Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The explanatory memorandum for the Fair Work Bill 2008 says that the Fair Work Bill creates a national workplace relations system that is fair to working people, flexible for business and promotes productivity and economic growth. There is not a skerrick of evidence from those sitting opposite to the contrary. In fact, the evidence that we have shows that the industrial relations system that they brought in resulted in: burdensome regulation for business; lower wages for women, those who worked in the retail and cleaning sectors, those who were vulnerable and lacking bargaining power in the workplace; and the Australian people throwing them out of office on 24 November 2007.

Work Choices is the alpha and the omega for those who sit opposite. It is the beginning and the end; it is their Genesis and their Revelation; it is not just in their genes but in their genealogy; it is not just in their DNA but in their blood. They love it. It is their raison d’etre; their reason to be. That is why they are here; that is why they are in this place. They are here to oppose Labor, the labour movement and those people we represent. That is what it is about. Work Choices is the soul of their party.

You only have to listen to the contributions of the member for Indi, the member for Warringah, the member for Mackellar and the member for Mayo to understand that everything that I just said is 100 per cent accurate. For them, those people who represent working people in the workplaces of this country—the trade union leaders and the trade union movement—are their enemies. That is the reality. This is because the union movement opposes the kind of loyalty that the Liberal Party have to their bosses—the multinational companies whom they represent. They do not want trade unions anywhere near the workplaces of Australia, because they think that trade unions compete with them for the affection of the Australian people.

Work Choices was offensive to the Australian way of life and to the belief that Australians have in fairness, decency, mateship and humanity. Work Choices was about entrenching unequal bargaining arrangements in the workplace. The previous government spent more than $60 million in propaganda but they could not sell it to the Australian public. It was far reaching and punitive, but the authors and architects of Work Choices voted for it time and again. My predecessor voted for it nearly 30 times in this House. He believed in it. The Leader of the Opposition believed in it. All those people sitting opposite—their new members and those who were in this chamber before the last election—believe in it. It was their agenda and they will always believe in it, despite what they may say. They say that Work Choices is dead. But, like something that might have happened 2,000 years ago, it is ready for a resurrection if they ever again sit on this side of the House.

There is not a shred of evidence that they have produced that shows that Work Choices contributed in a positive way to productivity, to jobs growth or to the improvement of the Australian economy. If they had that—if they had the detailed analysis that showed that; if they had the evidence—wouldn’t we have heard it? Wouldn’t we have heard more than the platitudes that we have heard from those opposite? They would have shouted it from the rooftops. You can imagine the former Prime Minister coming into this House, standing before the national press and saying: ‘This is the evidence. Here is the evidence.’ But it is not there. They cannot produce it.

Work Choices was not just a step too far. It was about punishment. It is important for those of us in this place who have been employers and for those of us who have been employees to recognise that the Australian public believe in free enterprise. They believe that the workplaces of Australia should be productive and that employers and employees should work constructively and cooperatively together. The vast majority of Australians believe that because they know that only profitable businesses will improve wages and working conditions and contribute to the economic security of their families and rising wages. They know that—they are not dumb. They are not stupid at all.

What was so pernicious about Work Choices was that it was about pitting employers against employees and handing rogue employers the tools to misuse this sort of legislation and abuse it to drive down wages. It is an indication of the extent to which the previous government believed in this sort of thing that, for example, when it came to funding in the higher education sector, they had workplace relations requirements and national governance protocols and other matters. They said to the higher education sector, ‘We are going to reduce your funding if you do not satisfy the Work Choices requirements.’ That was their idea. It was about bringing Work Choices not just into the workplaces but into the educational institutions and into the culture of the country. At the last election we took our industrial relations policy, Forward with Fairness, to the Australian people and we said that we would tell them what our policy was; we would level with them. We said that we would not foist on them an industrial relations system that they did not know about. The previous government never told the Australian people anything about Work Choices in 2004. I was a candidate in 2004. I had discussions with many people. I had debates with my predecessor. I read his press releases and I listened to what he said on the radio. I cannot ever recall the words ‘Work Choices’ being uttered in 2004.

The reality of this bill is that it does an enormous amount of good in Australian workplaces. Five key areas of improvement which we promised at the election are contained in this bill. In the short time I have left I am going to enumerate them. There are national standards for the safety net pay and employment conditions—not just five little ones which were ignored by so many employers when they presented an AWA, which was at the heart of the pernicious Work Choices legislation, but fair dinkum safety net pay and employment conditions. The bill contains measures for enterprise bargaining, workplace bargaining, an independent umpire, the right to be represented in the workplace by a union and the right not to be represented. The independent umpire is Fair Work Australia. What did the previous government do to the previous body, the Industrial Relations Commission? They effectively gutted it. I want to quote something that I think captures so much of what the Fair Work Bill is all about. It is an op-ed piece by the federal member for Charlton, the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement and the former Secretary of the ACTU. I was very impressed by this comment and I think it is worth reading it into Hansard. He said:

… I am confident that the fundamental rights contained in the Fair Work Bill are consistent with the goals of the Rights at Work campaign and will contribute enormously to the decent treatment of working people.

All of the many members of the wider community who expressed their opposition to WorkChoices, and who stood up for fairness and justice, can feel a sense of pride that our democracy has delivered this result.

It is with a great sense of pride that I am here today as the first Labor member for Blair voting on this particular piece of legislation. When we introduced the transition bill in February, it was of enormous pride to me to be able to vote on that particular piece of legislation. Wherever I campaigned in 2007, whether it was in Boonah or Booval, Karalee or Kalbar, Ropeley or Ripley in my electorate, people told me the same thing—that Work Choices was a step too far. They told me that they had AWAs presented to them and the employer said, ‘If you don’t sign it, you don’t get the job,’ and that the absence of a fairness test meant that their wages and conditions were driven down. And for those opposite to say that they did not understand that is simply a nonsense. They knew it very well.

In conclusion I say this: my vote on this bill honours the commitment I made to the people of Blair. This bill honours the commitment that we made nationally to the people of Australia. It is a great credit to all those involved—business, unions, the stakeholders, the Deputy Prime Minister—that this bill has come in here today. I say to those opposite, as someone who has been both an employee and an employer in my working life, that businesses should always be profitable and that employees of this country want businesses to be profitable and will work to make businesses profitable, because we know that profitable businesses enhance the economy of this country and provide for our future. This bill will help the workplaces of Australia improve the cooperation between employers and employees and at the same time honour our commitment to the people of Australia. This bill is a victory for democracy. It is the greatest piece of legislation this party has brought in in 2008. It will make the biggest difference to the working lives of men and women in this country of any piece of legislation that we have passed in this House. I commend the bill to the House.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008. Last November the Australian people gave this government a mandate to tear up Work Choices. The laws which demonstrated the arrogance and the hubris of those opposite ultimately brought about their downfall. The coalition insisted that the laws were acceptable, yet they never gave the Australian public a chance to debate the detail of these laws prior to the 2004 election. They never took these laws to the Australian people. Instead they spent $121 million of taxpayers’ money to attempt to con the Australian people into accepting these laws after they were rushed through this parliament. They even stopped using the name of these laws, Work Choices, in government advertising. Work Choices became the law that dared not speak its name.

