Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me a great degree of personal satisfaction to speak in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008, given my personal history. I was the Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions for most of the period during which the Howard government was in power and experienced firsthand, in the representation of many working people around the country, the impact on working people of not only Work Choices—the Howard government’s legislation introduced following the 2004 election—but also the legislation that was introduced in 1996 and in subsequent years during the period of the Howard government. This bill signifies a number of important things: firstly, the end of Work Choices and, secondly, the keeping of faith with the Australian electorate by the Labor Party in ending Work Choices and introducing legislation which represents decent and fair rights for working people.

The Fair Work Bill represents a huge improvement in the rights of the working people of this country and a tremendous step forward in respecting fundamental values of fairness, justice and decent treatment. It also, however, represents very significant economic reform. For the first time, in real effect, this legislation will bring into place an effective national system of industrial relations regulation for the private sector. Subsequent to this the government will engage in further dialogue with the state governments concerning their approaches to the development of a comprehensive national industrial relations system. The Fair Work Bill is a monumental step forward in economic efficiency and economic reform in overcoming more than 100 years of multiple industrial relations jurisdictions, with the complexities that that generates, and implementing a simpler and more flexible national system. That is long overdue. Most businesses in this country are operating strongly in a national and oftentimes international context, and a national system of regulation is very important.

The bill also signifies a far better balance of the rights and responsibilities between employers and employees in workplaces around this country. I was a union official for over 20 years and have experienced workplaces in many different industries around the country, representing people and working with business. Particularly with that background, I have always felt it extremely important that there be in the industrial relations laws of this country a proper balance of the legitimate interests of employers and business with the legitimate interests of employees and their rights to representation.

Oftentimes, ideology and politics take too great a hold in casting the balance of the interests of employers and employees. There is no better example of that, though, than in Work Choices. It swung the pendulum far too much one way, which was the reason it was rejected by the Australian community at the last election. I think the Fair Work Bill 2008 strikes a far better balance—an important balance—between the legitimate interests of employers and employees.

Finally, what I think is significant about the Fair Work Bill is that it is a tremendous victory for all of those in the Australian community who believe in fairness, justice and decent treatment for working people. These fundamental values are deeply entrenched in the Australian community and for good reason. Work Choices so offended those values that people rejected it at the ballot box at last year’s election. Ending Work Choices and implementing the Fair Work Bill represents a victory for those values and for those who believe in those values in our community.

What are some of the key elements of the bill that represent these values? Firstly, it is important to recognise that from a constitutional standpoint this bill no longer relies upon the conciliation and arbitration power of the Constitution. That head of power had underpinned the industrial relations regulation enacted by this parliament for over 100 years. This legislation, however, is based on the corporations power of the Constitution—and that is not just an idle legal observation; it does lead to a significant change. I have already referred to the nature of economic reform represented by the bill in the terms of the development of a national system. This has been brought about by the utilisation of the corporations power and the acknowledgement, in the Work Choices High Court judgment, of the capacity of the parliament to rely upon that power. Having a national system is a historic shift, and it changes the nature of the operation of the federal industrial relations system in particular.

We have had a system that relied for many years upon the thinking that ambit industrial disputes had to be created on paper on an interstate basis in order to generate the jurisdictional power of the industrial relations tribunal to create awards, deal with disputes and certify things such as enterprise agreements. That type of constitutionally driven artifice in the federal system will no longer be necessary, and it is a welcome improvement in the efficiency and operation of the system. But I think one of the critical elements represented by this bill is the improvement and the security of the safety net that will underpin the labour market. There is a set of legislated National Employment Standards. There are 10 such standards, complemented by a modernised system of awards which also can contain an additional 10 employment items. What this means is that there will now be 20 minimum conditions comprising the safety net, versus five under the Work Choices system.

The system brought about by Work Choices generated the opportunity for employees to have their pay and employment conditions diminished once they entered into an instrument such as an Australian Workplace Agreement. This is what drove the cuts in take-home pay for many of the employees who, one way or another, were encouraged or coerced to sign an Australian Workplace Agreement, with the consequence that they lost their penalty rates, meal allowance, rest periods, annual leave loading or a host of other employment conditions put at risk by Work Choices.

Under the Fair Work Bill, when bargaining in the labour market and in the workplace an employee must be better off overall than the minimum standards comprising the safety net. That is, it is still going to be possible under the Fair Work Bill to negotiate over things such as penalty rates. However, if, in doing so, an employee agrees to forgo their ordinary hours of work plus penalty rate types of arrangements in lieu of an alternative type of arrangement such as an annualised salary, the employee cannot be diminished in their take-home pay and their overall entitlements. They must be better off overall. That was one of the serious deficiencies of Work Choices that led to serious disadvantage for those who were most vulnerable in the labour market. The Fair Work Bill remedies that problem and ensures that employees must be better off in the bargaining context by having a secure safety net.

