Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We did leave it to the Australian people, Senator Bernardi, and the Australian people spoke. The workplace relations amendment bill would amend the principal act, the Workplace Relations Act 1996, to make a number of changes to the framework for workplace agreements and to enable the process of award modernisation to commence. The bill begins the implementation process and is the first step of a larger industrial relations agenda, which will involve further legislation. Again, I think we need to keep that in mind. If Senator Fisher actually understood the purpose of a transition bill, she would not be raising all sorts of issues that are not actually included in the transitional bill and be leaving those questions open. Many of the issues about the new industrial relations framework that is going to set this country up for the next two decades at a minimum will be contained in the substantive bill that will hopefully be before this parliament in the second half of the year.

It was actually the opposition that referred this bill for the Senate inquiry before the government had the opportunity to do it. The main reason they did that was that they wanted to specifically put their mark or stamp on the terms of reference. Within the opposition’s terms of reference there is an implication that the opposition persist in regarding industrial relations on the basis of an understanding of economic growth which completely overlooks the relationship between productivity and fairness. It is possible to achieve both, and this transition bill sets up the process for us to achieve both. You do not have to have fairness excluded, as Work Choices did, to achieve productivity outcomes. This bill and the substantive bill to come later in the year will be the productivity drivers for this economy. You can do it with fairness, and this legislation will ensure that fairness is enshrined.

An exploited workforce is not a productive workforce, and yet the insistence of the former government in regarding industrial relations solely for the purpose of driving down wages to increase productivity was ultimately damaging to economic progress. It also resulted in the most complex and highly regulated industrial system of any OECD country. When Senator Fisher gets up and says the transition bill and the substantive bill that is to come are not going to simplify workplace relations in this country, what is that compared to? The coalition government put in place the most regulated, cumbersome and complex industrial relations system of any OECD country. We, the government senators who did the report, regard the bill as a measure which takes the regulatory burden from both employers and employees and sets up a new system for agreement-making arrangements to drive productivity. That is what we are doing, and we are determined to see that through in a fair way.

When I was thinking about my contribution to the debate on this bill, I thought about how the coalition senators found it very difficult during the inquiry to give up on AWAs. Given the flip-flop-flapping around—the Leader of the Opposition says one thing; the shadow industrial relations minister says another thing; one minute Work Choices is dead and then it is dead, less some other things—I thought it might be difficult to get the opposition senators, the previous government senators, to tell us what they really believe. But I did not have to wait very long; it is here in this debate. Senator Watson started off by saying there is nothing inherently wrong with AWAs; they allow for flexibility in the workplace. The conclusion to the coalition senators’ report says:

However, the bill reflects the regressive policy of the government in attempting to abolishing individual statutory agreements. This is a step too far ...

Abolishing individual statutory agreements is a step too far. In case anyone is confused, you will see the language change from the coalition. They no longer talk about AWAs. They do not mention AWAs anymore; AWAs are bad. They talk about ‘individual statutory agreements’, but that is exactly the same thing. No-one should be conned by the change in terminology from the opposition. Why don’t you be honest and call them AWAs? You named them, you are stuck with them and, if you want to defend them, why don’t you actually be honest and say that is what you are going to defend?

Senator Boyce told us that this bill will end AWAs and that that will be a ‘sad day for Australians workers’. I have news for Senator Boyce: it ain’t a sad day for Australian workers at all. Maybe Senator Boyce and some of the other senators were listening too closely to Senator Kemp’s speech about the ‘golden years of the Howard-Costello government’. Something has happened between then and now; that is why you are on that side of the chamber. The quicker you come to that realisation and abandon that policy, the better off you will be.

At least, to give the opposition senators credit, they are going to hang on to AWAs and they are going to say so. I am happy to help them publicise that position. I think Senator Boyce went on to say that ‘killing’ AWAs is an ‘empty headed’ aim and that AWAs are ‘much needed’ in our system. She said she was ‘bitterly disappointed’ with the end of AWAs and then went on to tell us there is nothing unfair with the use of individual statutory agreements, which is AWAs. That is in direct contravention of all the evidence that was presented to the committee. No-one said that they were fair. All the individual submissions that came to us said that they were absolutely unfair.

Senator Fisher said the bill is flawed in its policy intent because it removes AWAs. She went on with a very interesting contribution and she said that ‘all these people are saying you could be worse off’. I say to Senator Fisher: if she wants to take evidence given on Senate committees out of context—pull out a sentence here and pull out a sentence there—and rely on that as the bulk of her argument before the Senate, she will not last very long in this place. It was very disingenuous to use some of that evidence completely out of context, picking individual sentences and putting words in people’s mouths. I do not mind when people do it to other senators, and she has done it to me as well, but I suggest that—