, to the very same working families, the proposition that Work Choices was somehow going to be good for those working families.

Throughout 2007 and at November’s election, Labor outlined a clear alternative approach. This alternative reflects a core Australian value—the tradition of combining individual aspiration with a strong community safety net; a tradition that says that, to reward hard work, achievement and success through individual incentives, we do not need to become a dog-eat-dog society where working people are forced to fend for themselves. This Australian tradition says that we can provide a decent safety net and we can respect the rights of workers to bargain collectively without tying businesses up with the rigidities of a centralised wage-fixing system. The great Australian tradition is that we can have a society that protects decent minimum standards and also rewards individual effort.

The Liberal Party’s DNA says there is a core and absolute choice between individual aspiration and a fair go for all. Their conclusion is this: to hell with a fair go for all. Labor’s DNA, by contrast, says that in this country we can embrace a system that combines both aspiration and a fair go. That underlines our different approach to this core piece of law, this core piece of policy, this core piece of practice which affects every working Australian in their workplace.

The Liberal Party has got this wrong, because they have got Australia wrong. They do not understand the values of working families. They do not understand the cost of living pressures on working families. They just do not understand working families, period. They went to the last election proclaiming working families had never been better off and did so without dissent from any Liberal MP or any Liberal candidate. They are so out of touch that, according to their own former Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, most of their cabinet ministers were not even aware that working Australians were being made worse off by Work Choices, despite the fact that the central point of the Australian industrial relations debate through 2005, 2006 and 2007 went to the absolute detail of the Work Choices legislation regime. Late last month the Four Corners program gave us the extraordinary picture of the member for North Sydney trotting from one cabinet minister’s office to the next as he told ministers, whom he claims were ignorant, that Work Choices was actually making people worse off. Hold the phone! There is some news for you.

I remind the House that this was happening in the first half of 2007, although almost two years had passed since the Work Choices policy had been announced. For all that time, the people who made up the frontbench of the opposition today were defending this legislation and denying its harmful effects on working families. They just cannot work out where they stand on this legislation, even as of today—one moment they are opposing it, the next moment supporting it and most recently they say they are not supporting it but they are not opposing it either.

The legislation that Labor introduces to the parliament highlights one further contrast between this government and the previous government. Before the previous election the Liberal Party kept their industrial relations plans secret. Once they had won the 2004 election, they sprung their extreme laws on Australians and rammed them through the parliament. In contrast, Labor announced our workplace relations policy in detail well prior to the last election and in government we are delivering on what we promised before the election.

We said before the election that we would achieve a sensible transition to our new, fair and flexible system that would come into operation fully from 1 January 2010. This bill takes us a step forward towards that goal. We said before the election we would prohibit the making of new AWAs. This bill achieves that goal. We said before the election we would allow for individual transitional employment arrangements for a two-year period only. This bill does that. We said before the election we would modernise the award system. This bill makes that possible. We said before the election that what we needed was a balanced system and an approach that delivers appropriate flexibility for businesses but provides a genuine safety net for working families. This bill takes us towards that goal.

This balanced approach to Australian workplaces is critical for both the long-term needs of the economy and our immediate priority of tackling inflation. Right now, Australia is facing a serious economic challenge arising from global financial market instability. That instability rages abroad while at the same time we have raising inflationary pressures at home. The key measure of ongoing inflation, the underlying rate of inflation, had at the time this government took office risen to the highest level in 16 years. Underlying inflation has been running at an average of three per cent, the upper limit of the RBA inflation target, for the past year and a half. It is now forecast by the RBA to stay at three per cent or higher until mid-2010.

The threat of rising inflation has not emerged overnight; it has been building for years as the Howard government neglected warnings about growing supply constraints and slowing productivity growth. Back in 2005, the Liberals told us that Work Choices would deliver low inflation, low interest rates and stronger productivity growth. They claimed that Work Choices was core economic business but they had nothing—no hard data, no modelling—to support their claims, and now we understand why. The member for Goldstein, for example, was very explicit when he told this chamber on 3 November 2005—and it is worth listening to this:

By promoting flexibility and greatly simplifying the system of industrial relations, this legislation—

that means the Work Choices legislation—

will deliver better outcomes for interest rates and employment and inflation.

