Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The explanatory memorandum for the Fair Work Bill 2008 says that the Fair Work Bill creates a national workplace relations system that is fair to working people, flexible for business and promotes productivity and economic growth. There is not a skerrick of evidence from those sitting opposite to the contrary. In fact, the evidence that we have shows that the industrial relations system that they brought in resulted in: burdensome regulation for business; lower wages for women, those who worked in the retail and cleaning sectors, those who were vulnerable and lacking bargaining power in the workplace; and the Australian people throwing them out of office on 24 November 2007.

Work Choices is the alpha and the omega for those who sit opposite. It is the beginning and the end; it is their Genesis and their Revelation; it is not just in their genes but in their genealogy; it is not just in their DNA but in their blood. They love it. It is their raison d’etre; their reason to be. That is why they are here; that is why they are in this place. They are here to oppose Labor, the labour movement and those people we represent. That is what it is about. Work Choices is the soul of their party.

You only have to listen to the contributions of the member for Indi, the member for Warringah, the member for Mackellar and the member for Mayo to understand that everything that I just said is 100 per cent accurate. For them, those people who represent working people in the workplaces of this country—the trade union leaders and the trade union movement—are their enemies. That is the reality. This is because the union movement opposes the kind of loyalty that the Liberal Party have to their bosses—the multinational companies whom they represent. They do not want trade unions anywhere near the workplaces of Australia, because they think that trade unions compete with them for the affection of the Australian people.

Work Choices was offensive to the Australian way of life and to the belief that Australians have in fairness, decency, mateship and humanity. Work Choices was about entrenching unequal bargaining arrangements in the workplace. The previous government spent more than $60 million in propaganda but they could not sell it to the Australian public. It was far reaching and punitive, but the authors and architects of Work Choices voted for it time and again. My predecessor voted for it nearly 30 times in this House. He believed in it. The Leader of the Opposition believed in it. All those people sitting opposite—their new members and those who were in this chamber before the last election—believe in it. It was their agenda and they will always believe in it, despite what they may say. They say that Work Choices is dead. But, like something that might have happened 2,000 years ago, it is ready for a resurrection if they ever again sit on this side of the House.

There is not a shred of evidence that they have produced that shows that Work Choices contributed in a positive way to productivity, to jobs growth or to the improvement of the Australian economy. If they had that—if they had the detailed analysis that showed that; if they had the evidence—wouldn’t we have heard it? Wouldn’t we have heard more than the platitudes that we have heard from those opposite? They would have shouted it from the rooftops. You can imagine the former Prime Minister coming into this House, standing before the national press and saying: ‘This is the evidence. Here is the evidence.’ But it is not there. They cannot produce it.

Work Choices was not just a step too far. It was about punishment. It is important for those of us in this place who have been employers and for those of us who have been employees to recognise that the Australian public believe in free enterprise. They believe that the workplaces of Australia should be productive and that employers and employees should work constructively and cooperatively together. The vast majority of Australians believe that because they know that only profitable businesses will improve wages and working conditions and contribute to the economic security of their families and rising wages. They know that—they are not dumb. They are not stupid at all.

What was so pernicious about Work Choices was that it was about pitting employers against employees and handing rogue employers the tools to misuse this sort of legislation and abuse it to drive down wages. It is an indication of the extent to which the previous government believed in this sort of thing that, for example, when it came to funding in the higher education sector, they had workplace relations requirements and national governance protocols and other matters. They said to the higher education sector, ‘We are going to reduce your funding if you do not satisfy the Work Choices requirements.’ That was their idea. It was about bringing Work Choices not just into the workplaces but into the educational institutions and into the culture of the country. At the last election we took our industrial relations policy, Forward with Fairness, to the Australian people and we said that we would tell them what our policy was; we would level with them. We said that we would not foist on them an industrial relations system that they did not know about. The previous government never told the Australian people anything about Work Choices in 2004. I was a candidate in 2004. I had discussions with many people. I had debates with my predecessor. I read his press releases and I listened to what he said on the radio. I cannot ever recall the words ‘Work Choices’ being uttered in 2004.

The reality of this bill is that it does an enormous amount of good in Australian workplaces. Five key areas of improvement which we promised at the election are contained in this bill. In the short time I have left I am going to enumerate them. There are national standards for the safety net pay and employment conditions—not just five little ones which were ignored by so many employers when they presented an AWA, which was at the heart of the pernicious Work Choices legislation, but fair dinkum safety net pay and employment conditions. The bill contains measures for enterprise bargaining, workplace bargaining, an independent umpire, the right to be represented in the workplace by a union and the right not to be represented. The independent umpire is Fair Work Australia. What did the previous government do to the previous body, the Industrial Relations Commission? They effectively gutted it. I want to quote something that I think captures so much of what the Fair Work Bill is all about. It is an op-ed piece by the federal member for Charlton, the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement and the former Secretary of the ACTU. I was very impressed by this comment and I think it is worth reading it into Hansard. He said:

… I am confident that the fundamental rights contained in the Fair Work Bill are consistent with the goals of the Rights at Work campaign and will contribute enormously to the decent treatment of working people.

All of the many members of the wider community who expressed their opposition to WorkChoices, and who stood up for fairness and justice, can feel a sense of pride that our democracy has delivered this result.

It is with a great sense of pride that I am here today as the first Labor member for Blair voting on this particular piece of legislation. When we introduced the transition bill in February, it was of enormous pride to me to be able to vote on that particular piece of legislation. Wherever I campaigned in 2007, whether it was in Boonah or Booval, Karalee or Kalbar, Ropeley or Ripley in my electorate, people told me the same thing—that Work Choices was a step too far. They told me that they had AWAs presented to them and the employer said, ‘If you don’t sign it, you don’t get the job,’ and that the absence of a fairness test meant that their wages and conditions were driven down. And for those opposite to say that they did not understand that is simply a nonsense. They knew it very well.

In conclusion I say this: my vote on this bill honours the commitment I made to the people of Blair. This bill honours the commitment that we made nationally to the people of Australia. It is a great credit to all those involved—business, unions, the stakeholders, the Deputy Prime Minister—that this bill has come in here today. I say to those opposite, as someone who has been both an employee and an employer in my working life, that businesses should always be profitable and that employees of this country want businesses to be profitable and will work to make businesses profitable, because we know that profitable businesses enhance the economy of this country and provide for our future. This bill will help the workplaces of Australia improve the cooperation between employers and employees and at the same time honour our commitment to the people of Australia. This bill is a victory for democracy. It is the greatest piece of legislation this party has brought in in 2008. It will make the biggest difference to the working lives of men and women in this country of any piece of legislation that we have passed in this House. I commend the bill to the House.

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