On this side we were always clear about our policies on industrial relations. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister committed to abolishing Australian workplace agreements when they were elected as leaders of the federal parliamentary Labor Party. During last year we released our workplace relations policy entitled Forward with Fairness and throughout the campaign all last year at supermarket stalls, at railway stations, and while I was doorknocking thousands of homes in my electorate, people told me unprompted that they were appalled by the Work Choices laws. They wanted the government of this country to protect them from unfair dismissal. They wanted the government of this country to protect them from being forced to sign unjust statutory workplace agreements and, if they themselves were not individually exposed, they wanted the government of this country to protect their children or their grandchildren from the effects of the harsh Work Choices laws. Even as every single member on our side of the House campaigned for fairer, more just and more inclusive and democratic workplace relations laws, 150 candidates for the coalition, both sitting members and those seeking to win seats in this House, campaigned for Work Choices, and they remain, as we have seen over the past week or so, the party of Work Choices.

At this time we should reflect on what Work Choices brought to Australia. Work Choices led to four million working Australians losing protection from being unfairly sacked. These included being sacked for ‘operational reasons’ to allow for the hiring of cheaper staff. Workers were forced to negotiate conditions such as overtime, public holidays, penalty rates and annual leave entitlements—matters that had been thought of until the Work Choices laws as being built into the Australian industrial relations system. Young people in particular entering the workforce had immense difficulty in negotiating these matters with their employers. Statutory Australian workplace agreements were forced upon employees in a take-it-or-leave-it manner. Workers were sacked and then offered an AWA to do the same job for less pay and poorer conditions. Employers could refuse to bargain collectively and unions had limited access to monitor workers’ occupational health and safety, a task that they have been performing with distinction throughout Australia’s working history.

The member for Higgins, it needs to be said, and his gang at the HR Nicholls Society—aptly described as the ‘industrial wing of the Ku Klux Klan’—had long planned this assault on workers’ rights. The party of Work Choices went to the 2004 election without telling the Australian people what they were going to do and when the Australian people found out what had been done to them and to their working conditions they delivered their verdict on the government which had done this to them.

It is worth remembering that this country has a very long history of developing innovative workplace law. The Harvester judgment delivered in 1907 by Justice Higgins delivered to this country the definition of a fair and reasonable wage as being ‘enough to support the wage earner in reasonable and frugal comfort’, and this was the birth of the modern federal basic wage, a definitive right for all working Australians.

The development of the conciliation and arbitration system was also paramount to ensuring structures were put in place to resolve industrial disputes, and for a hundred years since the introduction of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act this system has protected workers by providing an industry-wide regulator, recognising the role of trade unions as important employee advocates and also recognising the importance of public interest in a specialist tribunal. Work Choices swept this system away.

Labor governments have a long and proud history of supporting international instruments and institutions which deal with workplace laws. I will quote from the renowned labour law academic Professor Ron McCallum of Sydney university to this effect:

... the law of work in Australia is heavily influenced by international legal developments.

We can remember that Australia has been a proud member of the International Labour Organisation since its establishment in 1919. The Chifley Labor government enacted the International Labour Organisation Act in 1947 and the Whitlam Labor government legislatively approved the enactment of the ILO constitution. These were important steps to ensure that international standards apply in Australia.

Conversely, the coalition government in its 11½ years of government downgraded Australia’s role in the ILO by removing a special adviser to the Geneva headquarters, by refraining from seeking re-election to the governing body of the ILO and by reducing the size of the Australian delegation sent to the International Labour Conference. This disdain for the ILO has reflected poorly on Australia’s standing as a good international citizen. It ultimately sends the very powerful message that the previous government was not serious about workplace laws and was willing to alienate international organisations to demonstrate its own irrational ideological agenda in this area.

This bill’s importance is further underlined by the global economic context in which Australia finds itself today. We are in the midst of a global financial crisis which has placed greater pressures on working Australians—Australians who are paying their mortgages, filling up their cars with petrol, buying their groceries and taking their kids to schools and child care. In these uncertain times, confidence is scarce. The big banks and the media talk a lot about the term ‘business confidence’ but, in uncertain times, what about the confidence of working Australians? While those opposite are content with playing political games with programs such as Fuelwatch and luxury car levies, this government is seeking to strengthen the confidence of working Australians. We are looking to provide assurance to working Australians that no longer will we have workplace laws which rip away basic conditions and standards, no longer will the balance be unfairly skewed against working people.

The Deputy Prime Minister and her department have undertaken extensive consultation to ensure that all concerns will be listened to. The statutory Committee on Industrial Legislation, COIL, has painstakingly worked through the draft bill line by line with representatives from business and trade unions to deliver a fair system for employers, a fair system for employees and a fair system for their representatives. This government’s stance on workplace laws is important. It goes to the very heart of the difference between a Rudd Labor government and those sitting opposite. We are proud to stand up for a fair go. We are proud to stand up and protect working Australians. We are proud to stand up to the special interest groups and declare that the very purpose of government is to deliver substantive results to all Australians and not just those who are wealthy and well connected.

Unlike the coalition, the Labor government understands the importance of work. Work creates a sense of self-worth. It provides a sense of identity and dignity for us all. Work gives individuals meaning and purpose they need in their lives. On this side of the House we believe that work is not merely a commodity that can be traded on a market or sold away for extra cash, and nor do we believe that workplace laws can be used as a political football to drive a radical conservative ideological agenda. Work is far more important than that. We believe that work serves a greater purpose than purely being an economic good. Work builds and develops valuable social capital and enriches the cultural fabric of Australian society. Workplaces bring together people from a broad range of backgrounds, countries and educational levels. Work provides individuals with value and a purpose and it allows them to contribute not only to their own lives but to their families, their friends, their colleagues and their communities.

This is the greatest difference between the coalition and the Rudd Labor government—we value work and we seek to develop a balance to ensure that work and productivity can go hand in hand. Unlike those opposite—the majority of whom voted for Work Choices and many of whom still support Work Choices—we are not stuck in an ideological battle. Instead we seek continually to ensure that these laws are fair to all: fair to employers and fair to employees.

I do not have time to talk about the bill in detail. Other members going before me have, and those coming after me will do so. But I cannot sit down without mentioning some of the particularly valuable provisions of this legislation—and I would single out the parts of the bill which deal with freedom of association—confirming the right to join as well as the right not to join a union and supporting that freedom of association with real protection for workers’ rights for the very first time in Australian industrial relations law, including as part of the law of this country a general list of enforceable rights that will be enjoyed by all workers.

I should mention also the right-of-entry provisions, which have attracted some criticism with the false suggestion being made by those opposite that in some way the government has not entirely honoured its commitment that there will be no change in the right of entry laws. There is no change in the right-of-entry laws because we have retained the requirement to obtain a permit and we have retained the requirement that only persons who are suitable will be able to exercise right of entry. We have retained the requirement that there be notice given before entry takes place. What we have done however is give substance to that right of entry to ensure that when representatives of workers enter a workplace they will not be sent to some wholly inappropriate part of the workplace—they will not be sent to a place where the right of entry becomes an illusory right.

There has been a widespread welcoming of this legislation—not just by workers, not just by unions but also by very many employer groups. They welcome this legislation which strikes a fair balance—indeed, a democratic balance. I commend this bill to the House.

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nowhere is the difference between this government and its predecessor starker than in our respective policies on workplace relations. The workplace relations doctrine of the Howard government was firmly rooted in blind faith in the free market—a doctrine in which greed is not just accepted but also admired, a doctrine in which working people are just economic commodities to be hired and fired at will and a doctrine in which concern and compassion for individuals and families is completely absent. It was this doctrine that inflicted the Howard government’s extreme Work Choices laws on the Australian people.