Since then we have seen inflation reach its highest level in 16 years. Since then interest rates have risen seven times, the second highest level amongst advanced economies. Since then productivity growth has been flat and, as of when this government assumed office, had fallen to zero. The architects of Work Choices said it would lift productivity growth; it failed to do so. By failing to boost productivity growth, Work Choices failed to tackle the inflation challenge.

Nor did the Liberals deal with the rest of the inflation challenge: skills shortages, infrastructure bottlenecks and profligate government spending on the demand side of the economy. The result: rising inflation and, as a result of that, rising interest rates, despite the Liberals’ assurances that they would keep interest rates at record lows. Do you remember that? The assurance prior to the 2004 election, just before Work Choices legislation was introduced, that they would keep interest rates at record lows—as believable as the undertaking since that election that working families had never been better off.

At a level of policy, Work Choices has been an abject failure. Work Choices has been bad for the economy. Work Choices has been bad for working families and Work Choices has also been bad for business. It has created a red-tape nightmare, especially for small businesses. Just look at the fairness test, the bandaid that was taped over Work Choices in the run-up to last year’s election. By the time the Liberal Party lost office last November, employers had lodged 220,000 workplace agreements to be reviewed under the fairness test. Only 50,000 agreements had passed the test, and 9,000 of those needed to be changed before being approved. Just 72,000, less than one in three of those workplace agreements, had been finalised. There were 150,000 workplace agreements at the Workplace Authority waiting to be processed. You can just see it down there at the Workplace Authority: there is the shelf space for unprocessed applications for new workplace agreements—150,000 of them—and over there you have got the 467,000 Work Choices propaganda booklets. There must have been no room on the shelves down at the Workplace Authority; none whatsoever.

If you are in small business and you are trying to make sense of this extraordinary system which the previous government had implemented, consider, in a very tight labour market, the consequences of dealing with such a complex piece of legislation. For 150,000 workplace agreements to be with the Workplace Authority waiting to be processed is one of the most anti-business, pro-regulation, pro-red tape measures that any government of this country has ever introduced. They pretend to be not just the party of compassion but also the party of small business. If ever there was a set of statistics which underpinned the reckless disregard which the previous government and the Liberal Party had for the interests of business in general and small business in particular, it was in their bandaid solution last year to their industrial relations laws, resulting in an absolute nightmare for businesses trying to operate within that regulatory environment.

Harmers Workplace Lawyers estimated last year that the record-keeping requirements of Work Choices had imposed compliance costs of more than $950 million in relation to small and medium sized businesses. In the Australian Human Resources Institute survey of 1,000 human resources managers in August 2007, 55 per cent of HR managers reported that there was an increased need to seek legal advice since the introduction of Work Choices, 54 per cent reported that there was an increased level of record keeping since the introduction of Work Choices and 40 per cent said Work Choices had made employment arrangements more complicated. Asked the question of whether Work Choices was more or less likely to improve productivity, job creation or work-family balance with their organisation over the next three years, more said it was unlikely to improve these outcomes, and 78 per cent had not seen any improvement—I repeat, any improvement—in productivity since Work Choices had been introduced. In fact, five per cent had seen a decrease in productivity.

AWAs did not deliver for the economy, AWAs did not deliver for business, but AWAs certainly did deliver substantial harm to the interests of working families. According to the Bureau of Statistics, workers on AWAs work more and earn less per hour than those in the same jobs who are employed on collective agreements. Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister and minister for workplace relations reported to the House on new data analysing a sample of 670 Australian workplace agreements submitted to the Workplace Authority in the two months after May 2007, when the fairness test had been announced. This data showed that, of the sample of AWAs that had failed the fairness test, around 45 per cent underpaid workers by between $1 and $49 per week below the required rate of pay for the protected award conditions, 50 per cent paid $50 to $199 per week less than the required rate of pay, and five per cent provided $200 to $499 per week below what was required. These are extraordinary numbers.

