Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Ronaldson, I profusely apologise. I think it was because I was watching a lot of the former Senator Richardson last night. So I think you could understand and forgive me for that indiscretion. But let's get back to the sheep shearer from Inverell.

As I said, I am one of the few in this place who have actually served an apprenticeship. I was a union organiser, up to the nation secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union. In that time, I went through the whole process of helping to move Australian industry from the old time-served approach that I worked under to a competency based standard where if you could demonstrate your competencies you could access payment for your skills. I do not want people to have to go to back to what I had to do, which was serve 4½ years as an apprentice—and when I started off, my apprenticeship was five years, but it went to 4½ years during my apprenticeship. After four years, I was doing the work that tradesmen were doing in the place that I was serving my time but being paid a fifth-year apprentice's rate of pay. But I had the competencies; I had the skills. I had been there for four years. What Senator Williams is trying to do with this bill—and I am not sure that this is all he is trying to do—is say to people, 'If you've got the skills, you shouldn't be paid for them.' As a strong trade unionist, I believe that if you have the skills and the ability and the qualifications you should be paid for them.

What is going on here—and you heard Senator Williams start off—is not about skills and training. Rather, it is a pretty blatant attack on the government. I am okay about attacks on the government. I think that I can look after myself in this place and I will continue to do that.

Senator Cash interjecting—

So Senator Cash is now an expert on the maritime industry? Senator Cash, you should take one of those pills. Then you might feel a bit better. You are always a bit agitated when you are in here. You should really get that anger stuff under control.

What we need to do here is look at the facts. We have a National Party member supporting a small union. It is a good union; I do not have a problem with that union—it is trying to safeguard what it sees as an issue for its members. I think that it is wrong in this issue, because we should move to competency based standards. It is what is happening around the rest of the world and all over Australia. I will tell you, Senator Williams, that you know as well as I do that, if you support the principle of this bill and that is coalition policy, then what you will be doing as a coalition—on the basis of a lack of understanding about how competency based standards work—is threatening the capacity of this country to train young Australians for the jobs of the future. And you nodded, Senator Williams, so you agree. We find out a little about why you move this bill.

What would happen if this passed would be more 457 visas. Your bill would mean that there would be little or no flexibility in the training system in the maritime area. If there was any technological change—and technological change is a feature of industries including the maritime industry—then we would have to come to parliament and get an act of parliament passed to allow the training system to reflect the technological change that has taken place in the industry. How dumb is that? How old-fashioned is that? Why would the coalition be supporting that type of approach? It just does not make sense. If this bill went through, one of the other implications would be that every engineer in the country working in the maritime sector would have to be retrained. They would have to have their certificates assured. That would mean a huge a cost to the industry and could bring the industry to a halt. What is this about?

Normally, if a bill is to be brought to the Senate, we have a process in which there is some discussion about the bill so that we can work out the rules of engagement, if you like, learn what the bill is about, come to understand where the issues are and then engage on those issues. This has not been done in that way. This bill has been brought in here without any consultation or discussion and put on the table by the coalition. It is a bill that is not in the interests of individual engineers or workers in the industry or the industry generally. And it is a bill that is not in the national interest. What is going on? I have never seen a bill come here that would have such bad effects on the productive performance and safety of an industry and on the capacity for workers in the industry to work their way up in that industry.

This bill is about a blockage on workers progressing through and increasing their skills. I have been there as a fitter. I have seen engineers trying to block fitters from getting access to skills and access to wider work on the job. Anyway, I have always thought that an engineer is simply a fitter with a huge ego. I have worked with them, Senator Williams. The people who do the work on the job are the fitters. The engineers ponce around there from time to time while the fitters get out and do the job. I am biased on that, because I am a fitter.

Anyway, I want to get back to this issue about safety, because I will not come in here and be accused of not dealing with the issue of safety. This government is a government that has actually taken safety seriously. We have consulted on every aspect of safety with industry and with unions—something those on the other side of the chamber have never done. You hear them—and I will not be lectured by the coalition on safety—and they have suddenly discovered asbestos, now that there is an issue with Telstra. They have suddenly discovered that asbestos is a problem. Yet when I was national secretary of the AMWU we were trying to get asbestos banned for years and the coalition would not ban asbestos. It was one of the worst killers of working people in this country, inflicting people with horrible deadly diseases, and they would not ban it. When I was the national secretary of the union, the coalition would not call a ban on asbestos. They wanted consultation after consultation after consultation. So do not come in here, Senator Williams, lecturing me or the government on the issue of safety. Look back at the record of the coalition on safety.