On this side of the House we also believe that there is a central place in our economy for the free market. The free market certainly creates wealth and improves living standards. But the free market also has limitations. There are such things as market failure and, as we have seen demonstrated around the world over the past few months, the world’s financial markets can fail. As a result of the type of light regulation advocated by those opposite, the leaders of the world’s financial institutions have, to put it bluntly, stuffed up. They are incapable of regulating themselves and they are incapable of curbing their own excesses. They are, quite frankly, incapable of managing their own businesses.

And we must not forget that these bankers brought all this upon themselves. The world’s financial markets were not hit by a natural disaster or by an unforeseen event or even by an act of God. These markets failed because in some of the world’s largest financial institutions people with enormous salary packages made bad business decisions, and now these institutions have had to be bailed out by governments all around the world. They have had to be bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money. To all intents and purposes, they have had to be bailed out by ordinary working men and women who earn much more modest salaries. And it is not just incompetent bankers with their hands out. We have seen the leaders of some of America’s largest manufacturing companies flying to Washington in their private jets to put their hands out for more taxpayer money. Again, the dire financial situation in which the US car makers find themselves in is almost entirely their own fault. Bad business decisions are again at the root of their problems, and now they expect taxpayers to foot the bill for the consequences of those decisions.

Okay, we have to be practical about all of this. Modern capitalist economies cannot allow important financial institutions to collapse, and they probably cannot allow major manufacturers to go to the wall either. On a global scale, the market cannot be allowed to operate freely because the economic and social consequences for millions of working people are too horrendous to contemplate. But if governments and the ordinary working people of the world are going to underwrite systematic failures of the free market then there is a price to be paid. I am not just talking about the cost of guaranteeing deposits or the cost of repaying money borrowed from the taxpayers. Part of the cost to be paid is in the form of a fair and equitable workplace relations system that strikes the right balance between employers and employees, a system that provides fundamental protection to individuals and families from the excesses of the free market. It is completely unjustifiable for the financial security of working men and women to be in the hands of a few overpaid, jet-setting millionaires who cannot manage their businesses prudently.

On this side of the House, we believe in a fair go for all. Indeed, the labour movement in this country was responsible for the very concept of a fair go. It was the labour movement that etched the fair go into the Australian psyche. It was the labour movement that fought for the concept of a living wage. It was the labour movement that fought for the eight-hour working day. A fair go is the labour movement’s legacy to this nation. The labour movement was founded to protect workers from the excesses of free-market capitalism and we find ourselves doing it again here today. One year ago voters comprehensively rejected the extreme workplace relations policies of the coalition, policies that the Howard government introduced without a mandate and which stripped away basic working conditions from hardworking Australians. They then had the nerve to misuse tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money telling working Australians how much better off they would be under Work Choices. It is a disgraceful record of contempt for working Australians, of which those opposite should be thoroughly ashamed.

The Fair Work Bill 2008 sets out the workplace relations system that will replace Work Choices from the beginning of 2010. It fulfils Labor’s election commitment to the Australian people. It embraces the Australian value of the fair go and is based on a belief that economic prosperity and a decent standard of living for all can go hand in hand. It introduces new national employment standards, new unfair dismissal laws and new rules governing good faith bargaining. It supports and extends the productivity based enterprise bargaining that was one of the greatest achievements of the former Keating government. The bill dismantles the organisations created by the Howard government under Work Choices such as the Workplace Authority, the Workplace Ombudsman and the Fair Pay Commission. And it will replace the Australian Industrial Relations Commission with a new industrial tribunal called Fair Work Australia.

The bill is a result of extensive consultation with peak union and employer organisations and it achieves a fair balance between employers and employees. There are two features of the bill that I would like to highlight and of which I am particularly proud. These are the strong and simple safety net and the special assistance for the lower paid. Work Choices provided only five very basic minimum entitlements for employees: annual leave, personal or carers leave, parental leave, the maximum ordinary hours of work, and basic rates of pay and casual loadings. Other vital award conditions, including redundancy payments and penalty rates, could be removed or modified by a workplace agreement without compensation. The number and types of matters that could be provided in awards were restricted and some were completely prohibited. And as far as negotiating these conditions was concerned, Work Choices made the fallacious assumption that there is equal bargaining power between employer and employee.

Under this government’s new workplace relations system, all employees will have the benefit of clear, comprehensive and enforceable minimum protections that cannot be stripped away. The first part of the new safety net will be the National Employment Standards, which provide for: a maximum number of hours of work each week, the right to request flexible and family-friendly working arrangements, parental leave and related entitlements, annual leave, personal and carers leave, and compassionate leave for community service activities. It also provides for long service leave, public holidays, notice of termination and redundancy pay, and the provision of a fair work information statement which will set out the rights and entitlements of employees and how they can obtain advice and assistance. These 10 standards will apply to all employees whether they are covered by an award or not, and there will be a national minimum wage for employees not covered by an award. These essential standards will start to restore the certainty and security that was torn away from so many working Australians under Work Choices.

The second part of Labor’s new safety net is the creation of modern awards by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. These awards will be industry or occupation based and will simplify the thousands of awards that exist now. They complement the new National Employment Standards and can include 10 more minimum conditions of employment geared to the particular needs of the industry or occupation concerned. These additional conditions include: minimum wages, types of employment, arrangements for when work is performed, overtime and penalty rates, annualised wage or salary arrangements, allowances, leave related matters, superannuation, and procedures for consultation, representation and dispute settlement. These modern awards will cover all employees who earn less than $100,000 a year and whose work has historically been covered by awards, while employees with a basic salary of more than $100,000 will be free to agree terms with their employers to supplement the National Employment Standards.

The low-paid, such as those in industries like child care, community work and cleaning services, were treated particularly harshly under Work Choices. There were no provisions to help them beyond the five minimum entitlements and an annual minimum wage review. Enterprise bargaining has been a central feature of workplace relations since the early 1990s and there is now significant evidence that enterprise bargaining benefits employees, employers and the economy. Labor wants to encourage low-paid employees and their employers into enterprise bargaining and this bill provides for a special multi-employer low-paid bargaining stream. Many employees in low-paid sectors lack the skills and bargaining power to negotiate improved wages and conditions and some employers may lack the time, skills and resources to bargain collectively with their employees.

The bill provides for a bargaining representative, or an organisation of employees, to apply to Fair Work Australia for entry into the low-paid stream to bargain with a specified list of employers. Fair Work Australia will then be obliged to play a hands-on role to get the parties bargaining, and to facilitate agreements by various means. It may convene and chair conferences, help to identify productivity improvements to underpin an agreement and steer employers and employees through the bargaining process. Individual employers will be able to seek exemption from this process if they think they should not be included.

The bill provides for the possibility of a workplace determination in the low-paid stream by agreement or if there is no reasonable prospect of an agreement being reached between the parties. However, Fair Work Australia would not be able to order bargaining participants to make concessions or to require the inclusion of particular content in an agreement. And, when making a determination, Fair Work Australia will have to consider how productivity in the business might be improved and the need to maintain the competitiveness of the employer.

The introduction of this bill is another step in the death march of Work Choices, a death that last week appeared to be finally accepted by the Leader of the Opposition as being the will of the Australian people. But there are some out there who still do not accept what voters said at the last election. The ideologues in peak business organisations are instructing their political wing, otherwise known as the Liberal Party, to continue the fight through the Senate. Of course, the party of business, the party of the well-off, is more than willing to do its master’s bidding, despite its leader declaring Work Choices is dead.