Last month, the Deputy Prime Minister again revealed other information about AWAs that had been kept secret by the previous government. That information showed that, in a total sample of over 1,700 AWAs lodged between April and October 2006, 89 per cent of those AWAs removed at least one award condition that the previous government’s advertisements said was protected. Further, 31 per cent of those AWAs took away rest breaks, 49 per cent took away overtime loadings, 63 per cent removed incentive based payments and bonuses, 65 per cent removed penalty rates and 70 per cent took away shift loadings.

Consider also the evidence of the impact of Work Choices on women. Women on AWAs earn less per hour than those on collective agreements. Women on AWAs who work part time earn $3.70 less per hour or $85.10 less per week, based on an average of 23 hours per week, than those on collective agreements. This unfairness lies at the heart of the Work Choices legislation. This is the legacy of the Liberal Party—the party that, three months later, wants to pretend now to be the party of compassion.

What I have run through for the benefit of the House today is the cold, hard, statistical data as it impacts on working families and as it impacts on hardworking small businesses. And still the Liberal Party does not know if it supports Work Choices or opposes Work Choices. It is why we now come today to start to build a new, fair, flexible and modern system. The first step towards a new workplace relations system is this bill, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. The transitional arrangements will be followed by the introduction of more substantial workplace relations legislation into the parliament later this year to ensure that the government’s new, fair, flexible and productive workplace relations system can be fully operational by January 2010. If the coalition finally backflips, a big ‘if’, this legislation can declare a stop to the use of AWAs now—if the coalition backflips.

The transition bill ensures that Australians will no longer be forced to sign unfair AWAs that strip away key conditions with little or no compensation. From the commencement date of this legislation, no more AWAs can be created. An employer and employee can agree to terminate an AWA and replace it with another type of arrangement. We know we cannot correct every injustice of the old Work Choices system overnight. It took the Liberal Party, represented by their spokesman at the table, quite a period of time to construct such an entrenched and complex system of injustice. It will take us some time. We need to focus instead on building a system that will not allow such injustices in the future.

This bill ensures sensible transitional arrangements for employers who have been using AWAs under the previously existing law. Where an employer was using AWAs as of 1 December 2007, employees on AWAs or new employees may be placed on individual transitional employment agreements that can have a nominal expiry date up to 31 December 2009. The bill abolishes the so-called ‘fairness test’ and introduces a new, genuine no disadvantage test that provides a genuine safety net for employees. The new no disadvantage test will apply to all individual and collective workplace agreements.

Importantly, the bill will also make it possible for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to begin the process of award modernisation. The bill enables an award modernisation request to be made of the AIRC by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. It is intended that modern awards be simple and provide an appropriate benchmark to support collective bargaining, while at the same time providing a safety net for award-only employees. It is also intended that modern awards be relevant to the Australian economy by not being overly prescriptive and by allowing for flexible working arrangements.

The AIRC will play an integral role in the award modernisation process during the transition period. The intention is to ensure that this exercise is overwhelmingly completed by the end of 2009. Modern awards will be able to contain 10 allowable modern award matters, including minimum wages; arrangements for when work is performed, including hours of work and rest breaks; overtime rates and penalty rates; and allowances. Modern awards may also build on and provide industry specific detail about the proposed National Employment Standards, the content of which will be finalised by June, following the exposure draft process that is occurring now.

