Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Workplace Relations Regulations 2006, as contained in Select Legislative Instrument 2006 No 52. and made under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 , be disallowed.

I have moved that these regulations be disallowed because the source of authority for these regulations is the font of public policy evil. That is the government’s extreme, unfair industrial relations changes reflected by the Work Choices legislation, which this parliament adopted against our opposition at the end of 2005. As we have made consistently clear, on coming to office Labor will tear up that legislation and we will also tear up the regulations made under that legislation.

This is not the first occasion that I have sought to have the House consider these regulations. On 29 March I moved that standing orders be suspended so that the House could consider these matters. I moved that the matter be debated forthwith so that the House could:

(a)

respond to the widespread community concern about the government’s industrial relations changes by debating and voting to disallow regulations to the legislation;

(b)

record the House’s contempt for the Government’s extreme changes, particularly the removal of unfair dismissal rights which sees Australian employees at risk of being sacked, sacked unfairly for no reason or any reason;

(c)

record the House’s contempt for the Government’s attack on the wages, conditions and entitlements of Australian employees without benefit to Australia’s economic future; and

(d)

show by tearing up the regulations the House’s intention to tear up the Government’s unfair, unAustralian legislation.

All of those sentiments remain true today. Even before we go to some of the content of the regulations, which I will do in due course, the essential element of these regulations is that they have as the source of their authority the government’s extreme and unfair legislation. This House should tear up that legislation and, as a consequence, tear up these regulations.

There is an important starting point in this debate. The government now says that these changes are so essential to our way of life, so essential to our economy and so essential to our workplace arrangements. There is only one problem: we heard nothing about these measures at all in the run-up to the last election. I have a very distinct recollection of the last election being fought on the economy; we heard nothing about these measures. On the contrary, at the launch of the Liberal Party’s industrial relations policy in Brisbane, the Prime Minister was asked whether he was proposing to pursue what he described as a single national system. He said no. He was also asked whether he was proposing to pursue a reduction in allowable matters and he said no. So not only was there no mention of these measures but the Prime Minister on two issues affirmed the contrary. We heard nothing about these measures in the run-up to the last election, but we will hear plenty about them in the run-up to the next.

Why should this House tear up this legislation and these regulations? There are three essential points in my view. Firstly, these regulations and this legislation are a massive attack on the living standards of Australians. Secondly, they are a massive attack on our way of life and on characteristics, values and virtues that we as a nation have built up over 100 years. Thirdly, they are a massive attack on the capacity of the trade union movement to take part in the modern social and economic affairs of Australian society.

Let me deal with each of these in turn. Why are these regulations and this legislation a massive attack on living standards? They are a massive attack on living standards in two areas—firstly, in attacking the minimum wage and, secondly, in attacking entitlements and conditions. We know that, if over its 10 years in office the government’s submissions to the Industrial Relations Commission had been agreed to, the minimum wage would currently be $50 a week or $2,600 a year worse off. That is the sum total of the government’s submissions to the Industrial Relations Commission. We also know, for example, that if the submissions from ACCI ‘the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’ had been agreed to by the Industrial Relations Commission the minimum wage would currently be $95 a week or $4,940 a year worse off. That reflects the government’s objective. The government’s objective in the changes it has made to the minimum wage is to reduce the minimum wage in real terms. That is what it wants to do—reduce the minimum wage in real terms. It wants to shift part of the economy from the wages section of the economy to the profit section of the economy, to shift part of a total factor income section of the economy from wages to profits.

The government wants to attack the living standards of Australian workers and working families, firstly, through an attack upon the minimum wage and, secondly, through an attack upon conditions and entitlements, by doing precisely what the Prime Minister said he would not do—that is, by reducing the number of allowable matters and removing the no disadvantage test, by reducing conditions and entitlements to the government’s so-called five minimum standards and by leaving swinging and to be torn away without any compensation things like overtime, penalty rates and leave loadings. These are things that many Australians depend upon to make ends meet and to pay their mortgages.

