Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I begin my remarks in the appropriations debate, I commend the member for Melbourne Ports for his passionate defence of our electoral system and for his attention to such detail. I add my concerns also about the way that these changes will impact on many people on the roll—or not on the roll, as the case may be. I know these changes will have a severe impact on my own constituency of Chisholm. Having two major universities within my electorate, I know that an awful lot of young people choose either to put themselves down at the college at which they reside or at the house they are renting or to stay enrolled at their family property or home, and often that this needs to be addressed does not come to their attention until the election is called. Now, when the election is called, their attention may be drawn to it, but there will be nothing they can do about it. I think this is unjust—and that is the plan.

I think the hypocrisy in all this is the assumption that these people all vote Labor. The government, of course, could be disenfranchising a great many of their own voters. Having been in the States recently and having heard a great deal of the commentary going on over there, I believe that one of the things we can be truly proud of is our electoral process. I would hate to see it eroded and for us to end up with the debacle that even the Americans themselves now claim their system is. So I do commend the member for Melbourne Ports for his contribution to the debate today.

Whilst we welcome this additional spending and we would in no way prohibit it going through in these appropriation bills, I do want to commend the member for Melbourne’s second reading amendment, which highlights the government’s inaction over many years. The government have now been there for a very long time—longer than we had hoped or intended. They have had years and years of prosperity and they have wasted them. They have squandered them.

We heard yesterday a frank assessment from the new minister for industrial relations that governments do not create jobs. After many years of the government saying they create jobs, and with their one centrepiece in this term being their changes to industrial and workplace relations and their great claim that this is going to be the help for future prosperity, we now know that is not true. They do not even see it so themselves, because they do not create jobs.

I had a recent email from one of my constituents and I would like to share it with the House today. It says:

Angels, Shepherds, and the I.R. Laws

by Peter Burman

‘While shepherds watch their flocks by night ...’ so the Christmas carol tells the story given us by St Luke. The shepherds had to work night shift as well as day shift. And they had to work 7 days per week, which prevented them from going to church or synagogue on the Sabbath.

It would seem that the industrial relations conditions have deteriorated seriously since the time of Moses. At least the law of Moses gave everybody a Sabbath, including servants and livestock (Exodus 20:8-11). Furthermore, Moses had earlier established a fair and just industrial relations system. When Moses saw one of the bosses beating a worker, he clobbered the boss permanently (Exodus 2: 11-15) then shot through like a Bondi tram. Later, after a brief stint as a shepherd (Exodus 3:1) Moses observed the workers were being given the short straw for the manufacture of bricks (Exodus 5) so, after a confrontation with the bosses, he established the brickmaker’s unions and they all took industrial action. In fact they did more than hold a rally in Federation Square then march up Swanston Street: they quit their job and marched out of slavery to freedom in another country.

The shepherds were not protected by any union and had to work 24 hours and 7 days per week. They were at the bottom of the social structure and in double jeopardy, because their job prevented them from Sabbath attendance, therefore they were regarded as the worst of sinners. Nobody seemed to care about them except the angels who came to visit them with the Good News. But there is no suggestion that the angels visited the makers of the I.R. laws. After worshipping the Holy Infant, presumably while the angels minded the sheep, the shepherds dutifully returned to their flock, working on Christmas Day, without penalty rates, of course.

Our elder daughter is a mid-wife and rostered to work dutifully on Christmas Day, which at this stage is ‘sacrosanct’ to quote one who makes core promises then later downgrades them to non-core promises. But the covenant, given a long time earlier to Abraham, then renewed to the shepherds, is stronger than a promise.

I think this little story, which has been beautifully crafted by one of my constituents, highlights the growing concern out there in our community about the changes to the industrial relations law. It is interesting that, in the stream of emails, letters and comments I have had from constituents, generally it is not their own concern they have; it is concern for their children and their grandchildren—the people turning up to face the new world of IR. They say: ‘Here’s the job. You sign this AWA’—which has eroded the terms and conditions—‘sign it or leave it.’

We only need to see the recent certified agreement that has been put in place which our staff are now under to see that we have eroded their terms and conditions by taking away the option of actually working overtime. They have been given the ability to earn a set amount of overtime, but over time that will erode. That will go. In time that will not marry up the ability to actually claim overtime to the amount of money that is being paid. Once you take away a term and condition, you can never replace it.

