Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It provides for a proper fairness test and getting rid of the so-called fairness test that the last government had in place. It provides for a comprehensive no disadvantage test which will be measured against the relative instrument in the workplace, which is how it should be. It provides for proper handling of agreements so that they will only commence when the Workplace Authority Director has approved them, and there will be no unilateral termination of collective agreements on the part of an employer. The bill removes the insidious workplace relations fact sheet—Howard government propaganda which was put in the hands of employers, who were then obliged to distribute it to their entire workforce. Imagine this: we had a conservative government which was trying to stand for the idea of small government not intervening in people’s lives, yet it came up with a piece of legislation that put a piece of propaganda in the hands of employers and directed that they distribute it to every one of their employees. It is hard to think of a more interventionist piece of legislation, yet it characterises the whole attitude of the Howard government to industrial relations throughout its entire 11 years. It was the most interventionist government this country has ever seen.

This bill will get rid of that insidious piece of propaganda. The bill will also seek to begin the process of improving the safety net. We will have an award modernisation process, unlike the one the previous government had in place, which will seek to retain all the good things that are embraced in awards which have come from 100 years of learning. But it will also acknowledge that awards in their current form are cumbersome and complex. Every player in the industrial scene understands that. It will be about trying to make a modernised system of awards for the 21st century. This bill is only a start in dismantling the unfair Work Choices laws, and there is of course much more to come. But it does address the immediate issue and the worst aspect of the Howard government industrial laws, and that is the legislated scheme of Australian workplace agreements. When this bill is passed, it will remove a blight from Australia’s industrial landscape and the law books of this country. I commend this bill to the House.

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