I do not know what is going on here, but obviously somehow or other you got AIMPE's speakers notes on this bill. And are you have faithfully and very competently read those speakers notes to the chamber. So, when you ring AIMPE or they ring you, you will get the tick. But I do not accept the proposition that you are putting up about being a member of the MUA—and I think this is what it is all about. Senator Williams, the MUA are here to stay; just get that through your head. The MUA are here. They represent workers in the maritime industry and do a great job representing workers in the maritime industry. We know the coalition despises the MUA because they look after workers. We know the coalition put the dogs on the docks. We know the coalition put the security guards, with their headgear on, on the docks and threw workers off the job. That is your concern for the maritime industry—nothing but a blatant attack on working people in this country. So don't come in here saying you are concerned about safety standards in the maritime industry, that you are concerned about workers having an opportunity to actually gain a trade or have time-served standards. Time-served standards are a thing of the past—like the National Party, which is a bigger thing of the past in its own right.

Anyway, you have to understand what you are talking about, Senator Williams. I spent years as the national secretary of the AMWU, working through competency based standards for workers in the manufacturing industry. That has been a boon to individual workers and to the industry. It was the right thing to do, and we must, in my view, ensure that the national standards that are being put in place are the correct standards, that there is proper overview of those standards and that the standards meet the needs of workers and industry to have a productive and effective industry with basic skills and to have high skills available to all workers. When I think about what the issue is, it is that you do not like the MUA, so we should not spend any time on these issues. An MUA member who is a cook on an oil rig getting proper skills to make sure the oil rig does not close down because the cook has poisoned the crew—don't do that, that's not on! The cook is MUA, so don't let the cook get on with getting some classification skills or some competency standards! There are other workers at oil rigs and on ships in this country, and they do have the capacity, in my view—and should have the capacity, if they have picked up skills over the years—to have those skills recognised. It is called RPL, recognition of prior learning, which is recognised all over in competency based standards. What this bill would do is stop ordinary Australians getting access to those skills so that jobs could be performed. It is saying: put skilled jobs in the maritime industry on the shortage-of-skills list and let's bring in more 457 workers from overseas.

I think that is what is really at the bottom of this; I think that is what it is. It is about trying to restrict the skills in this country so that we need to bring more workers in from overseas. Well, I am not xenophobic. Why would I be xenophobic? I have been lucky enough to come here from Scotland. In case anyone didn't recognise it, I do not quite have a full Aussie accent. I am getting there—fair dinkum, I am. But this is about the coalition's position. This is about what they want. They want 457 workers. They say they want the skilled migration system in this country to be based on 457 workers. So what do you do? You get some 457 worker, you bring them in and the boss says, 'If you play up, join the union or demand more than I'm prepared to give you, then you're on the next boat or the next plane out of here.' That is what this mob wants. And this bill will reinforce it, because it will restrict the achievement of skills of workers in the industry, and we should oppose it—and we are opposing it.

So Senator Williams, I do not think the Sydney to Inverell canal is going to be built very quickly. If we were ever unlucky enough to have a coalition government in this place, maybe you would muscle up on Mr Abbott and say, 'We've got to build the Sydney to Inverell canal, because I want you to set me up as the guru for training for the maritime industry! I'm only a broken down shearer, but I want to be the guru on maritime industry training!' Mate, you hadn't seen a ship until you were 24 years old. Give us a break! And that is when you went for a trip on the ferry on Sydney Harbour, no doubt wearing a hat with the corks on it. I saw that photo of you on your first trip on Sydney Harbour—a 24-year-old, cow cocky sheep shearer, but not a maritime engineer. He is a good bloke, 'Wacka', but he is a bit wacko on some things, especially this! Mate, you should stick to your knitting. You just do not understand it. (Time expired)