In response to them, I return to the point I made at the beginning of this speech: a workplace that treats employees with respect and fairness and protects them from the excesses of the free market is part of the price the private sector has to pay. It is part of its social licence to operate. It is part of the price it has to pay for its own management failures. It is part of the price it has to pay because it expects taxpayers to bail it out when markets fail. This bill restores fairness and balance to Australian workplaces. It represents the will of the working men and women of this country and I commend it to the House.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008. This bill, introduced into parliament one year on from the election of the Rudd Labor government, honours our election promise to get rid of Work Choices. It is a landmark bill that gets the balance right by ensuring that our economy continues to grow without compromising our long tradition of workplace rights and guaranteed minimum standards.

In brief, this bill introduces a new system with fairer laws that balance the needs of employers, employees and the unions that represent them. The new system ensures all employers and employees have access to transparent, clear and simple information on their rights and responsibilities. It introduces a simple, fair dismissal system for small business. It protects employees by outlining clear minimum wages and, something that I am particularly proud of, assists low-paid and vulnerable employees.

The new workplace relations system embodied in this bill provides a strong safety net for workers. I would like to congratulate the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and her staff on their work in getting this election promise met and on the process of consultation undertaken. The bill delivers our election promise as set out in Forward with Fairness and has been worked through extensively with business and unions.

This is in complete contrast to the previous Howard government, which failed to mention that they intended to introduce their extreme Work Choices laws in the 2004 election campaign and once re-elected rammed the Work Choices bills through the parliament, with limited consultation and the guillotining of debate.

The development of this bill and the new workplace relations system it introduces has been subject to an unprecedented level of consultation and is better for it. The new system is based on fairness: fair for the employers, fair for the workers, fair for families and fair for the economy. Our workplace relations laws are balanced, and no one side has gotten everything they wanted. The new system squarely recognises that employment is a relationship that consists of rights and responsibilities on both sides. At the heart of the new system is enterprise bargaining, as it is bargaining at the enterprise level that will drive productivity.

The government was elected with a mandate and today we deliver to the Australian people on that mandate. I joined the Labor Party because I support the notion of a fair go for everyone, regardless of how much money you earn, where you were born or who your parents or grandparents are. I joined the Labor Party because I support the notion of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, and that citizens are entitled to spend time with their families and their communities. I joined the Labor Party because I understand that not all of us are able to, for whatever reason, advocate on our own behalf and we should have the right to ask someone to help us. The Fair Work Bill epitomises all of these principles and re-affirms my commitment to the Labor Party. I am very proud of this bill.

I do not in this debate intend to go through every chapter and provision in this bill but want to highlight those core elements of the new system. The first chapter contains the objects of the bill, which are to put into law the government’s intention to have a balanced industrial relations system, one which is based on cooperation, respect and productive workplace relations.

The terms and conditions of employment are contained in chapter 2. One of the most hated elements of Work Choices was that it stripped away the safety net. The initial legislation contained no protections at all and after realising that this had become a political problem the then Howard government introduced five standards.

The bill provides for a comprehensive safety net comprising 10 national employment standards and modern awards which include a further 10 areas. The 10 national employment standards will apply to all employees covered by the federal system from 1 January 2010, and they include: maximum weekly hours of work, requests for flexible working arrangements, parental leave and related entitlements, annual leave, personal/carers leave and compassionate leave, community service leave, long service leave, public holidays, notice of termination and redundancy pay and the provision of a fair work information statement to all new employees.

Modern awards are being developed by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and these modern awards will cover 10 further areas: minimum wages, arrangements for when work is performed, overtime and penalty rates, allowances, leave and leave loadings, superannuation and procedures for consultation, dispute resolution and the representation of employees. Modern awards will not cover employees earning more than $100,000 a year, who will be free to agree upon their own pay and conditions without reference to awards.

Fair Work Australia, established under this bill, will undertake four-yearly reviews of modern awards to ensure that they maintain a relevant and fair minimum safety net and continue to be relevant to the needs of our community, with adjustments between the four-yearly reviews able to be made in limited circumstances. The bill also provides for minimum wages in modern awards to be reviewed every year by a specialist minimum wages panel within Fair Work Australia.

The bill also provides a new framework for enterprise bargaining. The framework includes the introduction of good faith bargaining, less regulation regarding the content of agreements, the creation of a single stream of agreement making, a streamlined process for approval of agreements and the introduction of Fair Work Australia to facilitate bargaining for the low paid.

Gone is the notion of a non-union or union agreement. A union that is entitled to represent the industrial interests of employees and was a bargaining representative for a proposed agreement may apply to be covered by the agreement.

The bill recognises that most workplaces are already bargaining in good faith—that the vast bulk of workplaces across this country are getting on with forming cooperative agreements within the workplace. But, where this does not happen in good faith, the bill empowers Fair Work Australia to make compliance orders.

Multi-employer bargaining is possible under the new laws, where employers and employees agree to it. Protected industrial action is not available in these circumstances. The opposition’s scaremongering that this introduces pattern bargaining is simply false.

One of the elements of the bill that Labor members can be most proud of is the new scheme of bargaining for the low paid—workers who were left out under previous systems. Enterprise bargaining does benefit employees, employers and the economy as a whole, but those in low-paid positions often struggle to bargain effectively with their employers. This bill introduces a special, low-paid bargaining stream. Fair Work Australia will be charged with the role of facilitating the making of agreements and provides for the possibility of a workplace determination in the low-paid stream being made by agreement or if there is no reasonable prospect of agreement. The latter will be subject to very strict criteria.

One of the harshest elements of the previous government’s policies was the abolition of unfair dismissal laws for workplaces of under 100 employees. I, like many people, had constituents coming to me who clearly had been unfairly dismissed but had absolutely no recourse under the Howard government’s laws. This bill introduces a new, fairer system. Before an unfair dismissal claim can be made, a worker will have to have been employed for 12 months in a workplace with 15 employees or fewer, or for six months in businesses with 15 employees or more. Casual employees are no longer excluded but will have to meet the same qualifying period, provided they have been employed on a regular and systemic basis. Fixed-time contracts, training agreements and seasonal or task based employment that has concluded will not be subject to the unfair dismissal laws. The process of dealing with claims will be streamlined and made much more cost-effective for small business.

These are just some of the core elements of the new workplace relations system, a system that reintroduces fairness and balance into our workplaces. There is no doubt that the Howard government went too far with Work Choices. They stripped away many of the things that ordinary working Australians thought could never be taken away from them. They used the language of choice to deliver a system of no choice, a system based on statutory individual agreements that undermined the safety net of fair, relevant and enforceable minimum conditions for Australian workers. And, like many others in this place, I know that given half a chance—despite the rhetoric that Work Choices is dead, despite their election defeat—the Liberal Party would introduce just such a system again. I commend this bill to the House.

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

The Fair Work Bill 2008 has been described in terms of swinging the pendulum in workplace relations back into balance, but workplace relations in Australia has for more than a century meant more than just a means of settling disputes. Our system has been more than just a tool in managing the Australian economy. Since 1907, our industrial relations system has been as much about the type of society Australians have wished to live in as it has been part of our labour market. This is where the idea of the pendulum swinging too far led to the Australian people voting to throw out Work Choices, along with the former Prime Minister and his government, at the last election.

