Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly do not agree with the contention that is expressed within the MPI—that is, that the business community has lost confidence in the government. That could not be further from the truth. The fact is that the Rudd government has been negotiating now with the business community and employee representatives, unions and others, about the transition bill and about the substantive provisions of the bill that will come before the House later in the parliamentary term. The conversations being held by the Deputy Prime Minister—the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—with the business community are going very well. They are held often. They are amicable. And the reason they are amicable is that those people representing employees and employers are at the table. This is the first opportunity in more than a decade to ensure that, when we discuss the way in which we will regulate employment conditions in this country, employees have a voice—a formal voice.

There is no question that the business community are involved in that process. They have already publicly spoken about the positive cooperation that is occurring, and I am advised that there has been much movement on areas of difference. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that the bill that was debated in this House and has gone through to the Senate was a culmination of the negotiations of this government with industrial parties across the spectrum. That is unlike the previous government, which just sent off to some law firms its views on the world without properly consulting with employee representatives or unions or even consulting with unions at all—indeed, without even properly consulting with many of the employer bodies. Unlike the previous government, this government believes in proper consultation. That has occurred, and the transition bill is the outcome. And I can say to those opposite that the business community are very happy with those proceedings.

I think it is also important to ask: if the opposition is being in any way genuine about the criticisms that they have with respect to the transition bill, then why didn’t the opposition senators seek to move amendments to that bill in the Senate? Why is it that, if there are problems with the bill, the opposition senators failed to move amendments to that bill in terms of the way in which it was expressed in the Senate report? There has been no indication by the opposition senators that that would be the case.

I think it is very important that we discuss this matter, to really get down to what we are talking about. And what we are talking about is removing one of the most radical pieces of legislation this parliament has ever seen—one of the most radical, pernicious pieces of legislation affecting working families that this parliament—indeed, this country—has ever seen. We needed to remove that law. And we will continue to debate and prosecute the argument on behalf of working families until we have finally removed all traces of Work Choices, because we know, as the people of Australia know, that at no time before that bill was introduced into this place did the then Prime Minister, John Howard, or any minister representing the former government, say to the Australian people prior to an election: ‘This is what we will do in the area of industrial relations.’ On 28 September 2004, during the election campaign, when the then Liberal government announced its industrial relations policies, there was not one word or sentence that went to the main provisions of the Work Choices legislation. And, after winning that election and winning a majority in the Senate, the government then brought into this place the most pernicious provisions we have seen in the area of industrial relations, without any notice being given to the people of Australia. So there was no genuineness, no consultation and no capacity for people to raise concerns. The Senate committee that was set up to consider that legislation went for five days and never left Canberra. It did not involve the working families that would be affected. And can I say, as the then shadow parliamentary secretary in the last parts of the last parliamentary term, that after visiting 60 electorates across this country I am very well aware of how many people were hurting as a result of the Work Choices legislation.

I met young workers in the hospitality industry who said to me that they were now working on Saturday and Sunday evenings without penalty rates, without overtime. I met administrative workers who had been working in one particular job for more than 20 years and were sacked for no reason whatsoever. A person who had shown competence was sacked for no reason whatsoever, because that was what the law allowed.

One of the most revealing things to me was when, in a hearing of the House of Representatives committee on employment, the head of a peak employer body said to the committee—and it is in the transcript—that the great thing about Work Choices is that you can now do lawfully what was once illegal. That to me underlined the fundamental problem, the fundamental unfairness, of Work Choices. That representative said that in the hospitality industry you could now do legally something that was once unlawful. I can assure those opposite that no previous conservative government would have introduced that legislation. That is one of the reasons—and there are some others—why they find themselves on that side.

It was extraordinary to watch the performance today by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the member for North Sydney, playing games in this place, not confirming to the Australian people one way or the other whether in fact they support or oppose Work Choices. What we could not believe today was that the opposition voted against a motion that effectively reflects the expression of the will of the people that occurred on 24 November last year. The motion said, in part:

That this House agrees:

(1)

At the last election the Australian people voted for the end of Work Choices which has hurt working families by allowing pay and conditions to be ripped off and decent hard-working Australians to be sacked without reason or remedy …

The opposition voted against that. The motion went on:

(2)

the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, just passed by the Parliament, is the first step in ending Work Choices …

They voted against that. The motion went on:

(3)

from the coming into effect of this bill there will be no new Australian workplace agreements and from 1 January 2010 there will be no new statutory individual workplace agreements of any nature …

They voted against that. What they now have to do is to explain to the Australian people, via the parliament, where they stand in this area. They have to get up on their hind legs, come up to the box here and indicate to the people of Australia, via the parliament, where they stand on industrial relations.

What we do know is that there are those in the Liberal Party room who support Work Choices and will support it to its death and others who want to at least provide the appearance that they do not support it. We do not know where they stand. The people of Australia do not know where they stand. At least we did not know until today, because today they confirmed to us for the first time—before now there was equivocation; there was fighting going on within the Liberal Party room—by voting against that motion, that they have not changed one iota in relation to the Work Choices legislation.

If we thought they were going to in any way show some form of contrition for their acts of not providing consultation and of introducing such a piece of legislation into this place, there were no signs of contrition; indeed there was an acknowledgement, by their willingness to vote against the motion moved by the Deputy Prime Minister, that they have not changed their position one iota in relation to industrial relations. So that is where they now stand.

As a result of the motion moved today—despite the shenanigans of the opposition in playing games with the processes of the House—at least we now know that they were not fair dinkum when they said they had changed, when they said they actually considered that Work Choices had gone too far. We have it on the record that they are willing to support the major tenets of Work Choices legislation. That is a very important thing for the people of Australia to understand.

Let us remember: Work Choices was never put to the Australian people before an election. Then for the first time, at the last election, the Australian people had a chance to make their views clear—and they did. But the opposition are contemptuous of their views, do not support the mandate of the Australian people and are willing to fly in the face of the democratic expression of the Australian working families of this nation. They should be condemned for that behaviour.

Let us just remember how bad some of those Australian workplace agreements were. It was revealed in the Office of the Employment Advocate report of May 2006 that 64 per cent of those agreements cut annual leave loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, just over half cut shift work loadings, 51 per cent cut overtime loadings, 48 per cent removed monetary allowances, 40 per cent cut rest breaks and 36 per cent cut declared public holidays. The list goes on. The AWA—the statutory capacity to remove people’s entitlements—was a vicious instrument used against working families and used effectively. The only way that was ever going to stop was with a change of government.

As we have seen today, if the Howard government had been re-elected we would have had WorkChoices-plus. There is no way that the former Prime Minister would have listened to the concerns of ordinary working families. The coalition would have introduced further legislation into this place to even further erode the employment conditions of ordinary working families and remove the conditions that allow unions to operate in workplaces—discussing and negotiating with employers, collectively bargaining and ensuring employees have the capacity to be represented at the table. Those regulations—whatever was remaining in the industrial relations laws prior to the transition bill—would have been wound back further. We know that because we know that the opposition members really have no regard for working families. We know in the end they are so ideologically blind when it comes to unions that they will do anything to destroy unions and will be willing to hurt working families when they do so.

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