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

Having given my colleagues the opportunity to make some remarks, I now deal with some of the so-called Work Choices amendments in a bit more detail. In my earlier remarks, I referred to my concerns and reservations about the redundancy provisions and the stand-down provisions. I think it is worth putting on the record the so-called frequency of payment provisions. The current fortnightly default frequency of payment provisions are to be replaced by a monthly default provision which can operate to the disadvantage of employees trying to balance their budgets. The provision in respect of the 38-hour week provides, on my reading, no remedy for the employee. The shift worker provisions give the minister the capacity to make regulations to extend those provisions. I think those provisions which deal with a number of amendments which the government had not previously announced or flagged are of concern. The provisions which amend the seven-day waiver rule I think put employees in a position where there is no requirement under the act for them to be provided with details of an AWA or the information sheet. The provisions where a wrong agreement is lodged are, by my reading, convoluted and run the risk of again falling into the drafting provisions and difficulties that we have seen previously. The public holiday substitution provisions extend, on my reading, the provisions where an employer can request work on a public holiday. The pre-reform agreements and standard provisions disturb the current arrangements where pre-reform agreements do not need to comply with the so-called fair pay and conditions standards. In a sense, the effective retrospective nature of those may well cause difficulty.

Having put those on the record, there are some general points which I think can be made to put these provisions in their context. Firstly, there is the general drafting and rushed nature of these provisions. It is a minor 36-page version of the original statute, which the government rushed through, driven by ideology and politics. Secondly, when you look at these measures in the context of the government’s now 1,800-odd pages of legislation and regulations, these matters do nothing to address the fundamental nature and framework of the government’s so-called Work Choices legislation, which is fundamental to Labor’s opposition of it. There is nothing in these measures which provides or improves remedies for unfair dismissal. There is nothing in these measures which provides for any decent or stronger power so far as an independent umpire is concerned. There is nothing in these provisions which expands in any meaningful way the government’s five minimum standards. There is nothing in these provisions which would seek to reinsert the previous no-disadvantage test. There is nothing in these provisions which prevents employees from being pushed onto unfair AWAs. In their context, these measures do nothing to address the great and grave injustices that are at the heart of the government’s measures.

When it comes to the independent contractor arrangements, whilst Labor supports in this place as it did in the Senate those provisions in respect of outworkers, again the changes to the Independent Contractors Bill do nothing to address the fundamental unfairness of that measure, nothing to prevent people from being pushed into sham independent contractor arrangements—where people who are in reality employees have to provide for tax and superannuation arrangements and are effectively pushed out on their own—and nothing to address the fundamental nature of dependent contractors. For those reasons and for the reasons outlined by my colleagues, I underline Labor’s opposition to the measures contained in the two messages from the Senate.

See this speech in context