Like Margaret Thatcher, the Howard government thought there was no such thing as a society; there was only an economy. The fact is that a fair system of workplace relations is a cornerstone of Australian society. When the Howard government thought about Australian values, it limited its ideas to Gallipoli, mateship and Don Bradman. But real Australian values have always been based on a fair go, and that fairness begins in the workplace. Nothing is as important to Australians as getting a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. That is what has set the Australian system of workplace relations apart from almost every other country in the world. And now, more than a century after the principles were laid down, we can proudly say that, for the most part, our nation has prospered and the people of Australia have prospered in a way that few other countries have prospered.

That is not to say that the system put together in 1907 must remain unchanged. We have made great changes and we have needed to respond to the great challenges in the world around us—and, until the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation, those changes had been made without sacrificing the ideal of a fair go in the workplace.

I should add that a key part of the system is the trade union movement. We would be very foolish to assume that the pay and conditions that Australian workers enjoy today have come about because of the generosity of employers. Checks and balances in any system are vital to ensuring fairness and, while they get little credit for their important role, trade unions have provided the balance in the system that has made it work for the benefit of all working Australians.

The Fair Work Bill does not merely tear up Work Choices. It replaces it with a workable system which will guarantee fairness in the workplace and, at the same time, provide the basis for a modern system of workplace relations which will take Australia confidently into the 21st century. The bill provides for National Employment Standards which will cover all employees in the federal system from 1 January 2010. These 10 standards set the minimum conditions of work. They include maximum weekly work hours of 38 hours for full-time employees as well as a guarantee of four weeks annual leave. Other leave entitlements are also set, such as parental leave, including maternity, paternity and adoption leave, giving both parents separate periods of up to 12 months with the right of one parent to extend leave for an additional 12 months.

It is pleasing to note these extensions to parental leave and also to note the inclusion of the right to request flexible working arrangements. These conditions were recommended by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services in the last parliament. As deputy chair of that committee, which produced the report entitled Balancing work and family, I must admit it was difficult to see how the recommendation for the right to request flexible working arrangements could have fitted into the Work Choices regime. But now we see that right included in the Fair Work Bill. This will be a welcome measure which will greatly assist working families.

Older workers increasingly have aged parents requiring care and assistance. Changes to the rules regarding carers leave will make it simpler to understand the entitlement and access to carers leave. These changes bring workplace relations into the reality of the 21st century. Balancing work and family is now more than just a slogan. It is enshrined in the laws which govern conditions in the workplace. Australia is finally catching up with conditions that have been in place in a number of European countries for some time.

The bill introduces the requirement for good faith bargaining and streamlines the agreement-making process. These measures actively encourage collective bargaining in the creation of union or non-union agreements. This overcomes the basic objection to AWAs. The process was never going to be fair. The employer held all the cards. The employer had the knowledge of the labour market and the employee was, on most occasions, in the dark. The employer could be skilled in negotiating and the employee completely at a loss. There were provisions for getting help in negotiating an AWA, but the reality was always going to be a one-sided affair. For most workers the process was a sham. They were simply handed an AWA and asked to sign or else they would lose their job.

But there are other challenges ahead for working Australians. The past decade has seen the wages share of production slip dramatically. While average wages have increased, lower paid employees are struggling to maintain a decent standard of living. Many do not have a strong bargaining position and, unless our workplace relations system can deal fairly with low-paid employees, we run the risk of following countries like the United States in having a large underclass of working poor. In this legislation, Fair Work Australia will be able to facilitate multiple employer bargaining for employees who are low paid and in industries, such as the community sector, which do not have a history of collective bargaining. Fair Work Australia will be able to arbitrate on these matters but must take regard of the competitiveness of the employer.

I have one area of concern with the bill, which leaves in place the four-hour rule for strike pay. I have heard reports of incidences where employees have arrived back on the job a few minutes late after a union meeting only to be told by the employer that it was a requirement to deduct four hours pay even if only a few minutes had been lost. This rule represents a harsh penalty on employees when the lateness of their return may not have been their fault. It runs the risk of being counterproductive if employees extend their absence for the full four hours, and I have heard of instances where this has occurred.

I also want to make mention of the continuation of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, although the minister has indicated that this body will be replaced in January 2010. While it now seems that the law may not see the jailing of trade union members, the continued existence of the commission and its ongoing operation is of great concern to me and to many trade union members and officials. One thing that should be clear from this legislation is the important role of trade unions in maintaining a fair workplace relations system. That burden today falls on a shrinking number of members who pay dues and give of their own time in the interests of their fellow workers. When unreasonable requirements are made or penalties are imposed, it is not only a threat to the right of workers to organise but a threat to remove one of the important checks on the power of employers. The threat of imprisonment definitely has no place in the workplace laws of this country. Criminal behaviour can and should be addressed by criminal law. I am reminded of the words of the Ballad of 1891, written during the Great Shearers Strike of that time:

But for every one that’s sentenced, ten thousand won’t forget

Where they jail someone for striking, it’s a rich man’s country yet.

Under John Howard’s Work Choices, the pendulum swung too far in favour of employers. Work Choices was unfair to working Australians. The people of this country gave a resounding mandate to Labor for Work Choices and AWAs to be scrapped. We have before us in this legislation a blueprint for a fairer system of workplace relations. It is consistent with the rights and freedoms that working people should have according to international convention. The Fair Work Bill guarantees that the fair workplace remains the pillar of the great Australian value of a fair go for all.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like you, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz, I spent some of my early life in meatworks. Though you went down the employer line, I went down the union line and have a different perspective from you. I was very pleased to be able to inspect books and find underpayment of wages, even for non-union members, and rectify those problems. The Fair Work Bill 2008 delivers on the government’s commitment during the last election campaign to get rid of the previous government’s unfair Work Choices laws and will completely replace the current Workplace Relations Act. At the last election Australians spoke loudly and gave this government a clear mandate to change the Work Choices laws imposed upon them by the previous Howard government. As I said at the time, they were laws which really meant: sign or go. Either you signed an AWA that the boss produced and gave to you or you left. You did one of the two. There was no choice; the words naming that legislation were the wrong words.

The people of Australia spoke clearly in support of our policy Forward with Fairness, and this bill today delivers on that promise to the Australian people. It is about bringing back fairness into the workplace. We are renowned across the world for giving people a fair go, and this piece of legislation will enshrine that in a new workplace relations system. It will introduce a simpler scheme that has balance and is fair to both employers and employees. This piece of legislation will pave the way for certainty in Australian workplaces and remove the confusion for both employees and employers that was created by Work Choices, which really took us back to the master-servant situation. Sign or go was what people got with many AWAs. This bill looks to the future of employment in Australia and plans for that future with a simpler, fair and balanced workplace relations system—one that protects the most vulnerable workers and encourages enterprise bargaining to drive productivity. We know from studies in the world that enterprise bargaining can drive productivity much better than Australian workplace agreements could ever do.

The present industrial relations system is a minefield for both employers and employees. Employees can be taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers who use the current legislation to create legal but unfair employment arrangements. Employers will also benefit from clearer and more concise legislation that is easily understood. The Fair Work Bill 2008 will allow both employers and employees to get on with business knowing that they are being fairly treated. Small businesses in my part of the world have said to me that they really wanted to know what their responsibilities were so that they could meet them. They did not want to be caught up in not meeting obligations.

