Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I listened very closely to Senator Birmingham’s speech and I also listened very closely to his first speech and I must say this is a pale imitation of his first speech. Senator Birmingham talked about which party is best suited to government and I have to say that I am on the side of his Labor relative. We will have that discussion later. Senator Birmingham also mentioned that the ALP is all about reintroducing a regulatory framework. The ALP is about restoring fairness and balance into the workplace.

The Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007 is the bill tasked with introducing the government’s so-called fairness test. It seems ironic that, a little over a year since the Howard government introduced—and you must forgive me my use of apparently redundant terminology—Work Choices, the industrial relations package which stripped any concept of fairness from the Australian workplace, we should be debating a bill being marketed by the same government as one aimed at restoring fairness to the workplace. It begs the question: what has changed so dramatically in the past 12 months? Has the Howard government seen the error of its ways? Has it begun to realise that the Work Choices legislation in fact tipped the balance too far against Australian workers and their families by removing basic conditions like overtime and penalty rates, leave loadings, rostering protections and redundancy pay for many? Has it in fact begun to listen to the Australian public—the thousands of workers that have suffered as a direct result of the introduction of Work Choices?

I am afraid that in an election year the motivation for the government’s sudden change of heart is far more self-serving. This bill quite simply is aimed at wooing back the critical votes of Australian workers rather than restoring fairness to their workplaces. It is simply about creating an illusion of fairness rather than taking genuine steps to reinstate fairness and balance into the Australian industrial relations landscape. The fact that the Howard government has been so desperate to repackage and rebrand its tarnished Work Choices package is testament to this, as is the fact that the Howard government has recently spent a staggering $4.1 million of taxpayers’ money in one week on advertising aimed at convincing the Australian public that it has changed its ways. It is a desperate bid to claw back some industrial relations credibility.

The government’s blatant disregard for the committee process during the Senate inquiry into this bill is evidence of this. As the opposition senators’ report notes, the government announced the reference of the bill 18 days prior to its actual introduction, giving submitters only seven days to provide submissions and the committee only 10 days in which to consider such submissions, conduct a public hearing and produce a report. This level of arrogance does not reflect a government that is genuinely committed to getting it right and listening to the views of the Australian people; it reflects a government that has become complacent and out of touch with the people it is supposed to represent and a government that is willing to use its control in this Senate to railroad legislation through to suit its own political agenda.

The simple fact of the matter is: this bill, along with the rebranding of the government’s failed Work Choices package and the government’s latest stint of industrial relations advertising, is all about appearances. The government wants the Australian public to believe that its approach to industrial relations in this country has changed. While appearances can sometimes be deceiving, I am quite sure that the Australian public is well aware that in the case of the Howard government a leopard can never, and will never, change its spots.

We were all witness to the Howard government’s tricky pre-election tactics in the lead-up to the last federal election. Back then they were happy to keep the Australian public in the dark about their planned Work Choices legislation until they regained power. The first the Australian public heard of Work Choices was after the votes had been cast. Why should this election be any different? While in the lead-up to this election the Howard government are more than happy to create a temporary illusion of the inclusion of fairness in their industrial relations plans, you can be quite sure that, if they happen to win government again, this front, this illusion, will swiftly disappear, as will any concept of fairness in the Australian workplace. Do not be fooled by the spin. If the government are re-elected at this year’s election, make no mistake, it is likely that they will make even harsher changes to the industrial relations laws and the rights of working Australians in this country.

The government’s track record since the last election proves that it simply cannot be trusted to keep its promises when it comes to industrial relations in this country. It told us all during the introduction to its failed and recently rebranded Work Choices changes last year that they were necessary to boost productivity and to support economic growth in Australia. It claimed that they would benefit Australian workers and their families, giving them greater flexibility, more room to bargain with their employers and, most importantly, a greater degree of choice. A year on, it appears that little of this was true. A year on, it is yet to produce a single scrap of evidence to suggest that Work Choices was necessary to boost productivity. In fact, figures show that Australian productivity actually went backwards in the six months following the commencement of Work Choices and is presently at just 1.5 per cent, compared to a historical average of 2.3 per cent. A year on, the government is also yet to produce any hard, credible evidence to suggest that the Work Choices changes have, as the government claims, greatly benefited Australian workers and their families by providing them with a greater degree of opportunity and choice in the workplace. Indeed, a year on, sadly, the exact opposite is true.

