Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this matter of extreme public importance today. The crux of this debate is the fundamental question of whether efforts to facilitate maximum productivity and competitiveness in Australian business are best served by throwing the notion of a ‘fair go’ out the back door. On this side of the House we believe that a fair go, as an enduring principle of the Australian Labor Party, is fundamental to being Australian and, similarly, that it is fundamental to a productive and competitive economy. Sadly, in my electorate of Adelaide I have witnessed first-hand how the Howard government’s extreme laws have tipped the balance and gone too far. This can be seen on at least two levels affecting Australians: firstly, on a micro level, by disintegrating the potential to maintain a realistic balance between work and family; and, secondly, at a macro level, by adding burdensome requirements to businesses which can affect productivity and increase inefficient regulatory restrictions.

Let me first look at the impact on Australian families. The result of the government’s deregulation of working hours has resulted in it becoming even more difficult for families to find an adequate balance between their work and family life. According to Professor Barbara Pocock, Director of the Centre for Work and Life at the University of South Australia, the capacity in AWAs to cast aside family-friendly work conditions has been widely utilised to date. Research has shown that those on AWAs are significantly less likely to have family-friendly provisions in their work conditions than those covered by awards or collective agreements. She has said:

Individual agreements, if we look at the data on them, are incontrovertibly less family friendly in terms of their annual leave, long service leave and sick leave—the fundamentals for working carers … A very small proportion (of AWAs) in 2002-03 had family or carers leave—way less than in collective agreements. Only eight per cent had paid maternity leave and five per cent had paid paternal leave. All of that data suggests that AWAs are family unfriendly.

These findings are alarming and illustrate just how, on this barbecue stopper issue, the ability to juggle family and work commitments is being steadily disintegrated by this government’s extreme industrial relations laws.

This says nothing of the young Australians who are now being exploited in workplaces across this country and their very worried parents. I have previously raised in this House the example of young Billy Schultze, whose case was investigated by the Office of Workplace Services, after I raised it with the Prime Minister in question time last year, and is now being pursued in the Federal Magistrates Court. The question is: how many young workers out there are being exploited and do not have the opportunity to have their cases raised in the federal parliament? The clear anguish this situation has caused Billy’s father has shown me yet again the disturbing repercussions of these workplace laws.

I would also like to talk about the impact these laws are having on business. The Labor parliamentary task force on industrial relations, of which I was a member, heard first-hand criticism from businesses about the complexity and prescriptive nature of the IR legislation. In my electorate of Adelaide, with some 20,000 small businesses, I am always interested in the realities of how these workplace laws are impacting upon them. Professor Andrew Stewart, Dean of Law at Flinders University in Adelaide, told the task force that the story for most employers is one of:

… a hopelessly confused, inept set of laws being made more inept with every bit of fiddling the Government does and that’s causing business massive problems.

The task force also heard from a small business owner in Gladstone, Queensland. He stated:

I don’t really understand the legislation ... Small business like mine are the backbone of ... this economy and clearly we can’t spend that time to understand all this legislation so who is it helping? Who’s gaining out of this? I have no idea ... Every day there’s more and more of it and this WorkChoices is just another example.

This is the reality of how these laws are impacting on small business. Similarly, in my electorate of Adelaide the feedback from business has been that Work Choices is a step too far, and that what was sold to them as legislation for greater choice in the workplace has in reality resulted in greater complexity, confusion and a more immense burden. As this matter of public importance today points out, these laws are unfair, complex, flawed and they are a burden for business. (Time expired)

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