The Howard government got caught up with those people who helped design the Work Choices legislation, who really hated trade unions and, to some degree I think, had a really strong feeling that they wanted to dominate working people. The Howard government and the Howard ministry got caught up in that. I am sure that some of them believed in that same philosophy. From listening to some of the speeches on this bill one would feel that there is a divide in Australia between labour and capital. There are two sides in this parliament, and that has been reflected in this debate. I am sure that that will be analysed and written about, and I am sure our side of the House will highlight those points at the next election in 2010.

I turn now to the issue of unfair dismissals. The Senate majority allowed the Howard government to bring those laws into place. And the only reason they made the law books of Australia was that they went too far. It was a fine example of too much control. The unfair dismissal laws allow people to be sacked without the right to appeal. The inability to seek redress in any reasonable way without going to courts and briefing lawyers et cetera was a very unfair process.

I just want to touch again on the issue of allowing unions to look at wages records if they believe that there is underpayment of wages in a workplace. If there is a proper process to make sure that the representatives of those unions are people who meet a standard—which I understand will be set—and if they undertake to keep confidentiality, as I have done in the past, then why would you be totally opposed to that, unless you wanted to do something dishonest? If there is nothing to hide, why not have the books scrutinised? I would not have thought that there was a reason to not have that occur.

I sat through some of the debate last night, sitting where you are sitting, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz, and the point was raised about having a job. It was said that this bill will create unemployment and that the important point is having a job. This side of the House believes in having a job but a job that gives you the dignity that you deserve, a safe workplace and enough return to have a life for yourself and your family within a community, not like years ago when you might have had to get a divvy out of the poor box at the parish because your wages never reached the necessary level. That is some of the history that our side of the House remembers and has read about. That was a part of our history. So having a job is a very poor argument. Having a job that pays $9 an hour may not allow you to live with dignity or live fairly in an Australian situation. There is a little bit more to it than just having a job. The Fair Work Bill sets up a strong safety net, with 10 legislated National Employment Standards for all employees. These are standards that cannot be taken away and will ensure that all employees have the basic safety net.

Another other point I would like to make is on something that happened with Work Choices. You could still belong to a union—it was not going to stop anyone from belonging to a union—but the employer did not have to recognise the union when it came to negotiating. If you are a member of a union, you are entitled to have that union come to the table and negotiate on your behalf, and that will be enshrined in this legislation, as will bargaining in good faith, with no time wasting by either side. What occurred under Work Choices was that people would turn up, sit down and negotiate and then, two months later, nothing would have been achieved. You would go back again and again and there was no fair bargaining in good faith. It was time wasting in a deliberate way. Employees have a right to be represented by their union at the negotiating table. I certainly believe that this bill takes Australia back to world’s best practice. It takes us forward in a modern way. It uses modern processes of bargaining which will increase our productivity and move us forward to where we are in the world today. I support the bill.

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

In my previous life before I came to this place I worked for employer organisations and companies. I had the great privilege of working for a terrific trade union, the Health Services Union, for close to 18 years. The era in which I worked for employers was the pre Work Choices era. My experience was that, whilst we would have disagreements with unions from time to time on particular issues, we knew that we had a system in place whereby there was an independent umpire to whom we could go to have matters resolved. It was also a system in which we knew there was inherent fairness. It was one that we as employers could work through. Equally, in my years with the trade union, I found that while occasionally we would get the wrong decision from the independent umpire we were nonetheless happy to work within a system that included some resolution of disputes and recognised our rights to collectively bargain, represent employees and go about it in a businesslike way that gave the best representation and the best outcomes for fairness at the workplace—for the employer and, most particularly, for the employee.

I am more proud of my 18 to 19 years with the trade union movement than almost anything else I have done in my working life. When you look at the way in which the opposition, the then government, tried to portray union officials, you can see why we cannot believe that Work Choices is not out of their DNA. What they attempted to do was say that representing working people is a bad thing and that representing working people in some way damages the economy. I ask the question: how can looking after health workers, including aged care workers, and making sure that ambulance officers are not overworked possibly be seen as anything but laudable? Yet those on the other side would try to paint union officials as the devil incarnate that wreaks havoc on the economy. It is important to remember the campaign targeting union officials and where they stood with the Labor Party, because that is part of the psyche of the opposition. It personifies their approach to industrial relations. It did in the last election and it always will. It is something that the Australian people will continue to be reminded about by Labor because of the stance that the opposition took at the last election.

In looking after health workers, I had the great pleasure of making sure that those in aged-care facilities—over 80 per cent of whom were women working part time—were able to go to the bargaining table, sometimes with an employer the size of Macquarie Bank, with someone there who could provide them with resources to make sure that the bargaining was at least fair. Of course, all of that changed with Work Choices. With Work Choices we suddenly had an unequal bargaining relationship. We suddenly had the ability to make sure that these employees—predominantly women and predominantly women working part time—could be taken into the employer’s office one on one and be given a choice as to what their conditions would be or leave the company. This is the fundamental evil of Work Choices. It is the pinning together of individual contracts and the removal of unfair dismissal provisions that essentially make Work Choices such an imbalanced piece of legislation and one which, of course, was totally rejected by the Australian public. If you are presented with an individual contract and you have no rights if you are dismissed, then you are in no position to argue with the person putting that document before you. You have to either take it or take your chances.

I would like to mention two examples of people who were exploited in my electorate during the last campaign, which highlight the problems of Work Choices. One was a purported AWA that was so far out of whack that even under Work Choices it would have been illegal. What prevented any prosecution taking place was that the employee who was asked to sign this AWA knew that, if he raised the issue, if he put his hand up, he could be terminated. So, even though there were some provisions—not very good provisions—that said you could not go too far or go completely over the top, a bad employer had the green light from the former government to do whatever they liked, because if anyone complained they were out the door. This agreement involved a middle management position that paid only $26,000, and there was no on-call and no rostering of hours. It had the provision that the employee had to be available 24 hours, seven days a week and other hours as may be required. One wonders how you can actually work more than 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but this particular AWA had those provisions in it. Again, this would not have happened if we had had fair and balanced industrial laws. But, under Work Choices, the bad employer said, ‘We have got a green light to do what we want.’

Another example from my electorate was of a young lady who worked in the fast-food industry, in hospitality. She had traditionally been on a state award that had increments according to age. As she got older, her pay increased. That is a fairly common set of awards or agreements that exists in that industry. On her birthday, this young lady happened to get a phone call. She did not take the phone call, but the employer left a message on her phone saying: ‘Happy birthday. We no longer need you. Thank you for your service.’ She was being replaced by a younger worker. She did not need to be paid anything for this. They were making savings because they were able to do it. They did not need to provide a reason. They did not need to provide an excuse. This young woman had no recourse anywhere, because fairness had been taken out of our industrial relations system, and what was left was the exploitation of particular workers.

The third example is on the effect that Work Choices had on volunteers. Surf lifesaving is a big feature of the community on the Central Coast. To be available for surf lifesaving, you have to know that you are available on the weekend when you are rostered on. To do this, you need some certainty about when you are going to be rostered at work. One of the provisions that was able to be stripped away from many agreements and awards was the rostering provisions. In the area of health—a group that I used to represent—the need to have 24-hour-a-day rosters for workers was part and parcel of the industry. People understood that, but they also knew that when they had a roster they would be able to plan their lives around it. Under Work Choices this changed. As an active surf lifesaver myself, I can say that we often got complaints from other surf lifesavers about the effects of Work Choices on the number of volunteers for surf lifesaving. That was how deeply Work Choices affected people on the Central Coast and workers throughout Australia.

