Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on a matter of public importance: the first anniversary of the unfair industrial relations laws introduced by this government. Today marks one year since Mr Howard’s unfair and extreme industrial relations laws came into force. At the time that these laws were being debated, we in the Labor Party said that their full impact would not be felt for some time. But, just one year on, the results are already worse than many of us would have expected, and the facts speak for themselves. Let us not forget some of the people who we know have been most hurt this year by Mr Howard’s unfair laws.

Who can forget Annette Harris at Spotlight, a worker who saw her conditions and entitlements shredded for the princely sum of 2c per hour? Who can forget the 2c per hour this Spotlight worker was given for having to give up a range of penalty rates and other wages and conditions? Let us not forget the 29 Cowra abattoir workers who were sacked for so-called ‘operational reasons’ then reinstated on inferior terms and conditions. These laws also have been pretty devastating for employees at the Lufthansa call centre, who were up to $50 per week worse off in take-home pay due to the Prime Minister’s wage-cutting AWAs. The laws have also been pretty devastating for Mr Michael King, the 25-year-old who worked for seven years at the Hilton IGA supermarket in Perth but had to look for a job elsewhere because his only work choice under the supermarket’s new owner was a wage-cutting AWA or no job at the supermarket at all.

We know that this is only the tip of the iceberg and there are many more Australian families who have been affected by Work Choices, but what we do not know is the statistical information about that. Why is that? It is because this government is trying to hide the true impact of Work Choices. The last and only time the government released its own figures about the impact on employees of these unfair laws was May last year, and what did those statistics on Australian workplace agreements show? The only set of figures the government has ever seen fit to release, and what did they show? One hundred per cent of all AWAs surveyed removed at least one so-called protected award condition, 63 per cent removed penalty rates, 52 per cent removed shiftwork loadings and 46 per cent removed public holiday payments. That is the only information this Howard government has ever allowed into the public arena. But since then what have they done? They have covered it up. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has refused to direct the Office of the Employment Advocate—