Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The minister at the table is full of mealy-mouthed excuses, but he has not been above claiming that these laws are good for productivity. They are not, because productivity has gone backwards by 1.6 per cent. If the government had been proud of these laws then they would have been out each and every day in the last election campaign saying to Australians: ‘Vote for us because we’re going to give you this thing we call Work Choices. Vote for us because this is what Work Choices is going to do to you.’ But we all know that they were not doing that in the last election campaign. Indeed, the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations was confined to party headquarters and doing the daily spin from there. He would wander out every day and say, ‘Ooh, industrial relations is a big battleground in the election!’ Journalists would say to him, ‘If it’s a battleground, where’s the Liberal IR policy?’ He never gave an answer to that. If the government had been proud of these laws, they would have put them to the electoral test. They did not.

When it comes to industrial relations, the Prime Minister and his ideological laws are the past and Labor is the future. In industrial relations we will restore the balance and we will reclaim the middle ground. Australians believe that these laws have gone too far, that the pendulum has gone too far and it should come back to the middle. Balance should be restored. We should be reclaiming the centre ground in this debate and in a whole series of other debates in this nation—and we will.

Labor believes in a productive, fair and flexible industrial relations system that will put the balance back into Australian workplaces. We want higher wages and we want real productivity growth. That can only be achieved when employers and employees treat each other with respect, and that is what our industrial relations system will deliver. Yes, there will be flexibility. There will be flexibility upwards. There will be flexibility to balance work and family life. There will not be the flexibility downwards that this government says it is proud of but will not give you the details of. Yes, we will make sure that people can plan their lives with some security and some safety. We will make sure that there are common-law agreements that can help people make arrangements in that way if that is what they choose to do.

We will make sure there are sensible transitional arrangements for people who are on Australian workplace agreements and we will restore to the centre of the industrial relations system a sense of democracy. If the majority of workers in a workplace want to bargain collectively with their employer then they will be able to do so. What is wrong with that? If the majority of workers in a workplace all get together and say, ‘Hey, instead of going to see the boss individually, why don’t we all handle this together?’ they will be able to do so. That is something that is not achieved under these laws because they are fundamentally undemocratic and fundamentally ideological.

We will get the burden of red tape off the business community. The business community is complaining. Every time they turn round, these laws have been changed again. We have had laws which mean all employees, including managers and executives, have to fill in time sheets, and then we have had amendments to try and fix this, which created more headaches. We have had rules about leave accrual which meant employers had to give employees more annual leave when they worked overtime—something they had not had to do before. We have had amendments which tried to fix the rules about cashing in leave, and they have caused more confusion. We have had record-keeping obligations which were so onerous they were deferred and then deferred again. We will get the burden of this kind of red tape off the back of business so that they can do what they want to do, which is to go about doing business.

These laws are harsh, complex and not in the national interest. The laws we have will put working families first, they will drive up productivity and employment growth and they will get the burden of red tape off the back of business. Under Labor these laws will go—make absolutely no mistake about that—and they will be replaced by laws that work for working families, businesses and the nation. (Time expired)

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