We are proud of this legislation because it brings to an end a system of rank injustice on the part of those opposite. We believe that it is entirely appropriate that this legislation be supported by the parliament. The modern, fair and flexible system that Labor is building demonstrates that we can build long-term prosperity without throwing the fair go out the back door. We can build long-term productivity growth while giving working people the right to bargain collectively if they choose. We can have a low inflation economy without forcing the lowest paid workers to make all the sacrifices to achieve it. The government takes very seriously its responsibility to deliver on its election commitment. That commitment was to abolish Work Choices and to build a modern balanced system that helps build long-term productivity growth while protecting the interests of working families. This legislation is the first order of business for the government. That is why it is the first bill that this government has introduced into the House. I commend the legislation to the House. (Time expired)

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

in reply—In closing this second reading debate on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, it is not my intention to speak for a long period of time, but I make the following points very briefly. The Rudd Labor government has come here today proud to start the process of getting rid of Work Choices through the passage of this bill. I have been wondering for some weeks now what it means to not support and not oppose a piece of legislation. Apparently, what it means is that you hide in your office because you do not know what you want to stand for in the modern age. This is a government that knows what it stands for. It stands for a fair, balanced and flexible industrial relations system; and, more than anything else, it stands for the delivery of the things that it promised the Australian people.

Let us remind ourselves that the Liberal Party finds itself in the position it is in today because it was not honest with the Australian people. When the Australian people voted in 2004 they did not vote for their pay and conditions to be stripped away through individual workplace agreements, Australian workplace agreements, they did not vote to exchange the safety net for a limited number of so-called protected award conditions that could simply be eradicated without any compensation and with the flick of a pen, they did not put their hand up and vote for the opportunity to be dismissed at any time at all and for no reason and they did not vote for a system so complex and so confusing that it fails to meet the needs of business. Having not told the Australian people the truth in 2004, that is what the Liberal Party introduced in government. There is now an attempt to completely rewrite history about its knowledge of the impact of these changes on working families. It knew it was hurting Australian working families and it delighted in it. That is the truth and no rewriting of history will cover that up.

Let us remember that the Liberal Party’s own Work Choices propaganda talked about Billy, the minimum wage worker who lost every condition in his award. Howard government ministers, the members of the Liberal Party today, publicly defended that as fair. These are the same people who now profess a great concern about jobs in the Australian community who said that it was fine, if you were a long-term worker, the breadwinner in your family and you had always done the right thing by your employer, and it was okay if you went to work one day and were dismissed for no reason and you had no remedy. So much for a concern about jobs and the job security of working people. They delighted in the fact that people could lose pay and conditions. They delighted in the fact that people could be thrown out the door for no reason at all and with no remedy.

Since the election the Liberal Party have been trying to rewrite history and they have been struggling to try and find a way to a new position on workplace relations. And haven’t we seen a variety of positions on display? No-one can predict with certainty where they are going to go next. But what we do know is that they introduced Work Choices, then they defended Work Choices, then they defended the continuation of Australian workplace agreements, then they had a vexed party room meeting and then they did not know what they were going to do next. In that track record of dithering around the place it seems that the parliament today is going to be witness to another round of dithering because we are advised—and we do not know if we have been correctly advised—that the opposition will not move any amendments today, despite the fact that the opposition spokesperson on this commenced her speech in the second reading debate by saying:

The opposition will not seek to oppose the passage of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. However, we will move an amendment that we believe will strike the right balance between flexibility and fairness in workplace relations.

She then went on to outline an amendment which would have increased the time period for interim transition employment agreements—that is, she outlined an amendment which would have kept statutory individual employment agreements in the system for longer.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Your bill keeps them anyway.

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

As anticipated, right on cue, the member opposite thinks she has some point about Labor’s system having in it interim transition employment agreements. I say to the member opposite that we do not apologise for giving business a sensible and measured transition. We do not apologise for that. You might have wanted to do it differently, you might have wanted to create chaos, but we do not apologise for creating a sensible and measured transition. What the member opposite, and the opposition overall, has never seemed to understand is that the interim transition employment agreements are in the system only to allow the two-year award modernisation process to go forth. Once the award modernisation is completed there is no need, going forward, for statutory individual employment agreements, and under Labor there will be no new statutory individual employment agreements from that date. They are over—done and dusted. From the date of proclamation of this bill the ability of any employer in this country to make an Australian workplace agreement, the ability of any employer in this country to rip away an award condition without compensation, will be over—done and dusted. That can still happen today, despite the so-called fairness test of the previous government, which was of course not fair at all. So, from the date of proclamation of this bill, there will be no new Australian workplace agreements, nothing for employees to fear in terms of the safety net being ripped off them, an award modernisation process, a two-year interim transition employment agreement while award modernisation is in train and then Labor’s new fair, balanced, flexible system, which will protect the interests of working families. That is what this bill is about.