So far as the minimum wage is concerned, it is not just me or Labor that is asserting that objective. The President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Justice Giudice, has said the government’s legislation leaves open the prospect of a fall in the minimum wage in real terms. The chairman of the ‘low pay commission’, Professor Harper, has reflected that attitude as well. I was interested to hear the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, who is at the table, complaining the other day about the fact that some of the state commissions are now hearing minimum wage cases at the state level. He asserted that what the New South Wales commission is doing is somehow not fair—as if the government were somehow worried about fairness when it comes to the minimum wage. What do we know about the changes the government has made to the legislative requirements that are now on the low pay commission? The government has removed the requirement in the old act that the minimum wage be fair and that it have reference to prevailing economic standards and inflation. No longer does the minimum wage have to be fair and no longer are we to be concerned about whether the value of the minimum wage is reduced in real terms. That is the primary attack on living standards.

But the attack is also met with an attack on job security by the government’s removal of unfair dismissal rights and pushing people onto individual contracts, AWAs, without any of the underpinnings of the previously existing no disadvantage test and allowable matters. What do we know about the government’s changes to unfair dismissal? We know the government proposes that, if you are employed by a company with 100 or fewer employees, you have no unfair dismissal rights at all. You can be sacked for any reason or no reason. You can be sacked unfairly for no reason or any reason and not have a remedy. We also know—because we have seen it come into effect with the Cowra abattoir—the so-called operational reasons: if you are a company with more than 100 employees, you can determine for operational reasons that a person has to go, and that person loses his or her unfair dismissal rights. So the unfair dismissal rights of nearly four million Australian employees go out the window. For the remaining Australian employees it depends upon an interpretation of the very widely drafted ‘operational requirements’ provisions. That is the attack upon wages, conditions and living standards.

What about the attack on our way of life? We have always prided ourselves on being a society which is interested in safety nets, which is interested in minimum standards and which is interested in making sure that, whilst people have opportunity, there is a certain basement or floor beneath which people will not be allowed to fall. We have reflected that in the history of our industrial relations and workplace legislation by having sensible minimum standards, sensible safety nets and the operation of a strong and independent umpire. What do we see the government doing across the board with these measures? Gutting the effectiveness of the independent umpire—the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The government could not get its view up before the commission on the minimum wage. So not being able to get through the front door what it could not persuade the commission of, it now goes through the back door. It trumps up the low pay commission to do that job, depriving the independent umpire of its wage-setting—and, effectively, its dispute-settling—powers and arrangements.

Secondly, by reducing the minimum standards, taking away the no disadvantage test and taking away the allowable matters, the government is removing from protection the things that people have come to rely upon—penalty rates, overtime, leave loading and the like. There is only one consequence when you take away the umpire, remove minimum standards and take away the safety net: Australia will end up with the equivalent of America’s ‘working poor’. People will not be able to make ends meet with the wages they get through employment. They will be dependent, as many American employees are, on what they find in the tipping bowl at the end of each day. The great social and economic danger is that we will end up with an American-style working poor and our way of life will change. We will change from a society that is interested in community standards, safety nets and making sure people do not fall through the cracks into a dog-eat-dog society.

The third area where you find the basis of the public policy evil of these measures is the attack upon the trade union movement. There is a fundamental difference between Labor’s attitude to the trade union movement and the attitude of the government. The government’s starting point, the government’s political and philosophical policy position, is that there is no role for the trade union movement in the social and economic affairs of modern Australian society. That is not our view; we reject that view. I need only give two examples. I recall the Sunday morning in October last year on which the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and the Prime Minister called together all the business organisations and industry representatives for a briefing on what might be contained in the government’s Work Choices legislation. There was not one person in that room who had lifted a finger to help the asbestosis and mesothelioma victims of James Hardie. When the asbestosis and mesothelioma victims of James Hardie needed some assistance, who came to their assistance? The organised trade union movement, through the ACTU and its constituent unions. The second example, Beaconsfield, is a shining example of how trade union activity can assure a sensible approach to occupational health and safety. Despite these two examples, the government takes the view that there is no role for the union movement to play in the social and economic affairs of Australian society. We reject that.

The regulations in particular have a range of measures which seek to exclude what to date has been known as common and respected union activity. When you move to the regulations, there are a couple of points that are worthy of making. Firstly is the reference in the regulations to the so-called prohibited content. Prohibited content is where it is not open to an individual or a union to suggest in either an individual agreement or a collective agreement that certain matters can be subject to that agreement. One matter is unfair dismissal. If an employer and an employee decide that an employee ought to have some appropriate unfair dismissal rights, the government rules that out—that is prohibited content.

