Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to join with my colleagues in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008. And, of course, this bill is the very reason why there are so many new Labor colleagues—and there are three here in the chamber with me right now—in the House. This is the law the Australian people and so many thousands of people in my electorate of Capricornia sent us here to vote for, to enact and to bring into effect in workplaces right around the country. I am very pleased to say that this bill builds on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act—enacted by parliament in March—which ended the making of AWAs, introduced a genuine no disadvantage test for agreements and commenced award modernisation. Now this Fair Work Bill goes further and it heralds a new and exciting era of workplace relations for Australia.

It is not only that. This bill puts behind us the former government’s dreaded Work Choices legislation. The Fair Work Bill buries the extreme legislation introduced by the Howard government—introduced in an absolute show of arrogance, without any mandate—and it puts to an end the threats it represented for working families in this country. For example, there was the threat of lower pay and of losing entitlements like penalty rates and overtime. Those are the payments that workers rely on to keep their families afloat financially. There was the threat of losing your job for operational reasons—or, in other words, for any reason at all—or even for no reason if you worked in a business with under 100 employees. There was the threat of being forced onto an AWA, of signing away wages and award conditions without compensation.

For my electorate of Capricornia, I knew what a disastrous toll this would have on families and workers, especially young workers like the ones we heard the member for Solomon describe. It would affect people from hairdressers and childcare workers in town to mining workers in the Bowen Basin. It would spell the demise of workers’ rights while simultaneously knotting red tape around small business. In all, it was a piece of failed legislation from a failed government. Work Choices was rejected by the Australian people at the election last year because it was too extreme. It went too far against the ethos of a fair go, which has defined our national character for over a century.

So it gives me great satisfaction to speak as part of a government that is fulfilling its election commitment to bring back the fair go, to bring back balance into the workplace, to deliver workplace relations reform that is equitable, fair and progressive, and that is what the Fair Work Bill 2008 does. It builds on our policy statement ahead of the election last year, Forward with Fairness. This legislation fulfils our election promise to the Australian people and ratifies the mandate given to us by the public.

The bill delivers fairness and flexibility for Australian workers and their employers and it will also deliver greater productivity and engagement in the workforce at a time when the country needs it the most, at a time when such legislation can act as one of the many important building blocks to protect Australians from the global financial crisis and the economic challenges that we face in the coming months. As the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has already stated, the bill delivers the correct balance between employers and employees. It creates a system that is simple, straightforward and accessible. The contrast with Work Choices is obvious. This new system of workplace relations is set out in a piece of legislation half the size of the Work Choices legislation and without the level of complexity that saw workers and businesses trying to navigate their way around three different authorities and that saw unnecessary interference in the relationship between employers and employees.

I will turn now to some of the key features of the Fair Work Bill. The main thing that I know Australians are looking for us to bring back is a fair and comprehensive safety net of employment conditions that cannot be stripped away. Under this legislation all workers in Australia will be covered by the National Employment Standards. These are legislated minimum standards that cannot be overridden by any other industrial instrument. The National Employment Standards set out 10 minimum standards and include, among other things, maximum weekly hours of work, parental leave, annual leave and long service leave. In addition, those workers earning less than $100,000 per year will have the protection of modern awards. It is important to note that that $100,000 figure will be indexed, and it has to be guaranteed earnings, so it does not include things like overtime or bonuses; it is the salary that you know you will be paid in any given year.

The modern awards will be made by Fair Work Australia on an industry or occupation basis and will provide conditions over a further 10 subject matters—things like minimum wages and classifications, overtime rates, penalty rates, allowances and superannuation. In contrast, Work Choices would have seen awards wither on the vine. We want them to be a robust and relevant part of the safety net. We want them to be reflective of changing community standards and to offer genuine improvements in working conditions. Under our system minimum wages will be adjusted annually and they will be adjusted according to economic and social factors. This is a genuine safety net, the kind of safety net that Work Choices ripped away, leaving workers insecure and ripped off.

Employers can enter into agreements with their employees, whether collective agreements or common-law contracts, but those agreements must leave every employee better off overall than the applicable award and they cannot remove conditions of National Employment Standards and they cannot fall below minimum wages at any time. That is the kind of safety net that people in Australia are looking for and it is what this Fair Work Bill will provide.

Turning now to enterprise bargaining, over and above the safety net there is the opportunity for employers and employees to engage in collective bargaining at the enterprise level, to agree on arrangements that deliver rewards to workers in recognition of productivity improvements. This bill provides a framework for fair bargaining at the enterprise level. One feature of this system is that employers must bargain collectively where a majority of employees want to enter into a bargaining process. That is just logical and fair; no-one could argue with the fairness of that kind of democratic process. Employees’ rights to be represented by their union must be respected.

This system relies on the parties bargaining in good faith, which is what we would expect to happen and what does happen in workplaces right around Australia each and every day. For those instances where good faith bargaining is not taking place, it is possible to go back to the independent umpire, Fair Work Australia, and obtain orders requiring parties to bargain in good faith—again, that is a fair and reasonable requirement of this legislation. Ultimately there is arbitration available where those good faith orders and the penalties attached to them are completely ignored, but, again, in the vast majority of cases that is not going to be the case. There is also multiemployer bargaining available. In those circumstances there is no protected industrial action and no protected action for pattern bargaining. There is the ability, for the first time, for low-paid workers to get the assistance of Fair Work Australia to help them engage in the bargaining system and to get the rewards that they deserve for improved productivity.

Something that I know workers in my electorate will be looking for in this legislation is the return of decent and strong protection from unfair dismissal. Unfair dismissal rights are returned. There are special provisions made for workers in small business, trying to make the system for protecting workers’ rights in those situations simple, accessible and not overly onerous on employers but still making sure that employees have appropriate protection.

There are also enhanced protections from discrimination and for freedom of association. In particular I want to mention that there is now a protection for carers against discrimination. Discrimination involving any conflict between their working role and their caring role is now prohibited. As a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family, Community, Housing and Youth, which inquired into the role of carers in Australia, I know that measure will be welcomed by people doing that wonderful job for their loved ones.

In conclusion, I remind the House, if we needed reminding, that the lesson of the last election tells us how important it is for governments to get workplace relations right—to make sure that workers are given the opportunity to work with their employers to find ways that they can work smarter and more productively, to find ways to contribute to the success and profitability of the organisation that they work for and for those efforts to be recognised and rewarded through appropriate wages and working conditions. It is government’s job to create a framework that encourages and facilitates that cooperation in workplaces, to underpin the relationship between employers and employees with a strong safety net and to provide a fair and reasonable mechanism to resolve disputes should they occur.

The hundreds of people who attended rallies and the dozens who stuffed envelopes and staffed street stalls in my electorate last year told me that the previous government got it wrong. I want to thank them for their support in the fight against Work Choices. It is in their name that I will be voting for this Fair Work Bill when I get the opportunity.

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