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

You can neither believe nor trust what the government says on industrial relations. You can neither believe nor trust what the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, says on industrial relations, what the Treasurer, Mr Costello, says on industrial relations, and what the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations says on industrial relations. In question time today, we had another classic example. This is what the Prime Minister said to Alan Jones on radio 2GB on 4 August last year—and this quote was put to the Prime Minister in question time a couple of weeks ago, on 25 May from memory—before the legislation went through the House:

I mean some people have to work on public holidays.

…            …            …

… it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half.

…            …            …

I just want to make the general comment that those arrangements are going to continue.

The Prime Minister said:

… it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half.

That statement was put to the Prime Minister again today at question time, and it was put in the context of the Spotlight AWA—the 2c an hour AWA, where Mrs Harris was offered the princely sum of 2c an hour extra per hour for all her entitlements, penalty rates et cetera being knocked off. She lost 90 bucks a week. Two cents an hour for 90 bucks a week. When you isolated the public holiday pay loading, she got an extra 2c an hour for working on a public holiday, but lost $21.40. The Prime Minister walked away from that at question time, because he knows he disingenuously misled the Australian people on the Alan Jones program in August last year, but he cannot walk away from that quote. It is just another example of how this government can be neither trusted nor believed when it comes to industrial relations.

When we draw the adverse consequences of the government’s legislation to their attention, they do one of two things: they pretend they do not know about it, or they pretend they do not exist. But then they say: ‘Look, even if those terrible, shocking, adverse consequences are there, guess what? This is good for the economy.’ And then they say, because we’ve now committed ourselves to abolishing AWAs, ‘The heart and soul, the be-all and end-all, of what is good for the economy is the ongoing existence of AWAs.’ That is now their position—the ongoing existence of AWAs. I remember the last election being called. We heard nothing about these matters in the run-up to the last election. We only heard about these things when the government got all the power under the sun and returned to its Jobsback 1992 proposal, and returned to the old-fashioned obsession and ideology that John Howard has had since the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1996, when the government first came to office, it introduced AWAs, but the Democrats in the Senate required 230-odd amendments, including a no disadvantage test, which protected and secured penalty rates, overtime, leave loading, shift allowances and the like—the 20 allowable matters. That gave some protection to people’s rights and entitlements and conditions and living standards. And even before this government’s legislation came into effect on 27 March this year, even before then, what did we know? Based on the most recently available government stats, we know that the government’s be-all and end-all instrument of good economic management, AWAs, made up about 2.4 per cent of agreements in the workplace. The rule of thumb is that we had 20 per cent of people on awards, 40 per cent of people on collective or enterprise bargains, 30 per cent of people on individual common-law agreements—three million people—and about 2.4 per cent or 2.5 per cent on AWAs. Of the 10.1 million people in the workforce, there are three million on common-law agreements, four million on enterprise agreements, two million on awards and, in accordance with the most recent stats delivered by the government’s man in Senate estimates a couple of weeks ago, 538,000 on AWAs. This is the thing which is the be-all and end-all of our economic performance and our economic future!

Before we come to what the OEA had to say, in a presentation on 22 February, the government’s hired legal gun, Freehills—after the bill had gone through the parliament and after it had been enacted but before substantial features of it had been implemented—gave a snapshot of current agreement making:

Currently:

40 per cent of employees are on collective agreements

2.4 per cent are on AWAs

20 per cent are paid on awards

…       …            …

20 per cent to 25 per cent by individual arrangements ...