‘We don’t oppose; we don’t support; we don’t know; we’re still thinking; we’ve got no idea’—all these divisions, and we still do not know exactly where the opposition stand. We know that they have been supporters of Work Choices, but I would be really interested in an answer to a simple question, which is: will they go to the next election promising the reintroduction of Australian workplace agreements—yes or no? It is a very simple question: yes or no? Do they stand for statutory individual employment agreements—yes or no? What will they take to the next election? We do not know. What we do know is they cover things up in the lead-up to elections. They did that in 2004. But surely they could break with tradition and be honest just once. Today is the day to do it—to declare where they stand on that central question.

During the debate, and obviously in the Senate inquiry, some points have been raised about various aspects of Labor’s legislation. Can I thank those who have participated in this chamber and can I thank those who made submissions to the Senate inquiry. The Senate inquiry report will be available later today. Of course, we will look at the Senate inquiry report and, if there are technical clarifications that need to be made arising from the report, we will consider those. But we are saying, both in this chamber and in the Senate: there is no reason why this legislation cannot be through the parliament by the end of this week. We will do everything to organise the sitting program to ensure that that happens. What we do not know, of course, is whether all of the opposition’s ‘don’t support, don’t oppose, don’t know, can’t think, don’t have an amendment, do have an amendment’ dithering will hold up this bill that the Australian people voted for. I am clearly saying both to the opposition members in this place and to the opposition members in the Senate that we will facilitate whatever is necessary to allow them to have their say but this bill should clear the parliament this week. That is what the Australian people want; that is what they voted for, and we will deliver it.

On the question of award modernisation, clearly the commission will undertake the modernisation of awards. I understand that concerns were raised before the Senate inquiry about the requirement for the commission to ensure that modern awards do not contain state based differences. I would like to note for the purposes of the record that this would not prevent the commission including in awards terms and conditions that are appropriate and based on objectively ascertainable regional circumstances and on the evidence of the parties that such a term or condition is necessary to ensure a fair minimum safety net. It is appropriate that new modern awards operating in a national system should not replicate state based differences from old awards which exist merely as a matter of historical circumstance.

Of course, awards will be modernised over the next two-year period. In the period of award modernisation this bill, very importantly, extends the end date for notional agreements preserving state awards and transitionally registered associations—matters that Work Choices would have brought to an end artificially, leaving thousands and thousands of workers around the country without a safety net. One thing we should remind ourselves of is that the Howard government were not only on a strategy to have Australian workplace agreements override awards and allow working families to be ripped off; the Howard government were on a strategy to kill the award system overall. They wanted it to wither and die. They wanted the only minimum conditions for employees in this country to be the five minimum conditions in the Australian fair pay and conditions standard. If re-elected at the last election, who knows where they would have sought to go to next in terms of those five minimum conditions? Would there still have been five, or would it have become four, three, two, one or no minimum conditions for employees in the workplace?

This is an important moment for this parliament. It is about delivering to the Australian people what we promise. It is about getting rid of the spectre of Work Choices from their lives. Getting rid of Work Choices is only a start—there will be more legislation to come—but it is an important start. It is the first handful of dirt in the grave in which we are burying Work Choices, and we will make sure that it is buried because we understand what it cost the Australian people—what it cost people who lost pay and conditions, what it cost people who worried about their sons and daughters in their first job, and what it cost people who lost their jobs without reason and without remedy. The members opposite, the Liberal Party, will never understand that. They will politically position, they will come out with platitudes, they will come out with things to say in this area of debate, but they will never understand what they did to Australian working families with their extremism. And they will forever be tied to Work Choices because they will forever believe in it.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.