Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister update the House on the government’s progress in delivering a new, fair and balanced workplace relations system for Australia?

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

I thank the honourable member for Petrie for her question and I record for the House her advocacy on behalf of workers and working families in her electorate in Brisbane. I noticed, as the honourable member for Petrie asked the question, there was a distinct silence on the part of those opposite, reflecting, shall we say, a want of unity on their part and a lack of clarity in terms of their position on this vital matter for the nation, the economy and working families.

Before the last election, we made a commitment to hardworking Australians that, under this government, their terms and conditions of employment would be fair and they would be protected. Before the last election, we made a commitment to Australian employers that, under the government’s new workplace relations laws, our system would be flexible, simple and workable for business. Before the election, we made a commitment that we would consult with employers and employees alike as we drafted our workplace laws.

This Labor government has delivered on that commitment. What does the new workplace relations system entail? First, it includes a simple safety net of key terms and conditions that cannot be stripped away—stripped away by industrial instruments such as Work Choices. Second, it includes protection from unfair dismissal for Australian workers, balanced with the opportunity for an employer to have a period to assess a new worker. Third, it includes special arrangements for small business employers to deal with dismissals, and simpler processes for everyone to resolve claims. Fourth, it entails provisions to help workers and employers and employees work together to create flexible and family friendly workplaces. Fifth, it includes simpler and faster agreement-making processes. Sixth, it provides for a new, independent umpire, Fair Work Australia. Seventh, it provides the opportunity for employers and employees to agree to flexible arrangements that suit their needs, including for high-income workers.

I would say to the parliament and to those opposite that this party in government did not hide its plans from the Australian people prior to the last election. We were upfront with the Australian people. We told them what we would do, and the Australian people overwhelmingly voted for our proposal and for the removal of Work Choices. I contrast that with those opposite, who inflicted Work Choices on Australia without the courtesy of even putting it to the Australian people first. I would ask any of those opposite: which of them stood around the ballot boxes in 2004 and said to the Australian people as they went into that election that they were going to legislate Work Choices? Not one of them did. Their party did not. Once they obtained control of the Senate, that was the direction in which they went.

The reason for that is that their fundamental belief is that Work Choices is absolutely fantastic—the ideal set of laws for every workplace. And that was what underpinned remarks and statements made in this place when they introduced Work Choices legislation into this parliament. Again, for the benefit of those opposite let me record for the House, on this important day, what the Leader of the Opposition said on the day that Work Choices was introduced:

… today is the day that Kevin Andrews—

the then minister—

introduced the work choices legislation into the House of Representatives. The single most important reform to workplace relations in any of our lifetimes …

There is no understatement there: ‘in any of our lifetimes’.

What we have had ever since then is this to and fro in the tactical debate within the Liberal Party as to whether they should be upfront about what they actually believe—which is Work Choices writ large—or whether they can tactically sneak around the side and pretend that they are actually not committed to it after all. We on this side of the House—and the nation at large—know this as a fact: Work Choices is within the DNA of the Liberal Party. Whatever they may say today about whether they oppose it or support it, we all know that, if they got back into power, they would bring it back because it is in their DNA. That is the bottom line.

In the debate about the global economic recession and its impact on families and workers across Australia, I say to those opposite that they should reflect for one moment on this simple question: what do they say to Australian workers who have a ‘take it or leave it’ Work Choices AWA, when they realise that their Work Choices AWA does not have a redundancy entitlement? Under Work Choices, it was stripped away from them without a choice and without compensation. That is the simple truth of it. What would those opposite do for those workers who now face the full force of the global economic recession? Absolutely nothing, because their industrial relations legislation provided the capacity for workers to be put on AWAs that strip away their redundancy arrangements.

This is the human face of Work Choices—Work Choices, which is in the DNA of the Liberal Party; Work Choices, which stripped away redundancy entitlements; and Work Choices, which they, the Liberal Party, would wish to bring back. Whatever the Liberal Party may say today in this debate, whatever they may say in the Senate in this debate and whatever posturing they may engage in politically on this matter, the Liberal Party cannot and never will be able to walk away from Work Choices—because, very simply, the Liberal Party are Work Choices addicts. That is what they are—Work Choices addicts. They will swear until they are blue in the face that they have given it up but, we know for a fact that, as Work Choices addicts, they cannot give it up. That is the bottom line.

As much as those opposite may be uncomfortable about the core reality, the absolute core reality is that Work Choices strips away redundancy payments. Whatever they say today about maybe pushing it to one side—and heaven knows what the Leader of the Opposition meant in that last press conference—we in the government know that we stand opposed to Work Choices, while the Liberal Party, if they get back in office, will restore Work Choices and enforce it on every Australian working family.