Australian workers have suffered since the introduction of Work Choices. They have been stripped of their basic rights and conditions and, along with them, any degree of leverage to bargain or to exercise choice when it comes to negotiating with their employers. We only have to look at the myriad examples that have received media attention in the short time that Work Choices has been in place. The case of Darrell Lea workers is a good example. They were stripped of basic conditions like penalty rates for not even a 1c per hour increase. Cases like this serve as an illustration of just how far the Work Choices laws have tilted the balance against Australian workers. There have no doubt been numerous other unreported cases across the country of Australian workers being sacked without recourse or being forced to give up their basic award conditions with no power to bargain for compensation and no chance at exercising any choice in the matter. A year on and Work Choices has ensured this type of situation has, sadly, become the norm.

Workers in regional areas like Tasmania who are members of smaller communities—where unemployment rates are generally higher—that have suffered under Work Choices have generally been too scared to speak out about their experiences. The nature of these smaller communities ensures that workers do not want to risk victimisation in their workplace for speaking out against their employers. Likewise, if they are unfortunate enough to suffer the loss of their job because of a strategic company restructure, workers in regional areas are unlikely to speak out because of fear of being labelled a troublemaker and the risk of not being able to find another employer willing to take them on. This is just the way it is under Work Choices.

The government is continuing to deceive the Australian people about the real impact of Work Choices on workers and their families. A review conducted for the Victorian government on the impact of Work Choices highlighted in the inquiry into the bill the real impact the changes are having on workers and their families. The review ‘found that the wages share of national income was at a 35-year low, while the profit share was at an all-time high’. It ‘indicated that this was an extremely unusual occurrence in an economy experiencing low unemployment and labour market shortages’. It ‘also found that protected award conditions were being abolished and that the lowest paid employees were the most disadvantaged’. It found that workers in low-paying industries such as hospitality and retail have suffered wages declines, probably because of the withdrawal of overtime and penalty rates, and that women in particular have suffered under AWAs. The review found:

... WorkChoices, AWAs and, it appears, other non-union agreements have led to the loss of conditions of employment, particularly in areas like penalty rates, overtime rates and shift allowances. This has ... led to lower rates of pay than workers would otherwise have enjoyed, particularly by comparison with if they were employed under collective agreements.

It concluded:

Vulnerable groups, including women and workers in low wage industries, appear to have been particularly disadvantaged.

Only a year on and this is what Australian workers and their families have been forced to endure under the Howard government’s workplace relations changes. On Friday, 4 May, after a multitude of such evidence indicating that under Work Choices Australian workers are being stripped of their basic award conditions, the Prime Minister announced that the government would be introducing a so-called fairness test to apply to workplace agreements of all employees earning up to $75,000 per annum. The basic premise of this so-called fairness test, as I understand it, is that workers who are forced to give up any of their basic award conditions under the workplace agreement should receive fair compensation in return for that loss. To ensure that this compensation is in fact provided, each new workplace agreement for employees earning $75,000 or less will, as a consequence of this bill being passed, have to be lodged with the Office of the Employment Advocate—rebranded the Workplace Authority—and satisfy a so-called fairness test.

Based on its simplistic explanation the proposal sounds reasonable. However, one does not have to dig very far beneath the surface to discover that this bill is, once again, all about form and not substance. It is all about facilitating the illusion of fairness. There is nothing contained in this bill that will remove the imbalance caused by the Howard government’s industrial relations reforms and restore fairness in the Australian workplace.