Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with enthusiasm to support the Fair Work Bill 2008 introduced by our Deputy Prime Minister. Industrial Relations is all about Australians, both people and business. I know this, in part because I spent 5,000 days as an official of the Australian Workers Union. When you are a union rep—as some people opposite perhaps do not realise—you witness the full potential for greatness that individuals carry within them. When you are a union rep, you get to witness the limitless capacity of Australian workers and Australian business and, thus, the limitless potential of the Australian economy and Australian society.

I understand the abundant goodwill that exists between employers and employees in Australian workplaces. I know firsthand the many examples of cooperation, compromise and pragmatism which deliver dividends for all involved. I was involved with 1,000 or so enterprise agreements during my time as an AWU representative. In these agreements, I, along with employers, union members and employees, negotiated wage rises, productivity gains, work practice reforms, shorter hours, profit-share bonuses and safer jobs. By and large, despite the hysteria of some on the coalition side, even without rancour and division, I have operated in the real economy for 14 years prior to coming to this place, from shop floor to the superannuation funds. I have learned that successful and imaginative enterprises were underpinned by leadership, legacy and consistent values. I appreciate that business is hard work. Australia needs business. It is the principal ‘doing’ arm of our society. It creates wealth and jobs in the real economy. I have witnessed firsthand that growing a company, harvesting at a farm or tunnelling a mine requires hard effort. There are no shortcuts. You need trust, openness, fairness, partnership and a bit of flexibility and compromise all round. Where you find these qualities, you find success, growth and business leaders who understand that people are the most important feature of their business.

Industrial relations regulation should harness this innate capacity of Australians. We should uplift the industrial relations debate from the periodic blame shifting between government and business. We should raise the industrial relations debate from the old class war conflict between capital and labour, between scare creatures of the so-called unions and the old-fashioned images of employers. We should elevate the industrial relations debate from coalition sniping and rear-vision mirror thinking. The real test of industrial relations regulation is whether it addresses the conflict between those who are stuck in the business-as-usual routine and those who would pursue innovation, knowledge and creativity, the real driver of economic growth not only in Australia but around the world. The real test of industrial relations regulation, I suggest, is whether it moves our workplaces to be more equitable and therefore unlocks the potential of our fellow Australians. The real test of industrial relations regulation is whether it plugs into the lives that Australians are living. The real test of industrial relations regulation is to reinforce and enable the aspiration of Australians to live long lives full of quality and meaning.

Industrial relations regulation should never, as Work Choices did, move against the tides in the lives of our Australians, our economy and our society. Successful businesses, successful communities and successful governments understand that what really matters is people. That is why the short-term political opportunism of Work Choices failed—because it was out of step with the lives that our citizens aspire to enjoy. The present from our forebears, the great reward throughout the 20th century, was an extra quarter of a century of life for their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. The current generations have sought in turn, as I have witnessed over the last number of years, to capitalise on the gift of a longer life by ensuring that their hopefully 100 years of life will be marked by meaning and quality. Australians are already re-engineering their lives—and I am indebted to American thinking on this and note the parallels in Australian society—in at least six different ways that I have observed in order not to waste the gift of a possible century of life.

So, regardless of the cuts of industrial relations political fashion in the last 12 years, firstly, Australians know that they will have to keep learning lifelong—studying again, interviewing for changing jobs, interning again, enrolling again and constantly seeking new skills and knowledge. Secondly, Australians know they will have to smooth their prosperity to secure a dignified, independent older age. Thirdly, Australians know that catastrophe in a longer life is a function of living—from bushfires and mine cave-ins to the more frequent and no less tragic situations of children being addicted to drugs, family dysfunction or ageing relatives acquiring dementia. Fourthly, Australians know that they have to do more and more often to remain healthy. Fifthly, Australians appreciate the need to have interests outside of work, a world elsewhere. Finally, Australians understand that sustainable jobs are as necessary as a sustainable environment, and sustainable jobs are not the casualised, low-paid commodities of the Work Choices era.

Sadly the old laws we seek to replace failed the test of empowering, supporting, enabling and raising the lives of Australians in order to enjoy long, meaningful lives, full of quality. The old laws failed these six themes which Australians are seeking to engineer their lives by. They failed Australian business, they failed the Australian economy and they failed Australian society. If we accept that the aspiration of Australians is to live long lives full of meaning and quality, where is the long term in no protection against unfair dismissal? What about the removal of bargaining rights? Where is the protection with conditions slashed by unfair statutory contracts? Where is the protection in the virtual outlawing of the right to belong to a union? And where is the protection in the possibility of losing your job any time, for any reason, including attitude?

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