Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a matter of public record that on 24 November last year the former government was defeated and the Rudd government was elected to office. As part of the manifesto of the Rudd government there was the former opposition’s approach to industrial relations. One of the key reasons that the former government lost office was a very effective campaign against the Work Choices legislation maintained by the trade union movement, who are being rewarded in this bill, and also by the then opposition, now the government. Unlike some other honourable members, particularly those on the other side of the House, I do not share the enthusiasm for this legislation, the Fair Work Bill 2008. In fact, I believe that the legislation before the House does not deserve the enthusiasm that some members have shown for it.

In a situation where we have a global economic crisis, we find that legislation before the chamber seeking to implement the government’s mandate will bring about increased power for trade unions and increased business costs and will cost jobs. Only yesterday in the parliament the opposition asked the Deputy Prime Minister how many people would lose their jobs by Christmas. The Deputy Prime Minister, besides bagging out the honourable member who asked the question, simply did not have an answer, other than to say that the government conceded that there would be some loss of employment.

There has been debate over the years on what a mandate actually means. ‘Mandate’ is a word that has grown up and has been discussed, and in fact there was a rather interesting research paper by JR Nethercote published on 11 May 1999 which dealt with, among other things, the analysis, meaning and character of mandate doctrine. We admit that the government, by being elected, does have a mandate to change industrial relations laws, but among the findings in this particular paper was:

• mandate is a political idea in two senses. Mandate doctrine derives from the politics of responsible government on a democratic basis. It does not derive from constitutional, legal or parliamentary prescription.

Also, the paper found:

… mandate doctrine has been mainly developed by politicians in political forums rather than by philosophers or academics …

It then goes on to say, as one of its findings:

• there is considerable debate about what a mandate is. Does it apply to the entire platform (or manifesto) of a winning party only to the more important item or to matters mainly the subject of contention during a campaign? And can others, apart from winners, claim to have a mandate? Likewise, there is considerable debate about how a mandate may be discerned—seats in a legislature, seats in which chamber of a legislature or the voting strengths which lie behind respective party strengths in parliament? And what of voting strength not translated into representation?

Academic analysis of the concept of mandate is divided. It has been said by some that the legitimacy of democratic politics requires that, as much as possible, commitments made on the hustings should be honoured once the election result is settled, recognising that there are circumstances where a mandate will lose its relevance or be overtaken by events.

We concede that the government has a mandate. In 1998, however, we went to the Australian people seeking support as part of our election campaign for the introduction of a goods and services tax. Despite the fact that we received a mandate from the Australian people, that mandate was not respected by the then opposition. In fact, we had to come to arrangements with the Australian Democrats to bring in a second-best—probably an 85 per cent second-best—goods and services policy that was not as simple as it otherwise would have been, because the Australian Labor Party would not respect the mandate given to us at the election. The opposition will not oppose this legislation, as has been indicated by the Leader of the Opposition, because, unlike the Labor Party, the opposition has determined that it will respect the mandate given to the government by the Australian people.

That brings me to the other point that emanates from some of the findings in the paper on mandate by the Australian Parliamentary Library. It says that a mandate is there ‘recognising that there are circumstances where a mandate will lose its relevance or be overtaken by events’. My argument is that the global economic crisis has brought about a new world order that should be factored into the situation by the government when considering whether industrial relations reforms should be brought about at this time.

There was a very interesting article by the Editor-at-Large of the Australian, Paul Kelly, published on Saturday, 29 November, under the headline ‘IR reforms asking for trouble’. I will quote from that article. I would commend honourable members read the article. It was a very thoughtful and objective insight into the concerns and problems which this legislation will bring to Australia. Mr Kelly commences by saying:

Kevin Rudd shouts from the rooftops each day that the global financial crisis has changed the world, but the Prime Minister does not believe his own words. A bizarre fate has befallen Australia. At the precise time it faces a global crisis, a business downturn and rising unemployment, the Rudd Government is recasting workplace relations to increase trade union powers, inhibit employment and impose new costs on employers.

He goes on to say that normally this would defy logic and ‘it would seem the essence of irresponsibility’, but highlights the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister, contrary to what you would expect, has been seen as a ‘political hero’. He then goes on to say:

It is as though Australia’s workplace relations system exists in some interterrestrial immunity from the rest of the economic world.

The global crisis means everything has changed: the budget goes into deficit—

as admitted by the Prime Minister recently—

fiscal stimulus replaces fiscal restraint, the Reserve Bank does a volte-face and begins to slash interest rates, and the Government guarantees deposits as Rudd declares the crisis is “sweeping across the world”.

But—

and this is one of the key points that Mr Kelly makes—

standing immovable is Labor’s support for greater trade union power, more costly restrictions on employers, a greater role for the revamped industrial relations commission, an effective end to individual statutory contracts, a revival of arbitration, and a sharp weakening of direct employer and non-union employee bargaining.

What he really says is that the government may well have had a mandate for the legislation but ought to have considered the matter more carefully and ought to not have effectively brought in the legislation at this time. He makes a number of key points. I believe that, although the government may well have a mandate, the government ought to have considered the situation in the light of what has changed since that fateful day of 24 November, when the people of Australia voted for a new government.

Paul Kelly concludes his article by saying:

In the interim, the Government will be responsible for all the consequences of imposing on Australia at a time of unusual financial crisis a workplace relations system that means higher costs, a weaker labour market, a more interventionist umpire and a union movement with greater legal powers.

It is not too late for the Deputy Prime Minister to reconsider this matter. It might be a case of good politics but bad policy. Having said that, the opposition has indicated that it will not oppose the legislation, although in the Senate obviously consideration will be given to certain aspects of the legislation, particularly the aspects which go beyond the government’s promise at the 2007 election.