I started out by saying how we know that the opposition, in their hearts, still believe in Work Choices. We saw that in the advertisements in the last election and we have heard it in the speeches in this place. Whilst every speaker has said that in this place they will not be opposing legislation, they have nonetheless gone on to talk about their true beliefs and have exposed their support and continuing commitment to Work Choices and to its principles. In finishing, I would like to pay particular tribute to the Your Rights at Work campaign on the Central Coast and the work those people did in highlighting these unfair laws in my electorate. I also note the leadership that Mr Michael Williamson of the Health Services Union played in highlighting this issue for health workers throughout Australia.

We have now had two prime ministers who lost their jobs trying to rewrite industrial relations law. Let us hope the opposition learn the lesson. I do not think they have. We know from the speeches they have made here that they have not. What we are after, what this legislation is about, is a fair go for all and a balanced system that makes sure everyone gets an opportunity. I commend the bill to the House.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is a great day for workers and for families. Today all working Australians should take note of the monumental changes that are taking place in this House. But there are a couple of things in particular that we ought to note and that workers ought to note—that is, the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Clearly, while the Liberal and National parties were tossed out of government last year on the back of Work Choices, which was clearly rejected by the Australian people, they are still in favour of Work Choices and they have learned no lessons. Still at the core of the beliefs of the Liberal and National parties of the old and tired government of previous years is the belief that wages should be kept very low. They still believe in keeping the rights of workers to an absolute bare minimum of just a few, and they still believe in removing the voice that workers have in this country. That is at the core of their belief structure.

At the core of our belief structure—and why this is so important to us and why so many if not all of the Labor members in this place have spoken, or will be speaking, on the Fair Work Bill 2008is that Labor believe that there should be fairness in the workplace and fairness in wages. There should be a safety net, there should be protection for working people and families, there should be a fair umpire and there should be a balance between rights and responsibilities. For my thinking, I could not imagine why you would want it any other way. Why would any forward-thinking, decent person not want another person to have a fair go—a fair go in the workplace, a fair go at the core of the Australian spirit and a fair go in the way they earn their living? All that working people in this country ask for is a fair opportunity and a chance to get a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

That is what is at the core of the Fair Work Bill 2008, which Labor is introducing today. It brings fairness back into the workplace once and for all and it ends the Liberal Party’s Work Choices laws. Workers’ jobs were less secure under the previous Liberal government, and we want to return security to people. If you consider the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in today, then it has never been more important. I suppose that it is, in part—although it may not have been in the planning—some relief for Australian workers that, as the global economy turns down, they can at least have some confidence in the back of their minds that there will be a safety net, that there will be basic rights and protections that will go far beyond what was stripped away under the previous Liberal government.

With the introduction of this bill we see a new, fair and balanced workplace relations system and the re-establishment of a strong safety net, a real safety net, that draws a line under which people cannot be taken advantage of. That was a key failure of the previous government. I know that, leading into Christmas and with the potential for job losses as the global economy turns down—and in reality we in Australia may face some of that downturn—workers at least will know they have a fair workplace relations system back in place.

The interesting part about what delivered the change of government and the Rudd Labor government—and I believe this was at the very centre of us winning a lot of marginal seats and of causing workers to come back in large numbers to Labor—was that workers understood the difference between political parties in this country. When we go out and talk to people in the community, we often get criticised—and I understand that criticism—that we are all the same. I know, Mr Deputy Speaker Schultz, that you and others often hear at community meetings that we are just all the same. Well, last year workers decided that we were not all the same—that one party stood out, a party that decided that they would put the interests of working Australians ahead of ideological interests—and they put their faith in us. I am very proud to stand here today, because we are repaying the faith and the trust that working Australians placed in us in a whole range of areas. Most importantly, for working families in Australia, we are repaying that trust by delivering for them a fair and balanced workplace system that allows them to get on with working, looking after their families, educating their children and providing for those under their care, while having the confidence that there is a government and a system in place—a set of laws—that will look after them. I think that is something that they clearly understood at the last election.

We were given a clear mandate. The Australian people spoke in large numbers and with one voice. The coalition, however, misunderstand—or refuse to understand—what the Australian constituency voted for in late 2007. They remain, and I believe will forever remain, the party of Work Choices, because I know, as I think the Australian people know—and as I believe coalition members know—that at the very first opportunity to reintroduce Work Choices with all its ugliness, they will do so, whether or not they have a mandate for it. When they were returned to government in 2004, they had no mandate and no policy that was understood by the electorate or was explained to the electorate on what they might do regarding Work Choices, but that is what they delivered. Because of that they were thrown out of government.

For the then Howard government it was a tired old dream of industrial relations that harked back to a tired old era, but times have changed and we have a new government. We will follow through on our commitments. There will not be any excuses of core and non-core promises; there will just be delivery of the promises that we made to the Australian people. No longer will it be okay for someone to be sacked for no reason. No longer will workers be offered a take-it-or-leave-it Australian workplace agreement which gives them no option. No longer will they have no access to penalty rates. No longer will they be denied overtime, public holiday pay or workers compensation. No longer will they be prevented from collectively bargaining as a team, and no longer will they be ignored by their employer. That was unacceptable. It was unacceptable in the true sense of what is a fair go in Australia, and it was unacceptable for the Australian constituency. It was unacceptable to us as a Labor Party, and it is unacceptable to us as a government, and that is why we are introducing a fair work bill.

I talked earlier about the opposition having not understood or comprehended the magnitude of the feeling amongst working people in this country. They already show signs of failure on their own side to remain of one voice, be it right or wrong. Already there are members of the opposition who have clearly indicated they will not be supporting the Fair Work Bill—that they will actually divide with their own party and their own leader. There is no unity in the opposition. There is no sense of fairness in the opposition. They do not speak with one voice. They are divided as a party and they are divided on the issue of workers’ rights. In the end, that is their failing. Those on the opposition side who are honest actually declare their hand. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, and for that I will not criticise them. I will criticise them for their ideology and for what they believe is the right thing to do by workers—when clearly it is the wrong thing—but I will not criticise them for being honest. However, I know there are a whole heap of others who sit there dishonestly and, at the first opportunity, would reintroduce the Work Choices laws but will not declare it in this place. They would not dare declare it because they know that, if they really told the truth about their intentions to the Australian people, to their constituencies, they would lose the support of their electorates.

What is even more telling about the people in the opposition is that the very architects of this legislation sit on the opposition benches. They have not changed their view. The member for Higgins, who wanted to take Work Choices even further, is waiting in the wings for the opportunity not only to come back but also to reintroduce Work Choices—and probably a nastier version of the one that workers in Australia experienced. Not only have we got that but we have John Howard’s former IR adviser, now the member for Mayo, trawling down the hallways, sneaking along, waiting for the day when he can reintroduce his own failed architecture for Australian workers. I am sure he has decked out his new office with the mountains of Work Choices propaganda—all that memorabilia!—that is left over from the failed campaigns that were meant to mislead and deceive the Australian people. But the Australian people are not fools, and they fully understood what was being done to them.

What the Australian government is trying to do is strike the balance between fairness in the workplace and providing economic prosperity—making sure that you strike the balance between having workers properly and fairly treated and giving business the opportunity to get on with business. The government is making sure that the Australian economy works in those respects. We did not do this on our own. We did it with extensive consultation. We did that to provide a fair, flexible and productive outcome. We consulted with workers, unions, employers and people right across the community. That is why they support the changes that we are putting forward. In the end, if you are going to respect the rights of people in the workplace, you need to talk to everybody in the workplace.

