Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Along with my colleagues, most recently the member for Flynn, I too rise to support the Fair Work Bill 2008, the very significant piece of legislation that we are discussing in the parliament today. Next week, on 10 December, the whole world will celebrate and acknowledge the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a declaration made in 1948 and seen as one of the most significant documents that the international community has produced, possibly in living history and certainly in recent history. As we know, the Hon. Dr Evatt, a former Australian Attorney-General and significant legal and political leader in this country, was at the forefront of the signing of that declaration. Article 23 of that declaration says:

(1)

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2)

Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3)

Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4)

Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

It is such a shame that the previous government, when drafting some of the most draconian and extreme industrial relations legislation this country has ever seen, completely forgot or ignored article 23, an article that we as a nation have committed to for the past 60 years. It was thrown out for the Australian people when the Workplace Relations Bill and the Work Choices amendments were introduced into this parliament.

I am very proud to be elected to become a member of a government that has always acknowledged the significance of that particular article and to finally see in this parliament a restoration of the individual human rights of the working people of Australia as enshrined in the Fair Work Bill. I am very proud to be a supporter of the Deputy Prime Minister, whose hard work, whose incredible attention to detail and whose ability to negotiate but ultimately come up with good, balanced outcomes has seen this bill come to the parliament just 12 months since the election of the Rudd Labor government. I pay tribute to her and my parliamentary colleagues who have been involved in the drafting of this bill.

We acknowledge the article and the words contained in it, which are a very eloquent and beautiful description of the rights of working people. I think the essence of what that article represents, and indeed what the Fair Work Bill restores, is that industrial relations and our industrial relations policies should not just value work; they should value workers. That is exactly what the Fair Work Bill does. It acknowledges that working people, those who labour to earn an income, are not just another cost measure in the profit-and-loss statements of a company, they are actually people who contribute significantly to the industrial, economic and social progress of this country. Individual people who work and are employed are people who deserve the dignity that goes with that employment, who deserve proper remuneration and who deserve to be acknowledged as valuable members of this community and not just as another unit cost in the balance sheet of various companies.

In the current climate, where we face one of the most significant global financial crises that this country has seen for many years, once again we appreciate that workers are not just there to add to the profit margin of a company. They are actually there as members of a community. They go out and spend, educate their children and buy goods and services. So a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay is not just about acknowledging that individual contribution but is very important for the continued progress and growth of an economy. We cannot concentrate all the wealth in a small section of the economy and expect our overall economy to grow. We need to ensure that all people within this country have sufficient means and income to purchase what they need to manage their daily lives, to do things like go on holidays and go out to restaurants and to buy takeaways and watch the occasional DVD—the means to buy the things that they enjoy as much as to simply cover their daily living expenses.

We know that governments across the world at this very point in time are all looking at ways in which they can stimulate spending within their domestic economies in order to buffer themselves against the current financial crisis. The Australian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has led the way in acknowledging that if you in fact boost spending within the country—if you provide a stimulus package that gives working families and people on fixed and low incomes the means to continue to purchase the goods and services that they need—that money goes around and benefits all of us in terms of ensuring continued growth and productivity.

What I think is most important about the Fair Work Bill is that it does not just acknowledge the value of workers and their right to a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. It is a bill that once again restores protection to the workers in this country who are most vulnerable. We all acknowledge that there are varying degrees of skill within the workforce and varying degrees of income. No matter how lowly skilled or low-paid a job may be, every worker in this country is vital to ensuring that we all continue to enjoy the prosperity that we do. So it is very important that a government, through an industrial relations policy and through its laws, should protect those that are most vulnerable. We see in this bill the introduction of a real safety net, a genuine safety net, through the National Employment Standards. We see in this bill the right to bargain for those workers, even those on the lowest incomes and in the most vulnerable employment. For the first time they not only are protected by minimum standards but actually have the right to bargain collectively to improve their employment conditions and their rights at work.

An independent umpire is once again established with sufficient teeth to mediate and resolve disputes. This restores collective bargaining and good faith bargaining. No longer do we have a piece of legislation that is a mere sham when it talks about protecting the rights of those who are employed. No longer do we have legislation that pays lip-service to the importance of protecting everyone in the workforce, including those most vulnerable. We now have legislation that restores those legal rights with genuine requirements for mediation, for dispute resolution, for collective bargaining and for the protection of people on low incomes and in vulnerable jobs.

In the time that I have got left, I acknowledge that this legislation has come about as a result of an election commitment by the Rudd Labor government, and we have delivered. I also acknowledge the incredible community campaign that was run by the Your Rights at Work people throughout this country. Whilst the opposition has used the opportunity of this debate simply to bash unions and argue that this is somehow a piece of legislation to gain union power, it is actually a piece of legislation that acknowledges the groundswell of community opposition that existed under the previous legislation. It acknowledges that the people of Australia, through the Your Rights at Work campaign and ultimately through the ballot box, said that those draconian laws were unfair, attacked the very essence of the Australian spirit and did not reflect community attitudes towards work and the right to employment that people had previously enjoyed.

I am very pleased that through the Your Rights at Work campaign, particularly in my electorate of Bonner, the Australian people across the nation said: ‘This is enough—no more! We will support this campaign because the values and the principles that are espoused about a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, the right to collectively bargain, the right to be represented by a union and the right to restore fairness and balance to industrial negotiations and disputes are an essential part of the Australian way of life, and that is what we will support.’ So I want to put on record my congratulations to that community campaign. It was successful in electing a Labor government. But, more so, it was successful in restoring industrial justice to this country and to this parliament. I commend the bill.

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