Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007. I want to point out to the honourable member for Barker, a chap whom I work with on committees and a decent sort of man, a few things about the meat industry. The tally system came from the chain system. The chain system is one of those systems that is used to get workers to work harder and faster. It goes back to Henry Ford and Taylorism. It is a system to get people to work in a continuous process. It is pretty tough stuff. If you want a history of labour and an understanding of work, you should research it. The tally system grew out of that. It grew out of piecework—that is, you get paid for what you do; if you do not do it, you do not get paid. That is the reality. The tally system may have had its day, do not worry about that, but that is up to negotiations between people in the workplace. When you have hide pullers and others then of course things change and they need to be dealt with.

On the issue of over-award payments under common-law agreements operating in your electorate, Labor has no problem with those. If people want to pay over the award and have common-law agreements, there is no problem with that under Labor policy. The unfairness of AWAs is what the Labor Party is totally opposed to. Your government yesterday introduced a bill into this parliament because it admits they are unfair. They admit that their Work Choices legislation, which has been taking peoples’ penalty rates and overtime off them without compensation, is unfair. I just point out to you that you need to get these things in perspective and you need to have an understanding of them, don’t you minister.

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