Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the face of it, when you listen to the member for Gorton and the member for Lalor speak on these amendments, it gives the impression that it is all very much above board and why shouldn’t we agree to this amendment? This is cute politics by the Labor Party. It gets back to a policy position they announced in their document, Forward with fairness. In that document, on page 14, it says that under Labor’s system:

... bargaining participants will be free to reach agreement on whatever matters suit them.

This is what this is about. You can couch it in terms of public holidays, shift rosters and Anzac Days. Even the member for Lalor has admitted that in the current legislation it already says that employees can agree to decline a request by an employer, whether it be the RSL asking them to work on Anzac Day so its members can participate in the activities of the RSL. It is already in the legislation, so why are we having this amendment? Why is the member for Lalor introducing this? Because there are a lot of other things that they would like to introduce through the ability to insert other issues.

We know that one of those things that they want to introduce goes all the way back to bargaining fees, which would be introduced by the Australian Labor Party. We all know the importance of Good Friday and Christmas Day. We do not need to come in here and receive a homily from the member for Lalor. Of course we all appreciate what Christmas Day is all about. We also appreciate that members of the public would like to spend time with their families, yet for decades a lot of people have worked on Christmas Day and Good Friday. There is the ability in this legislation for employees to decline those requests.

The member for Lalor, Ms Julia Gillard, talked about the entitlement to redundancy pay. She failed in her very brief moment at the dispatch box—maybe she will come back and explain it a little later on—how to actually define ‘full compensation’. What does it actually mean that someone will be fully compensated? Does the member for Lalor also have a plan through these amendments to introduce all those other things which Labor want to see inserted in agreements such as deductions from employees’ pay or wages for union fees?

Do Labor also want to introduce a restriction on the use of contractors and labour hire arrangements? The member for Gorton knows about that debate. He and I were members of a parliamentary committee that looked at those issues, and I know the views of the Labor Party on contractors and labour hire arrangements. Do they want to introduce in these agreements paid leave to attend union training and union meetings? I would like to know what else they actually want to see included in these agreements, apart from these nice things such as Christmas Day, Good Friday and Anzac Day that all of us would certainly agree to.

The fact is that, if we start going down this path that the member for Lalor wants us to go down, we do not know what else is going to be in there. But we do know that there is a plan by the member for Lalor to introduce such things as bargaining fees into the legislation. Why is that? Because in 2004 the High Court held that bargaining service fees were not matters pertaining to the employment relationship and therefore they could not be included in pre-reform agreements on that basis. The member for Lalor is now trying to insert it into the legislation itself, and that is one of the reasons why her amendments will be rejected by those on this side. On page 14 of Forward with fairness, the Labor Party said:

Under Labor’s system, bargaining parties will be free to reach agreement on whatever matters suit them.

When the member for Lalor went on Neil Mitchell’s program on 1 May 2007, he asked:

... are we getting to the essence of this now then that bargaining fees are banned at the moment ... under your system they wouldn’t be banned, they’d be there for negotiation. Is that a fair comment?

The member for Lalor replied, ‘Yes’. Then, of course, we had a reversal. Therefore, things like union preference clauses in hiring or promotion will be lawful. (Time expired)

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