Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Fair Work Bill 2008. I do so with a great sense of pride. Of all the speeches I have delivered to this parliament in the past 12 months—and there have been many—this is the bill, this is the legislation, this is the fairness that I wanted to see introduced and passed by this parliament. This is the bill that restores balance and fairness back into the workplace, and this is the bill that the majority of my community, the Flynn electorate, voted for at the last federal election.

Defending workers’ rights has been the cornerstone of my existence and is the main reason why I am standing here today delivering this speech to federal parliament as the first ever federal member for Flynn. In 1996, frustrated with the way in which workers’ rights were being handled, I joined the Australian Labor Party to have a strong voice for them. Some 10 years later, I ran for and nearly won the seat of Gladstone, obtaining a swing of approximately 10 per cent on the back of standing up for my community and for workers’ rights. That was in 2006. Shortly after that election was done and dusted, I gave an interview to the Australian newspaper warning the then Howard federal coalition government that workers’ rights were very much a live issue. The then federal coalition government, in its wisdom, chose to ignore that advice.

In early 2007, when the now Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, asked me to run for the seat of Flynn, it was an easy decision. Apart from the fact that I believed that he would make a great leader, and he has, and apart from the fact that I wanted to deliver for my community, and I have, I dearly wanted to be part of a government that would get rid of that insidious piece of legislation, Work Choices—and we will. Some six months before the federal election, I took out an ad in the local newspapers. I have a copy of it in front of me. The title for all to see reads:

I suspect that the history books will show that in 2007 the great Australian tradition of mates sticking up for mates was still very much alive and well in Australia and that fairness in the workplace was paramount to preserve the dignity of the human spirit.

The rest is history. Mates did speak up for mates, and the Labor Party stuck up for workers.

This bill delivers on Labor’s promises to sweep away Work Choices and to replace it with a fair workplace relations system. This legislation is about preservation of the dignity of the human spirit. When you strip away basic work entitlements like the previous government did, you tear away at the very heart of the human spirit. You take away from people their dignity, their self-respect, their honour, their pride, their ability to look after their partner and their ability to look after their children. That is what the Liberal-National Party did. The basic, fundamental right of a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay was not something the Liberal-National Party had a right to take—it belonged to our forefathers who built this great nation of ours and fought so hard for fairness—yet the Liberal-National Party did. They sought to turn the clock back 100 years, to turn our great nation back to the serfs and the bourgeoisie, and they paid for their obnoxious behaviour at the ballot box. The last thing the working people of Flynn need is another Liberal-National Party government in the future reintroducing Work Choices, or a Liberal-National Party member of parliament who believes in taking away people’s basic rights at work, their power of flight, their dignity and their self-respect.

This legislation takes us forward with fairness, something Labor promised to do and has done with this legislation. It vindicates and gives acknowledgement and thanks to all those who believed in Your Rights at Work: Worth Fighting For—for themselves, for their mates, for the children and for the grandchildren of Australia. To those who manned the booths for Your Rights at Work and for Labor in Flynn and who believed in a fair go: thank you. The Rudd Labor government has now returned the favour; it has honoured your hard work and commitment to a fair go.

This bill supports employees, families, businesses and the economy. As we know, the Liberal-National Party’s extreme Work Choices laws took away workers’ basic rights at work. The Liberal-National Party government, through Work Choices, removed conditions from awards, kept minimum wages low, used individual contracts to undercut rights, kept fair representation by unions out of workplaces, reduced workers’ bargaining rights, slashed unfair dismissal laws, reduced the powers of the independent umpire and allowed the great divide between the rich and the poor to grow even wider. The Work Choices legislation was unjust, unfair, harsh, unconscionable and un-Australian. Today this legislation, our legislation for Forward with Fairness introduced by the Rudd Labor government, sends a clear message to all Australians that when the going gets tough you will be glad that you have got Labor on your side. The Rudd Labor government promised to the Australian people it would deliver and it has now delivered.

The bill, among other things, delivers on the government’s commitment to establish a new and independent industrial umpire. It also delivers a fair and comprehensive safety net of minimum employment conditions; a system that has, at its very heart, bargaining in good faith at the enterprise level; protection from unfair dismissal for all employees; protection for the low paid; the ability to balance work and family life; and the right to be represented in the workplace.

Today is a great day for the mums and dads of Australia. Today is a great day for our kids and the kids of the future. No longer will workers be crushed under the Liberal-National Party’s extreme ideology. Today is a bad day for the Liberal-National Party opposition and those greedy individuals and companies who ripped off workers under Work Choices because of greed or simply because they could. Greed is that infectious and insidious disease that was supported by the Liberal-National Party government and struck at the very heart of fairness for working families, and that now has culminated in the global financial crisis that threatens our very existence.

Today is a good day for working people, for those who give of their labour and just expect fair wages and a fair go in return. Shame on the Liberal-National Party government who put greed in front of the dignity of the human spirit. I congratulate the Rudd Labor government, of which I am proud to be a member standing here today, for its outstanding leadership on fairness in the workplace. I commend this bill to the House.

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