Additionally, minimum wages are to be reviewed each year and any increases are to apply from 1 July. That is an important change. I was responsible, for example, at the ACTU, for the oversight and strategy of the national wage case for approximately one decade, and there was never a guarantee that minimum wages would be reviewed each year. The ACTU had to struggle, oftentimes, to have a minimum wage case brought on so that lower paid people could keep pace with the changes in the cost of living and improvements in productivity and share in national wealth in a fairer way. This bill ensures that there will be an annual review. Importantly, it also ensures, in the context of the safety net, that when there is a transmission of business—for example, in some circumstances, the sale of a business or part of a business—no artifice can be used, as was possible under Work Choices, to diminish or eliminate the employment arrangements and the wages and conditions of the employees. It puts a solid safety net under transmissions of business.

The other key element that is very important in the Fair Work Bill is the operation of the collective bargaining system. It is a collective system. It is not an individual contracting system. It is commensurate with the government’s commitments under the ILO conventions for collective bargaining and freedom of association. Importantly, the collective bargaining system is based upon a simple democratic value: when a group of employees, by majority, decide, if it is necessary, that they would like to collectively bargain with their employer, the Fair Work Bill resolves that the employer will have an obligation to negotiate with those employees in good faith.

Under Work Choices, every single employee in an enterprise could have resolved, could have signed a petition, could have made representations to the employer that they wished to collectively bargain, but under Work Choices the employer could simply say: ‘I have no interest in that and, by the way, you’d better sign this individual contract. But I will not collectively bargain with you.’ That sort of situation, which is inherently unfair, disrespectful and undemocratic, is overcome in the Fair Work Bill by the requirement that, if it is necessary, the employees’ attitudes—whether they are union members or not—be ascertained as to collective bargaining. If a majority wishes to proceed on that basis then the employer will have an obligation to do so.

Another very important change in the legislation concerns freedom of association and implements Australia’s commitments under ILO conventions to freedom of association. The bill ensures that, if an employee makes a free decision to become a member of a union, the employee also has a right of representation, if that is their wish, and that an employer will have an obligation to respect that decision and the right of representation. Additionally important are the changes to the unfair dismissal arrange-ments. The previous legislation, which was brought in at the time the current Deputy Speaker, Mr Andrews, was the minister, involved the abolition of unfair dismissal protection for employees and enterprises with fewer than 100 employees. That represented the abolition of that protection for approximately four million people in the economy.

This legislation ensures proper protection of the interests of small business, as defined by employing fewer than 15 employees, and proper unfair dismissal protection for all employees in the workforce. There will be a qualifying period for employees in small businesses of 12 months and a qualifying period for employees in larger businesses of six months. There is also, of course, a streng-thened role for the independent umpire, to be known as Fair Work Australia, and additional protection in part 2-4—the enterprise agreement section of the bill—clauses 241 to 246 in division 9 that provides the opportunities for low-paid employees to bargain on a multiemployer basis and, in appropriate public interest circumstances, to access arbitration, in recognition of the fact that they have a weak bargaining position in the labour market. That is an important protection for many women, non-English-speaking workers and young people, as well as many others in the labour market. That is an improvement in this legislation over all previous systems in the last 15 to 20 years.

There are concerns that have been expressed, of course, about shortcomings in the bill. They have been expressed by the business community or some representatives of it and some of my former colleagues in the union movement. But I think this bill is very strong in its fundamental protection for em-ployee rights and it is very important that it be broadly supported in the community. Certainly I will be a strong advocate of it. It overcomes a lot of the flawed, biased and unfair processes and failures to protect various rights in the Work Choices legislation. It was in response to those failures in Work Choices that, as ACTU secretary, I resolved to campaign, along with my colleagues, very hard against Work Choices to ensure that improvements in rights were made.

I would like to make a couple of observations about the Your Rights at Work campaign, because it undoubtedly influenced politics in recent years, and I do not think too many would argue with the contention that the Your Rights at Work campaign had an influence on last year’s election outcome—because people were opposed to the Work Choices legislation. The Your Rights at Work campaign involved many thousands of people. It was conducted in workplaces, in community organisations, and in partnership with churches and many other community interests. Some of the largest rallies since the Vietnam War were conducted and broadcast across the country through the Sky Channel. There was community campaigning, television advertising, internet campaigning in an innovative way and marginal seat campaigning and, of course, significant funds were raised. Many people contributed to it in a significant way. I would like to acknowledge one of my closest colleagues at the ACTU, George Wright. We worked very closely together coordinating much of the campaign over the period from 2005 to 2007. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved.

The Fair Work Bill represents a tremendous victory for their belief in fairness, justice and decent treatment for our people. But I believe, also, it represents a significant victory for our democracy. These last few years have demonstrated that, at the end of the day, when legislation such as Work Choices is enacted by a government and offends those values of fairness, justice and decent treatment so profoundly, not only are those values strong and alive within our community but people are prepared to act upon them. It has demonstrated that in our democracy, it is possible to influence results, it is possible to change governments through the ballot box and, ultimately, it is possible to see a policy that was enunciated during the election campaign by Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard on behalf of the Labor Party put into effect. That is what the Fair Work Bill represents. I believe it to be a victory for fairness and justice in our community.

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