David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to support the Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007, I also want to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the opposition have only two members here to speak to this legislation. That is how much importance they place on it. The government has given them the courtesy of speaking without being interrupted throughout their speeches. In contrast, this morning has been absolutely racked by the opposition preventing the government from being able to speak to this bill without being interrupted. I think almost every speaker has been interrupted by the opposition. I just draw the attention of the House to the fact that in a democracy we should be able to speak about the issues and debate the ideas without resorting to those sorts of tactics and interruptions.

I want to speak about why this bill is being brought forward, about what the bill covers and about who will benefit from it. Predominantly, this bill has been brought forward because of the conflict of ideas being played out in Australia as we speak—in the media, in workplaces, in people’s homes and in community groups. What we are seeing is that we have one group who are assuming that everything is bad and that we need to restrict the majority of Australians and, in so doing, penalise the flexibility of workers, their families and employers to make arrangements that will suit them, that will enable the Australian economy and the Australian community to continue to develop, just because a few employers and employees do the wrong thing.

Contrast that with the approach of the government that says: ‘We trust and want to reward individuals for good behaviour and for good work, because in the vast majority of cases people do work together constructively. We want to put in place a framework that gives them the freedom to do that and to obtain the maximum benefit for families, for workers and for the businesses that at the end of the day provide the jobs that keep our economy going and that enable us to pay for the services and things that we wish to see—investments in education, infrastructure and defence.’

This battle of ideas has led to TV campaigns very much drawing on the fears that people have. It is interesting to note that in July last year the Daily Telegraph was the first of the media to come out and really highlight the fact that all of the ads that the ACTU had run had been discredited. So here we have an organisation—the ACTU—that has an Australia-wide reach, that has the potential all around Australia to find real cases of people who have been disadvantaged by the government’s changes to industrial relations laws, and the ones they chose to put on national television have all been discredited.

Time and again in this parliament the opposition have brought up cases in an attempt to show that people have been disadvantaged. I look particularly at one last year where workers at a Lufthansa subsidiary were offered the choice of an AWA or an existing collective agreement. But what was presented to the House and to the Australian public was that these people were being forced onto an agreement that was going to cut their conditions. What was not revealed to the House was that they had a choice. What was not revealed to the House was that there was up to a 16 per cent increase under a bonus scheme and that those workers stood to have around a 13 per cent increase in their take-home pay.

Just in case you happen to think that bonuses are not very fair, an analogous example is an agreement that the CFMEU put in place for Dunlop Bedding only the year before that. So we are seeing being presented to the Australian public a large degree of misinformation. That has caused a lot of fear. The most recent ads that have been flying around, which talk about percentages and statistics of agreements that do not include things like overtime, are the latest example of this. They show that side of agreement but they do not talk about the side of the agreement that helps people balance work and family. In my own electorate of Wakefield I am aware of people who have decided that they would rather have more flexibility in their work hours during the week so that they can meet obligations for either elderly parents or children, who they need to drop off and pick up from school and sport, and in return they will work on a weekend for normal-time pay. That arrangement enables them to balance work and family and to be in the workforce whereas under a strict award situation, where they are expected to work normal time or on the weekend for penalty rates, they would not be able to meet those obligations and so they would not be able to be back in the workforce. For those people, that is an advantage that helps them to be in the workforce, and a benefit to their family and to the broader society but that balance is not brought out in the ads.

Having said all that, the ads have been effective. The perception and the fear is out there and that is why government has acted to bring in another part of the framework to directly address that fear rather than have people say, ‘The ad says, “What about my 17-year-old?” ’, The reality that people are not listening to is that the 17-year-old is protected by the fact that he has to have an adult, his parent or guardian, to sign his workplace agreement, which never existed under the previous system, so there are more protections for them. People talk about low paid or unskilled workers not being able to negotiate or bargain. What they do not acknowledge is the fact that you can have the union bargain on your behalf if you wish to. People talk about the fact that it is take it or leave it but do not acknowledge the fact that under the old system, if the workplace had an award or an EBA, that was take it or leave it. You turned up, took what you were given and had no opportunity to bargain or discuss terms and conditions with your employer.

So what this change is looking to do is to say: ‘We hear that concern. We acknowledge that concern is out there.’ We still maintain that, as we look at this battle of ideas, we are better off to say that we will put in place a framework that frees up people to maximise opportunities for employees, employers and their families. For those who work against that, who disadvantage people, we will penalise them but we will set the vast majority free to get on with their lives and we will encourage and reward that behaviour as opposed to adopting the approach of restricting everybody, just to make sure that the few do not abuse the system.

A quorum having been called and the bells having been rung—

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