Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Intentionally or otherwise, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations came clean today and it is no longer the case that the government can take credit for any causal link between Work Choices legislation and jobs growth. In answer to a question during question time today, the minister said:

I say this to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: governments do not create jobs; business creates jobs.

After that answer, the member for Blair asked this dorothy dixer of the minister:

Would the minister inform the House how a flexible workplace relations system contributes to jobs growth and economic prosperity?

The minister had already answered that question in his answer to the earlier question by saying:

... governments do not create jobs; business creates jobs.

Let us not hear any longer from the government or from the minister that there is some causal link between Work Choices legislation and jobs growth. As we know, we are in a mining boom and as a result there is jobs growth—and Labor are happy about that. Labor are happy to see jobs, but we are not happy to see workers treated unfairly. We think workers deserve to be treated fairly in their workplaces. There is an epic battle going on about what sort of country Australia will be in the future—whether Australia will be economically strong, socially cohesive and nationally secure, and whether we will continue to embrace the ‘fair go’ ethos; or whether, on the other hand, because of the deeds and the words of this Prime Minister and his government, we will sacrifice our long-held virtues of fairness and decency.

During the last election campaign, the Prime Minister announced, on 28 September, his industrial relations policies. In doing so, there were no references by him to the abolition of the role of the independent umpire, the abolition of the no disadvantage test and the abolition of employment protection for four million employees. But after the election the Prime Minister embarked upon his unannounced agenda to introduce an extreme and unfair set of laws regulating employment conditions for the Australian workforce. In doing so, the Prime Minister showed what little regard he had for the electorate. It was the action of an arrogant government. It was the action of a government out of touch and out of puff. It was a lazy and ultimately wrongheaded approach to improving Australia’s productivity and to enhancing Australia’s quality of life.

Labor has always stood for economic growth, national security and investing in our future. Labor also considers fairness, including fairness at work, to be a cornerstone of our society. But through the enactment of Work Choices, the Howard government has shown signs of arrogance and a cold-hearted willingness to throw fairness out the back door. The Prime Minister may have changed ministers in this area, the area of industrial relations, but the policy is unaltered. In other words, Hockey might be the jockey but it is still the same old horse.

Let us look at the horse’s track record. The first signs of the erosion of wages and conditions of employment came in the form of statistics provided at estimates. In May 2006 Labor uncovered information in Senate estimates that, amongst other damning news, revealed that 100 per cent of AWAs removed at least one award condition and 16 per cent removed all award conditions. What an indictment of these extreme and unfair laws! Of course the government did not want the facts disclosed, so they effectively removed the information. We are no longer being provided with the information that we need to openly debate this particular matter. As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition indicated, there was a time when the government provided this information, which we then elicited through Senate estimates. But the government has closed down this transparent opening by which we were able to look at the way in which the new industrial instruments were being formed and by which we would have been able to make proper comparisons since the enactment of Work Choices.

Labor’s IR task force travelled to 20 electorates last year and found similar results. Moreover, Labor found disquiet amongst small businesses over the complexity and prescription of Work Choices. When we met in Rockhampton, Darwin, Townsville, Gladstone, Tweed Heads, Launceston and other places, we found businesses concerned about the level of red tape. Yesterday Professor Peetz, who has been much maligned today, reaffirmed the findings of the Senate estimates of last year in terms of the way in which workers—in particular, women and the low paid—are hit by this legislation.

The key conclusions drawn by that research include that women’s pay has dropped dramatically under the new laws, with women’s real average earnings in the private sector falling by two per cent, and that approximately 20,000 workers are losing award coverage each month and are being placed under AWAs or other industrial instruments stripping overtime, penalty rates and rest breaks. The research showed that the rate at which overtime is being removed by AWAs has doubled since Work Choices was enacted, with 82 per cent of Australian workplace agreements either reducing or abolishing overtime pay, 63 per cent of AWAs abolishing or reducing penalty rates, 64 per cent axing annual leave loadings, 69 per cent abolishing or removing rest breaks, 73 per cent reducing or abolishing public holiday payments and more than half abolishing shiftwork loadings. The research also put paid to the lie that there are one million workers on AWAs. That is not true. There have been one million AWAs implemented over the period since 1996; however, 400,000 people, or less than four per cent of the Australian workforce, are currently on Australian workplace agreements.

As has already been said, the government only intervenes in matters which are in the public eye or are unhelpful to supporting the falsely asserted proposition that Work Choices helps ordinary working families. We saw this during the Cowra meatworks dispute when the company chose to sack their workers. The government intervened but it did not fix the problem. It tried to get enough publicity to suggest that somehow the system in place was going to mitigate or indeed rectify the problems that Labor uncovered in that particular matter. We saw the government move into damage control when a Spotlight store cut the ordinary wages of its staff—again no solution to that problem but only a flurry by the government to attempt to show concern to the electorate.

Now we have the new minister—the new jockey, if you like—creating the appearance of concern over the continued maltreatment of low-paid workers by Tristar. Tristar, for its part, puts up the facade of pretending that there is productive work available. How very shameful for a company to treat their workers the way in which Tristar has chosen to treat its workers. Then there is the fact that the government, wanting to exhibit some level of concern, brings in the workforce and brings in the company and then the minister makes sure he is on television big-noting himself. He gets out there, being seen to be intervening in a particular matter where workers are actually vulnerable and suffering. But what has happened at Tristar since that intervention? Nothing—nothing for those workers. So what sorts of laws do we have in this place? Indeed, what sort of government do we have when a minister can publicly intervene in a particular matter and resolve nothing? That is the case with Tristar.

We on this side of the House always concern ourselves with both employers’ and workers’ interests. Labor believes that we are better off by working together as a nation or, for that matter, in the workplace. Labor wants to work cooperatively to produce successful outcomes. We do not support throwing fairness out the back door. That is why Labor will restore the balance if the electorate places its trust in us. Labor will repeal the Work Choices legislation. Labor will ensure that an independent umpire in the workplace matters. Labor will abolish AWAs. Individual contracts that fall below accepted standards will be unfair. The ‘take it or leave it’ offers of substantially inferior agreements compared to those enjoyed by existing employees at a workplace are unconscionable and will not be tolerated. Labor, if elected, will reintroduce a no disadvantage test. Industrial relations, or workplace relations—call it what you will—is exactly that: it is about how to regulate relations between employers and employees and between employees and between employers. Labor looks to unite the nation and encourage workplace cooperation, whereas this government seeks to pit worker against worker. Through Work Choices it encourages bad employers to behave badly and it forces good employers to look to do the same. Enough of division and conflict, enough of the callous disregard for hardworking Australians; it is time to restore some balance in our country’s workplaces, and it is time for a Rudd Labor government.

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