Average annual wage increases between June 2004-05:

In agreements generally=four per cent

Union collective agreements=4.3 per cent

Non-union collective agreements=3.5 per cent

AWAs=2.5 per cent

So the government’s own legal adviser—the government’s hired legal gun, which is paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over the years to help draft the government’s legislation on industrial relations—says that, if you are on a union collective agreement, from 2004-05 your average wage increase was 4.3 per cent and, if you were on an AWA, your average increase was 2.5 per cent. Looks like pretty good legal advice to me! It continues with an ‘Overview of effect of Work Choices’:

Potential—threats

Existing Industry Player:

Current Enterprise Agreement with:

Overtime

Shift penalties

Annual leave loadings

Based on:

Award

New Entrant:

AWA

Overtime has crosshairs through it; penalties have crosshairs through it and loadings have crosshairs through it. All gone. Freehills give legal advice under the Prime Minister’s so-called default position, ‘protected award conditions’:

Conditions protected but may be bargained:

Public holidays

Rest breaks

Incentive payments

Annual leave loadings

Allowances

Penalty rates

Shift/overtime loadings

A red box says:

Must be specifically addressed by Agreement.

On the next page there is legal advice on how to knock them over:

This agreement excludes the protected award conditions, as defined in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (as amended from time to time).

That is how you do it: a one-line throwaway. All those things that make the difference between Australian families keeping their heads above water and making ends meet have all been sold down the river in a one-line throwaway—under a Spotlight AWA, for the princely sum of 2c an hour. Guess what? The government’s hired legal gun says that under a collective agreement average annual wage increases were 4.3 per cent in 2004-05 and under an AWA they were 2.5 per cent. They are now saying that all the things that helped to sustain the 2.5 per cent for the AWAs—penalty rates, overtime, leave loading, you name it—are all gone. So a one-line throwaway, down the river for the princely sum of nothing if you want it to be to that effect in the contract.

These things were put to the Prime Minister during question time, and the truth is that he had no response. But it gets worse. That was before the government changed the legislation and knocked off that no disadvantage test. What did we find out from the Office of the Employment Advocate at Senate estimates hearings? Since the legislation came into effect, there were 538,120 AWAs in operation as at 31 March this year. Since 27 March, when the act came into effect, 6,263 AWAs were lodged. Of the AWAs sampled, guess what? Under the one-line throwaway—sold down the river—all penalty rates have gone, 100 per cent exclude at least one protected award condition, 64 per cent remove leave loadings, 63 per cent remove penalty rates, 52 per cent remove shift loadings, 41 per cent do not contain a gazetted public holiday, 16 per cent exclude all award conditions and 22 per cent do not provide for a pay increase over the life of the agreement. And the Prime Minister clutches a straw and says, ‘Well, that must mean that 78 per cent do.’

At question time today the Prime Minister disingenuously misled the House when he said that the quantum was there for all to see. Not true. If the Prime Minister wants to table the quantum in those AWAs, I invite him to so do in order that we can all see that the average increase in those AWAs is a princely sum of 2c an hour. So if the Prime Minister wants to assert that 78 per cent of those agreements have a pay increase, let him tip out the information and show that they are not the Spotlight AWA—2c an hour.

We have had other interesting examples from other jurisdictions where this has been utilised. The Leader of the Opposition drew attention in question time to some stats from Western Australia. It is interesting that, when the Gallop Labor government knocked over state based AWAs in Western Australia, the state Liberal Party and the business community in Western Australia said exactly the same things that we are hearing now. In the West Australian of 3 May 2003, they said it would take us backward, that the whole world would fall in, there would be a diminution of job opportunities and a return to the bad old days—all the things we are hearing now. Last time I looked, after 15 years of continuous economic growth and a resources boom to China, Western Australia had 10 per cent economic growth.

This notion that AWAs are the be-all and end-all of economic management is a complete nonsense. The government’s legislation is not good for the economy. It is bad for the economy because it is a straightforward shift of part of the economy from wages to profit. It rewards bad management and it does not require productivity. It is a straightforward slash on wages—a straightforward attack on wages. It is bad for our economy. The government tries to pretend that 5,338 AWAs are an economic management issue of the same realm as a half a trillion dollar foreign debt, 49 consecutive monthly trade deficits and an increase in the current account deficit of six per cent. It is a nonsense and you will find that out at the next poll. (Time expired)

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