Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When the Howard government came to office, it said its main objective was to make Australians feel relaxed and comfortable. If there is one thing that you can say about the Australian people in 2006, it is that they do not feel relaxed and comfortable any more. Mr Deputy Speaker, you could say the same thing about members opposite: they certainly do not look too relaxed and comfortable these days, especially during question time. The reason for their worries is that the government’s extreme industrial relations laws are beginning to bite, and they are beginning to realise that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations have sold them a pup. No matter how hard they try to dress up the extreme industrial relations laws by saying they are good for the country, it all looks very much like they are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

Just two months into the brave new world of these extreme industrial relations laws, the scoreboard does not look good for the government. We know from the figures dragged out of the government in Senate estimates that Australian workers are finding out day by day just what the brave new world of Work Choices means for them. We know that, in 100 per cent of all new Australian workplace agreements, at least one protected award condition has been excluded—that is, in every single AWA at least one protected condition has been excluded. We know that, in 16 per cent of AWAs, award standard conditions for that industry have been excluded. When it comes to specific conditions, we know that 64 per cent of AWAs remove leave loadings. So for someone on median earnings, that means about $600 a year will be lost. We know that 63 per cent of new AWAs remove penalty rates. As we saw with the case of the Spotlight employee Annette Harris, the effect of that was the loss of up to $90 a week. We now know that 52 per cent of new AWAs remove shift-work loading.

I cannot imagine that the workers who have signed on to those AWAs are all that happy about losing those conditions and, if the Spotlight case is anything to go by, all for the princely sum of just 2c an hour. Members opposite, like the member for Greenway, seem to think that the AWA bargaining process is an even-handed affair. She told the House in November last year:

The introduction of the AWA has allowed employers and employees to have a direct relationship with each other, giving credit to both their ability to express what they need and to work in cooperation in a way that is mutually beneficial.

Does the member for Greenway seriously believe that 100 per cent of workers who have signed an AWA since March have willingly given away at least one protected award condition? Does she seriously believe that 16 per cent gave away all award conditions? Does she seriously believe that 64 per cent willingly gave away their leave loading, that 63 per cent willingly gave away penalty rates and that 52 per cent willingly gave away shift-work loadings—and all that for 2c an hour? If the member for Greenway believes that, she must be living in cloud-cuckoo-land. What is really happening in workplaces across Australia is something very different as businesses set about tearing up awards and cutting the pay and conditions of employees. And how do we know that? Because that is what their legal and business advisers are telling them to do.

In March this year Anthony Longland, a Freehills partner, told a law finance conference in Sydney that employers with low entry barriers should strongly consider using the opportunities for restructuring their employment arrangements available under Work Choices or have their competitors beat them to it. He went on to say that start-ups in low entry barrier industries could use the new employer greenfields agreements to set up employment arrangements that have no penalty rates, no shift allowances and extremely limited hours provisions. Longland told the conference:

They might be able to get a significant advantage over you in terms of labour costs ... There is a real responsibility ... on current employers in that sector to guard against that by looking to the opportunities available under the Work Choices legislation.

That is the writing on the wall for employers. Expert advice is to cut penalty rates, abolish allowances and take Australia back into the dark ages of industrial relations. As for the protection of workers’ rights, Longland told the conference that protected conditions under Work Choices were really ‘a smoke and mirrors’ exercise. The provisions were not really protected, because they could be forgone if they were significantly overridden by the terms of the agreement, and that is exactly what we have seen in the Spotlight case. It is exactly the opposite of the assurance given by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations last November when he told the House:

Work Choices will protect penalty rates and shift loadings in awards when new workplace agreements are negotiated.

In fewer than two months we are seeing the early results go up on the scoreboard. If they are anything to go by we can expect to see a wholesale roll-back of award standard conditions in the months, not years, ahead—like building workers in Western Sydney, whom I have spoken to, who are facing the loss of rain days and rostered days off and facing cuts to their sick leave. But government members in Western Sydney—and I am glad to see the member for Lindsay in the chamber this evening—are blind to what is happening right under their noses. It is no wonder the member for Lindsay and the member for Macarthur are silent on this issue.

See this speech in context