Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with much pleasure that I rise today to speak to this very important bill. For the record, I am the first Labor member in more than 76 years to represent the seat of Corangamite. There is a very clear reason why that happened, other than my natural charms. It is because of the previous government’s absolute ideological obsession with its Work Choices legislation, which ripped away more than 100 years of industrial history within Australia. In 1901, when Federation occurred, Australians went about building a modern economy, building a set of rights in the workplace that enable people to aspire to what it is that we currently call Australian values. Three years ago the previous government and the previous Prime Minister, who had completely lost touch, took to the Australian people their Work Choices legislation following the previous election. The Australian people at the 2007 election rejected the then Prime Minister’s ideological obsession with doing workers in the eye.

It was my great pleasure to be able to communicate, along with the trade union movement within my seat, in a very direct fashion with voters. In my seat a battle took place over people’s doormats, in people’s workplaces, in people’s communities. We took a new way forward to the people in Corangamite which overturned three years of history. The three years of history that I refer to is, of course, Work Choices. Work Choices stripped away from Australians more than 100 years worth of collective industrial history. Of course I was very proud to be associated with that campaign.

The Work Choices legislation removed from Australians the very essence that makes Australians what we are—that is, the essence of a fair go. The then coalition government felt very clearly that we should not give those who have a collective spirit, those who wish to give a leg-up to their next-door neighbour, their colleague in the workplace, an opportunity. That opportunity was absolutely essential to what makes Australia what it is today. The Australian people rejected the ideology that Work Choices was based on—that is, it is a winner takes all society. We do not want a society that is based on that. We want a society where your next-door neighbour looks after you, you look after your family, you look after your colleagues in the workplace. We do not want a winner takes all society in which your relationship with your employer is critical to how you get remunerated. We know that if we go down that path that many people in the Australian community will be disadvantaged, particularly those who come from a different background to many other people, particularly those who come from a history of repression. And we might be talking about women, we might be talking about those who come from an ethnic background. Their capacities are no less than any other white collar bloke, but in the system of Work Choices those sorts of things were disregarded. It was very much based on a winner takes all approach.

Australian workplaces have very much been built on a system that enables us to have a minimum set of terms and conditions that are fair, that are transparent, that enable people to collectively bargain around productivity; a system in which the spoils of rewards from successful businesses would be shared not only amongst the shareholders but also those who provided the labour. In Corangamite, a seat that we have not held for 76 years, we took to the people within the electorate two questions. Those questions, I think, were very important throughout not only Corangamite but also the nation. The questions were: what is a fair go? What is it that makes Australia Australia? The answer to that is the sense of a fair go, the sense of being able to give those who may come from different backgrounds the same opportunities as the rest of us, the sense of being able to restore family values in the workplace so those who have responsibility for their families, those who have responsibilities in their communities, can take that time required to care for their families, to care for their communities.

Work Choices turned that on its head. In my view, Work Choices very much took humanity out of the equation. It became an equation based much more around the economics. It removed the fair go from the equation. It threatened the values that make Australia what it is. Like many other people who chose to pursue a career in politics—of course on the Labor side—in conjunction with our friends within the trade union movement I took these questions to people’s doorsteps. We knocked on their doors and talked to them about what Work Choices meant to them, their families and their communities. We asked them whether this was what they wanted or whether they aspired to something very different. In Corangamite, along with many other electorates that are now held by Labor—often for the first time in many years if not, like Corangamite, many generations—the answer was clear: we do not wish to have the jackboot placed on our necks in our workplaces. We wish to have the opportunity to continue to keep the values that we aspire to as Australians. That was very clearly what came through.

We have all seen the statistics relating to Work Choices. Those statistics show that under Work Choices—under Howard’s AWAs—people were denied rights and entitlements that often had been built up over generations. For the first time since Federation many Australian workers actually had fewer rights in the workplace than their fathers and mothers. For the first time in our industrial history, Australia had gone backwards.

This bill restores the notion that Labor first introduced into this place in 1993. That notion, of course, was that bargaining should be based very clearly on productivity. If the workers in conjunction with their employers were able to demonstrate and deliver productivity, then they would share in the spoils. We would all have the opportunity to move forward. Of course, Work Choices turned that on its head. This bill, which I must say is a very Labor bill, gives workers and enterprises the opportunity to bargain collectively on productivity to really drive our economy forward. With the economic financial crisis that we are now suffering and the effects that might flow from it in the next 12 to 24 months, can you imagine what the consequences would have been under Work Choices? I think they would have been very dire. This bill will give the opportunity for employees to engage with their employers, with or without a union, on productivity. They will be able to implement measures in their workplaces that will make the workplace more profitable and more competitive and give those enterprises the capacity to provide better incomes for not only the shareholders or board directors but also the workers.

An enormous number of disputes have taken place in workplaces over the last 12 to 24 months which there has been no mechanism to resolve. Cochlear Ltd comes to mind, where the employer has refused, despite the wishes of its employees, to collectively bargain. There are many other examples where rogue employers have done the wrong thing time and time again under Work Choices. I believe this bill will provide the flexibility and the opportunity for a fair go, reinforce Australian values and create the opportunity to move forward. Under Work Choices we did not see this. Under Work Choices we saw rogue employer after rogue employer doing the wrong things, very much dragging down that which makes Australia what it is.

The new bill is a very Labor bill and it will very much assist working families. It will enable not only productivity bargaining but the opportunity to resolve disputes in a meaningful and expeditious way. It will not lead to a situation in which there is continual disagreement or disputation between employees and employers. It sets a new flexible safety net; it creates a new opportunity for us to bargain around maternity leave, paternity leave and all of the other things that will lead to a more productive and better society.

When I look at the changes that have taken place in the Australian workplace over the last 100 years, I see very clearly that a huge number of those gains have come from the efforts and hard work of employers working collectively and productively with unions, leading to reforms such as weekends, the eight-hour day—which came out of Victoria—and superannuation. There is no doubt that Work Choices denied the opportunity for further advancements in the workplace. If we had continued to tolerate those very unjust laws in the workplace, I very much doubt that we would have the capacity that we currently have to ride out the international financial crisis. I look forward to continuing to work with the trade union movement over the years to come to ensure productivity bargaining and to give a leg up to those that have minimum wage jobs. I think that is absolutely fundamental to the sense of a fair go and to the values of Australians.

In conclusion, as I said earlier, my seat has not had a Labor member for 76 years. I joined with the trade union movement in a doorknocking campaign, talking to people about their rights in the workplace and the laws that those opposite voted for that denied people the opportunity to have a fair go and continue to appreciate the values that make Australia Australia. I commend the bill to the House. I think it is a fabulous Labor bill and I very much look forward to my ongoing commitment and engagement with the trade union movement.

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