Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The passage of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 marks a major day for working families right across Australia. Today we declare Australian workplace agreements to be dead and buried. Today we declare this shameful chapter in the history of Australia’s workplace relations to be dead and buried. And today, with this legislation, we begin the process of burying the rest of the Work Choices omnibus once and for all. With this legislation we take the first step towards the creation of a modern, fair and flexible workplace relations system.

The government was elected on a commitment to abolish AWAs. Today the government honours that commitment. There will be no more AWAs. Basic conditions will never again be stripped away from working families without a dollar of compensation, and a genuine safety net is agreed. I am especially proud today that the members of the parliamentary Labor Party are here to support the passage of this legislation through the parliament. Support in the parliament through the debate came from the member for Bennelong, the member for Blair, the member for Bonner, the member for Braddon, the member for Corangamite, the member for Dawson, the member for Deakin and the members for Dobell, Eden-Monaro, Forde, Hasluck, Kingston, Leichhardt, Lindsay, Longman, Macquarie, Makin, Moreton, Page, Petrie, Robertson, Solomon and Wakefield. Why are they here? They are here because the previous members for those seats failed one simple test—to stand up with courage in defence of the interests of working families. They were prepared to sacrifice the wellbeing of working families under financial pressure to their ideological approach to industrial relations, which would shred the most basic protections which working families expect of this parliament. The previous members who represented those seats would now simply rue the day that they stood in this place and backed Work Choices legislation, because Work Choices was not explained to the Australian people prior to the previous election. They got control of the House of Representatives and control of the Senate, and off they went in pursuit of their ideological folly. And they have paid the price for so doing.

Australians in all these electorates and all around the country have sent us here to pass this law and to end the unfairness of AWAs that require longer working hours and pay less per hour than collective agreements; that in their thousands and tens of thousands have taken hundreds of thousands out of the pay packets of working men and women; that took away rest breaks, penalty rates, overtime pay and shift loadings; and that, according to the Bureau of Statistics, on average compared to collective agreements took $87 per week out of the pay packets of women.

Today is just the first step towards a modern workplace relations system that is consistent with core Australian values. The good news for Australians working in shops, hotels, offices, restaurants, nursing homes and other workplaces all over Australia is that AWAs are now dead and buried. This is good news, not just for these working Australians but for their husbands, wives and kids and for working families right across Australia. This is good news for the hardworking Australians who have built a strong economy and who have the right to expect that a strong economy will deliver for all Australians, not just for some. This goes to the heart of the Australian Labor Party’s DNA. This is the Labor way; this is the Australian way—having fairness in the workplace; rewarding hard work, achievement and success; and valuing Australian working families on the way through. With this bill we deliver exactly what we promised prior to the last election—to give a decent and fair go to all working families under financial pressure throughout Australia, not just to some of them. This bill was the first order of business for this Australian government. That is why the first bill that this government has introduced into the House deals with these important matters for working families. That is why we on this side of the parliament stand with pride, having brought this legislation to this parliament and ensured its passage despite the extraordinary backflips that we have seen on the part of those opposite. I commend this bill to the House.

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