This legislation does not simply bury Work Choices; it also undoes some of the Howard government’s reforms of 1996. It actually reaches back to the past and guts some of the reforms brought in by the Keating government, way back in 1993. It will be interesting to know what the Deputy Prime Minister will be saying to the people cast on the employment scrapheap—the people who lose their jobs before Christmas and the people who lose their jobs after Christmas simply because the Deputy Prime Minister has become a victim of ideology and has forgotten to consider the interests of people and the rights of working Australians to actually keep work.

The legislation also includes some compulsory arbitration, it also enables pattern bargaining and it also expands the right of entry of unions. This is inconsistent with what the Deputy Prime Minister has said on many occasions. Time precludes me giving all of the statements made by the Deputy Prime Minister, but I would like to quote a couple of them. In a speech to the National Press Club on 30 May 2007, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

The fourth untruth is that Labor’s new body, Fair Work Australia, will re-empower ‘union bosses’ and reintroduce both ‘compulsory arbitration’ and ‘centralized wage fixation’.

The Deputy Prime Minister, on 3 September of the same year, was asked this question by a journalist during a doorstop interview:

JOURNALIST: Julia just another question, it’s probably not of interest to other people. Under what circumstances would compulsory arbitration be treated under the Labor system?

JULIA: As we’ve said in our policy, that there are a very limited number of circumstances where you need the industrial umpire to step in and resolve a dispute. It’s the sort of safety valve that has always been in our industrial relations system. If you have got a dispute that is threatening safety or health or the national economy, an intractable dispute that is causing significant hard, they are they kind of circumstances in which the industrial umpire would be able to resolve the dispute. But in the ordinary course people who are collectively bargaining at their enterprise level, all of that bargaining will happen at the enterprise level, they will either strike an agreement or not strike an agreement.

The Deputy Prime Minister has said that there will not be pattern bargaining. That is what she said in response to a question on 1 May 2007 at a doorstop interview. She said:

That is completely untrue. Pattern bargaining in the sense of having industry wide action is unlawful under Labor’s Forward with Fairness plans.

A little later, on 30 May, she said:

Pattern bargaining is a term used to describe bargaining across the whole industry. That’s not what Labor’s policy is about.

As an aside, I read, as you probably did, Mr Deputy Speaker, in the Australian yesterday a report stating:

FORMER union chief Greg Combet successfully pushed for compulsory arbitration powers—

and the article is headlined ‘Combet responsible for pattern bargaining clause’.

The government likes to dress up this legislation as being the implementation of an election promise. It certainly is, to an extent. The opposition respects the fact that the government does have a mandate. From a personal point of view, I have problems with the legislation. From a personal point of view, I believe that, even if one concedes that the government has a mandate, things have so dramatically changed in the 12 months since the election that the legislation ought not to be considered at all at this time. The opposition does respect a mandate, unlike the way that the now government—the then opposition—refused to accept the Howard government’s mandate for a goods and services tax. So in this particular matter, I suppose you could say that the now opposition is a lot more politically ethical than the Australian Labor Party has been over the years.

In the time remaining to me, I want to point out that we did not have a desperate situation in industrial relations in Australia prior to the introduction of the Fair Work Bill and that the Howard-Costello government has much to be proud of. We left a very proud legacy. The Howard government has a record of getting people into jobs. In fact, close to two million jobs were created. Most of those were permanent jobs and some were temporary jobs, and we also had a record without peer of keeping people in work. We created and managed prosperity and growth, and sadly that has already been squandered by the current government. The opposition is gravely concerned about the impact of the bill before the House on jobs and job creation, particularly given these difficult, trying and uncertain economic times.

The union movement in Australia ran a very strong campaign during the last election opposing the Work Choices legislation. I must say that I did not like the ads very much, but they were certainly effective. The fact that the government is now the government and the opposition is now the opposition is testimony I suppose to the skills of the former union chief, now a member of parliament, Mr Combet, and to the government’s tacticians more generally. However, having said that, the fact that the legislation has been brought in and is now seeking to change things so dramatically does not mean that the outcome will be what the Australian community thought it was voting for. The Australian community at the last election did vote for change in industrial relations, but they did not vote for higher unemployment, more trade union power or increased costs of business. The best way to create jobs in Australia is to have an economy where business is able to grow and invest. At a time when some 20 per cent of companies could potentially be in trouble in the not too distant future, one would think the last thing any government would want to do would be to make it more difficult for those businesses to continue.

The union movement’s campaign has been very strongly rewarded. In this legislation, the union is being given access to workplaces and access to non-union-member records. This is certainly a breach of privacy but what the government is clearly doing is repaying a debt. I would like to refer the parliament to an article in the Herald Sun:

UNIONS will gain access to thousands of new workplaces—even those where they have no members—under … industrial changes …

I would also like to draw the House’s attention to the provisions which the article in the Herald Sun points out. It says:

And workers will be able to take bosses to court over something as trivial as a roster change, with possible fines of up to $30,000.

The article goes on to say:

Employers fear unions, with their dwindling memberships, will enjoy new influence—

on the basis of this legislation and I suppose on the basis of the fact that we now have a Labor government.

This legislation is all about reward and payback. The Australian people might think that they are in fact receiving, in legislation, something they voted for, but the Australian people voted for the change of government not being aware of the impending economic crisis and not being aware, in my view, of the adverse impacts which we will see flowing from this legislation. Governments ought to be flexible, and the government, having got a mandate on 24 November 2007, ought to have looked at its mandate and at the dire economic crisis confronting the world and posed the question to itself whether it was appropriate for this draconian legislation before the chamber today to actually proceed at this time. I am pleased to have made this contribution. I make it clear I am anything but enthusiastic about the provisions of this bill. I accept the government has a mandate, but I believe the government ought not—(Time expired)

See this speech in context