Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will address my remarks to the minister, and they follow on from what the member for Prospect raised. I was not here for the shadow minister’s comments, but there is clearly some disquiet about the way in which the government has sought to prohibit enforceable agreement clauses that would provide trade union training which would also include health and safety training. I have heard the minister, at least in question time, fantasise about the fact that there had been no change to the effects of health and safety laws and indicate, as the member for Prospect indicated, that it was a state government matter. But any independent observer would conclude that removing from industrial instruments that are regulated by the Commonwealth an enforceable provision for trade union training will reduce the quality, standard and amount of health and safety training provided in the workplace. The reality is that overwhelmingly health and safety training in workplaces is undertaken either by unions and employers working together or indeed by unions on their own having union training officers provide training for health and safety delegates or indeed employees.

Most people would agree—those who do not have the ideological blindness and enmity towards unions that this government seems to have—that, with respect to health and safety training, the last thing you want to do is place your hatred of unions above the safety of Australian workers. As a result of the decision by the Commonwealth to place its enmity towards employee organisations that are registered under the Workplace Relations Act above the safety of ordinary Australian workers in their workplaces, I ask the minister to give a guarantee that no-one will be less safe as a result of the Work Choices legislation that was introduced into this House and that Australian workers will not be injured or killed as a result of removing the enforceable clauses of agreements that would allow for health and safety training to be provided by trade unions.

It is not just an employer prerogative, Minister; it is actually the right of employees, the right of unions, to negotiate agreements to provide health and safety training under federal instruments. If he is not able to give that guarantee then clearly the minister has blood on his hands, just as the government have blood on their hands because they are willing to put their hatred of unions above the health and safety concerns and interests of Australian working people. He, along with the Prime Minister and the government, will rue the day that he made that decision.

Before I sit down—and I ask the minister to respond to this—I ask whether his department has any recent figures on termination of employment and whether there has been a net growth in unfair terminations or dismissals. Clearly, the data that could be collected would allow the department to determine whether an employee was suggesting that he or she had been dismissed unlawfully, but I ask the minister to respond as to whether there is any information about increases in unfair dismissals as a result of the legislation. Certainly, we are hearing more and more examples of people being unfairly dismissed. By allowing an extra four million or more people to be in workplaces without any recourse whatsoever for being unfairly dismissed—and I ask the minister to respond to this specifically—given that we have the most casualised workforce amongst all OECD countries, with about 25 per cent of the workforce casualised, isn’t it the case that the minister’s legislation has doubled the proportion of the workforce in this country to be placed under what would be determined precarious employment? Hasn’t he effectively doubled the number of people precariously employed in this country? Clearly, by removing unfair dismissal laws, he has done so.

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