I do not understand the ideology of the opposition, which at its very core denies ordinary workers and families the right to a fair day’s pay, to union representation, to collectively bargain, to a voice and to an opportunity to prosper along with the Australian economy. Ordinary workers and families should not be left out of the nation’s prosperity. When business is succeeding, they should succeed as well. In summing up, what we have delivered today is a clear, transparent and much simpler industrial relations system which delivers not only for Australian workers but also for the Australian economy. I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and all of the workers and campaigners out in the community who tirelessly went out there and helped make sure that we could repeal the Work Choices legislation. I wholeheartedly commend the bill to the House.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to associate myself with the comments made by the previous speaker. I think that his contribution to the debate was an excellent contribution, as all the contributions on this side of the parliament have been. The Fair Work Bill 2008 signals a new era in workplace relations, an era that is typified by fairness and decency. I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and everybody else who has been involved in the development of this legislation.

There has been widespread consultation with industries and unions on this legislation. As result of that, we have before us the legislation that we are debating here in the parliament. I would like to contrast that approach with the approach to the previous legislation. There was no consultation—or, should I say, there was one-sided consultation. The previous government consulted with business but totally disregarded the workers. People in Australia could have been forgiven for believing that the purpose of the Work Choices legislation was not to create a fair, vibrant, productive workplace but rather to cause exploitation and disadvantage.

I have been involved with many election campaigns over the years. During the last election the Australian people voted en masse against the Work Choices legislation. I had elderly people coming up to me and saying: ‘I’m voting for Labor because I’m voting against the Work Choices legislation. I’m voting that way because I’m voting for my children and my grandchildren.’ Those voices were widespread and rose up within the community. Australian people recognise decency and fairness, and they understood that the Work Choices legislation was very un-Australian.

This legislation was so unpopular that the government bought a large amount of paraphernalia—little giveaways to give to people—to try and sell their Work Choices legislation. When I opened my drawer before speaking tonight, I found that I had one piece of paraphernalia, one of the wonderful Work Choices pens produced en masse to try and convince Australian people that Work Choices was legislation that they should embrace. The pens did not work. The Australian people were too smart. They knew that workplace relations was about a lot more than getting a free pen.

Members on the other side of this parliament are still slaves to Work Choices, and there is great division and indecision amongst them. I will talk a little bit more about that later in my contribution, but now I would like to turn to the legislation for a moment. It builds on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act, which was enacted in March and which ended the making of AWAs. It introduced a genuine no-disadvantage test for agreements and commenced award modernisation. This bill provides a balanced framework of workplace rights and obligations which is fair to both employers and workers. It is not one-sided legislation; it is legislation that has its roots in fairness. It avoids overregulation, with broad functions and appropriate discretion conferred on Fair Work Australia, and reduces the compliance burden on business. It is not based on conciliation and arbitration powers but rather on corporation powers. This covers all employees of employers who are not trading as a corporation. It provides not awards that are the product of arbitration or interstate industrial disputes but common rules for industries or occupations. There will be nationally consistent workplace relations laws for the private sector. Unions will not have to apply to vary every award each year for national wage cases and endlessly serve ambit logs of claims on new business. It is much more efficient and will lead to a stronger economy and greater productivity.

The key features of this legislation include a fair and comprehensive safety net of employment conditions that cannot be stripped away, comprising National Employment Standards and national awards that deliver necessary flexibility without allowing an unscrupulous few to exploit their workforce. In other words, workers must be better off than they were before and they cannot fall below the minimum wage at any time. I, like many members of this House, had a number of constituents come and visit me before the last election. They had signed AWAs, had their conditions stripped away and lost money. This legislation ensures that I will not have any more 18-year-olds coming into my office in a situation where they have absolutely no say in what is happening and have realised that they are receiving a pittance. Now we have legislation that will ensure their protection within the workplace.

The National Employment Standards, which will apply to all employees, look at maximum weekly hours of work, requests for flexible working arrangements, parental leave and related entitlements, annual leave, personal carer leave, compassionate leave, community service leave, long service leave, public holidays, notice of termination and redundancy pay and fair work information statements—all things that every employee should be able to expect. This is in sharp contrast to the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation. The new framework for enterprise bargaining is one of collective bargaining rights and responsibilities focusing on collective bargaining at the enterprise level to promote and improve productivity. That is the key to achieving low inflation, low unemployment and rising standards of living, not one-sided Work Choices legislation—as I have already described to the House. The framework allows collective enterprise-level bargaining obligations. The problem with Work Choices was that it promoted an adversarial, bad-faith, ‘take it or leave it’ culture.

Once workers have agreed to an enterprise agreement, it must be lodged with Fair Work Australia for approval to commence operation. Before it comes into force, it must be determined that the agreement is genuine, that the group of employees covered by the agreement was fairly chosen, that the agreement passes the ‘better off overall’ test, that the agreement contains a nominal expiry date and dispute settlement clause, that the agreement does not contain terms that contravene the NES and that it does not contain unlawful content—all very important facts. Unfair dismissal rights—which balance the need for employers, including small business, to manage their workforce while protecting employees from unfair dismissal—are available to the vast majority of workers. The legislation enhances protections from discrimination and allows for freedom of association for all workers and their rights to representation, information and consultation at work. That is a long way from the previous legislation, which was all about ensuring that workers did not have those rights.

The rights of entry are preserved in this legislation. If unions hold a meeting with members and potential members, it should be in a suitable venue and they must have a permit. Unions have to observe conduct standards, and notice is required before entering. The role of Fair Work Australia will be to oversee the system, maintain the safety net and be an independent umpire. Individual claims under awards and the NES that cannot be resolved by the Fair Work Australia process can be dealt with through a low-cost, informal process in the fair work division of the courts. The new, flexible powers are available to the courts to remedy any contravention of the act. There are extensive consultation mechanisms included in all workplace relations, from the largest corporation to the smallest business and covering unions and the unemployed.

The government is determined to learn from the lessons of the past and deliver a workplace relations system that gains broad acceptance and support through consultation, consultation that was not undertaken by the previous government when it introduced Work Choices, which was all about doing over unions and not about creating a fair workplace. It was not about creating conditions and wages that were in the interest of workers and it was not about creating balance.

Quite a comparison can be made between this fair work legislation and Work Choices legislation. As a reminder to members of the House, Work Choices allowed agreements to slash the safety net. It was all about AWAs. It left awards to wither on the vine. It gave no effective rights to bargain collectively, slashed unfair dismissal rights, marginalised unions and rendered the independent industrial umpire powerless. Work Choices was about micromanagement of the employment relationship and did not create a truly national system.

Members of the opposition are still the disciples of Work Choices. The Leader of the Opposition declared Work Choices was the single most important economic reform of our time. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has resisted changes to the Work Choices legislation but has reluctantly fallen into line. The former Leader of the Opposition is still a disciple of the Work Choices legislation. There are members in the opposition who have stated that they will not support the fair work legislation. The member for Fisher is still quite undecided about his position in relation to the Work Choices legislation and we all know how the member for Mayo was one of the architects of the Work Choices legislation. The member for Hume has said that he will not vote for the new legislation.

I put to the House that we have before us a fine piece of legislation that has been developed in consultation with all the parties it will affect. It is legislation that has the support of all the members on this side of the House, which is in stark contrast to members on the other side, who cannot quite decide their position. I congratulate the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and all those who have been involved in the development of the legislation.

Debate (on motion by Dr Kelly) adjourned.