I know that probably all of us around this room at the moment who are going through the process of trying to decide what amounts to give to people have juggled with that issue. I think the interesting thing is that now I have spoken to the people who look after us and deal with our staff and their employment conditions and they say, ‘You can change it come June in the financial year.’ Yes, but once you give someone a lump sum, that becomes part of the salary. I do not want to be the one to tell my staff, ‘By the way, because of the change in office, I am actually reducing your salary.’ That is the actual direct link with that certified agreement. I think it is very poor indeed. I do not think it is actually going to give any member in this House the ability to actually operate their office or will serve the staff who are going to be working under it. Yes, it might look like a good thing now to have a lump sum, but over time that will erode and that dollar value will never be replaced for the staff.

The other issue of grave concern within my electorate at the moment is climate change. A day does not go by without my receiving at least four or five emails in respect of climate change. I would actually like to be relieved of emails at the moment because they are clogging my box considerably, but I do want to thank my constituents who take the time and effort to send me their concerns. The No. 1 issue at the moment would have to be climate change. Here is another email I have received:

Dear Ms Anna Burke,

My name is Lauren Marc; I am an 11 year old student, currently in year 6, from Melbourne, Victoria. I go to Roberts McCubbin  Primary School. Last year in September, my fellow grade 5’s and 6’s went on a camp to Canberra. We visited Parliament House and you talked to us. You may or may not remember us.

I have taken this time to write and send an email to you and other MP’s in federal, state and local levels of Parliament.

A few nights ago I saw ‘An inconvenient truth’. You may or may not have seen it. It is based on Al Gore’s slideshow about global warming. It shows many different troubles and problems that the world has. Along with many problems that we may not have noticed or thought about being related to global warming. If you have not seen it then I strongly suggest you do.

I understand that the U.S. and Australia are the only countries who have not joined Kyoto. This is because federal parliament is worried about it damaging the economy. I have been wondering why we didn’t have a referendum, so the people could choose.

Some of my close friends and I think we should, as a country, state or local area should do something more about this. Such as running more buses on ethanol or sewerage. One town in England, I think it was, had all its buses, trains and cars running on sewerage. I understand that this would be an expensive process, but it would be doing our bit, just to go that little bit further.

Thank you for your time,

Yours truly,

Lauren Marc.

I have an 11-year-old writing to me with an impassioned plea that we do something about our environment. We are out there; this is happening around us. It is of grave concern and we need to be doing more. This government stands condemned for its inaction. Yes, we can have the hullabaloo about this and that, and about the impact it is going to have, but unless we do something, and unless we do something now, there might not be anything to impact on.

We can have discussions about the water level rising and not being a concern because the area is high enough to sustain that water level, but it is not the case across the world. Very soon we are going to have to deal with people coming here from Kiribati, as their country will literally be under siege by water. We need to be doing more. We need to be grappling with this at a very radical level because it is there, it is real, it is happening. And the longer we let it go, it will not be something we will be talking about impacting on our grandchildren; it will be the environment I am leaving to my children. I seriously worry about that. With a four- and a seven-year-old, I constantly contemplate what world I am leaving them. Each generation should leave a better world for the next. We are not going to do that. This generation is actually going to leave behind a world that will be worse than the current one we have enjoyed. That is because of our inaction now on this one issue.

The government can talk about its $10 billion plan for the Murray-Darling Basin but we have not actually seen the details around it. It was done in such a hurry. The Prime Minister, who is meant to be great at reading these issues and how the public is feeling, suddenly woke up and thought: ‘I’ve missed that one. I’d better do something in a hurry.’ He puts together a cobbled speech and then says to people, ‘You’d better write the detail.’ We do not have the detail. We have had inaction on this. We have had major prosperity. We could have been doing so much more and we have done nothing. Future generations will not be thanking us for this because they might not even be here to enjoy it. Another constituent writes:

I wish to express my concern about the lack of response by governments in Australia to the issue of climate change. Federal and State Governments must take the lead now in initiating measures to slow down the rate of climate change. Although our population is small, we contribute more than our share of greenhouse emissions to the world and it is up to us to reduce that share as much as possible.

We are trying to do what we can in our home and business in terms of reducing energy needs but we need leaders with a vision who will make difficult, and perhaps initially unpopular, decisions about energy-saving or alternative energy options for the long-term. We need leaders to go out on a limb and provide sufficient funds to boost research into the development of viable alternatives such as solar energy, seeking to make such alternatives both efficient and affordable. Australia could become a world leader in alternative technologies if one of our leaders had the vision to channel funds into a concerted effort in this area.

My teenage children are becoming increasingly aware of the issues and increasingly concerned about how climate change will affect their futures and that of their future families. They are already asking questions about the environmental policies of major parties and I am sure this will have an impact on their future voting preferences.

I urge you to initiate and support measures which will reduce Australia’s contribution to climate change ...

I echo my constituent’s concerns.

Debate (on motion by Mr Barresi) adjourned.

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