Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government, representing the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations. How does the Fair Work Act ensure that the government can act quickly and in the national interest during an industrial relations crisis? How does this compare with the system it replaced?

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question. She, like all of those who sit on this side of the House, was delighted when the Rudd government was able to replace the discredited Work Choices legislation with the Fair Work Act—an act that brought dignity and fairness back into the industrial relations system and brought a structure to the system where negotiations broke down. Why has it been important for the economy? This week has been a classic example as to why. By utilising the Fair Work Act and by moving decisively and quickly, we got Qantas back in the air again. That required two things. It required an act that gave us the framework, but it also required a government that was prepared to make the right decision at the right time.

I contrast that with the circumstances which would have existed had those who sit opposite been in power at the time. Not only would there not have been an act that provided that framework; the actions of those who sit opposite would have been to let the dispute run on. We know that the member for North Sydney has admitted to knowing weeks in advance that Qantas was planning to lock out its workforce and ground its air fleet, but he said nothing. There was the Australian government acting in the national interest as soon as it knew what Qantas's intentions were, and the member for North Sydney was sitting it out—grubby political interests, hoping that this dispute would worsen and impact upon the economy and thereby the government.

I had the opportunity to listen to the member's personal explanation yesterday in relation to his view about how decisively they moved when they were in office. I refer back to the Tristar dispute, and I will remind members of the true facts of this dispute. This was a prolonged dispute that had been running for 18 months. The employer's strategy was to let the collective bargain expire so that they would not be required to pay workers' entitlements—run down the clock. That government failed to do anything in those circumstances. I am asked how it compares with the system we replaced, and I am giving an example of that. The intervention that the member for North Sydney talked about was in relation to one person, a man that was dying. He did get his worker entitlements for him, but not for the whole of the workforce. They refused to act in so many circumstances under their legislation, under their system, to protect workers' entitlements. The only time they acted was in relation to the then Prime Minister's brother's company, National Textiles. Remember? Not Tristar, not the coal industry, only National Textiles.

That was a government that would not support workers' entitlements. When it came to intervening under their system, let me say what was on the record in the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales. The company, Tristar, stood by a memo written after the meeting with Mr Hockey in which it quotes, 'It wanted this issue sorted out and implied that, if we did not, there would be ramifications.' They would sack the workforce and replace it. (Time expired)