In accordance with the legislation, if you seek to include in an agreement prohibited content, an individual can be up for a fine of $6,600 and a union can be up for a fine of $33,000. So even if an individual employer and an individual employee determine that it is appropriate for an employee to have unfair dismissal rights, that is prohibited content so far as an agreement is concerned. We on this side always thought that the government’s attitude was that people should be free to make choices, that people should be able to agree about whatever they want to agree about; but, under this legislation and these regulations, people can only agree to what the minister regards as being politically or philosophically correct.

The second area of interest in the prohibited content is the prohibition of any agreement referring to trade union training. This has been the subject of conversation with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, who is seated at the table, during question time this week and in earlier weeks. There is one issue that the minister refuses to seize in any way whatsoever and that he walks a million miles away from: he refuses to acknowledge that prohibited content in his regulation includes the granting of leave for trade union training, including occupational health and safety training. That is the issue the minister walks a million miles away from. When you actually look at the regulations, what do you find? You find this extraordinary effort by the government, by the Prime Minister and the minister to ensure that nothing can be contained in an agreement unless they think it is politically or philosophically kosher, and that is best reflected by the unfair dismissal arrangements and the training issue that I have referred to being made prohibited content.

The other point that needs to be made about the regulations and the legislation is its extraordinary complexity, evident in the volumes of legislation I have here. I have only bothered to bring down with me the act as amended and the regulations. I have not even bothered to bring down the volumes of explanatory memoranda for the legislation or the supplementary explanatory material for the regulations. Is this a single, simple system? It is massive complexity. And how much time did the government give its so-called friends in business, particularly small business, and industry to try and come to grips with this?

The government proclaimed the legislation effective for 27 March. The regulations were published on the website in the dark of night on the weekend of 18 and 19 March. That was a week. Thanks very much! So we have here miles and miles of complex legislation—a jurisdictional and regulatory dog’s breakfast. It is not just me who is saying that. We remember the No. 3 man in the government—the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Minchin—going off to his soul mates at the HR Nicholls Society, the society that the Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister drew up the documentation for and was one of the founding members of. When Senator Minchin turned up to the HR Nicholls Society, he said two things: ‘We apologise for not going as far as we would want to, but we do have to take note of community concerns. But rest assured, be reliably assured, that when we win the next election we will have a third wave.’ The government, not having gone to the last election telling the Australian community that it had this in mind—on the contrary, saying precisely the opposite—now has the secret plan that, should it get elected at the next election, we will have the third wave and truly satisfy the government’s friends at the HR Nicholls Society.

I was interested to hear a representative of the HR Nicholls Society make a point on the issue of complexity and regulatory burden. Far from taking the view that the government’s legislation and regulations were somehow an attempt at deregulation, he said that it was massive regulation and described it as a ‘Soviet style command control state’. He did so not just because of the reason that I have outlined but also because of the extraordinary reporting provisions and requirements that the minister has inserted into the legislation and regulations concerning the Office of the Employment Advocate and the Industrial Relations Commission.

So what do we have in this legislation and regulation? And why should the House disallow these regulations and set the scene for the tearing up of this legislation? It should do so because there is a massive attack on the living standards of Australian working families, a massive attack on the living standards of Australian employees, a massive attack on the characteristics and values and virtues that Australians have held dear for over 100 years and a massive attack on the legitimate activities of the trade union movement to play a role in the modern social and economic affairs of Australian society. It is not as if it were even done competently. It is a jurisdictional and regulatory dog’s breakfast. It is massively complex and places onerous burden on business, particularly small business. We have seen since the legislation came into effect on 27 March any number of examples of how these measures are working to massively disadvantage Australian families. If it is not unfair dismissals, it is shoving people onto AWAs of inferior standards. And for what—to achieve any so-called economic effect?

One interesting point about the budget was that the Prime Minister, at the time the legislation went through the House, made the assertion that the mere adoption of these proposals would see employment growth in our economy. What do we find in the Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister’s budget papers? We find in the out years an indication that employment growth will fall. So there is no economic benefit. It is a massive attack on living standards, it is a massive attack on the Australian way of life and it is a massive attack on the trade union movement. As a consequence, this House should disallow these regulations and, in due course, under a Labor government, rip up this legislation.

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