Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—It is with great pleasure that I sum up after what has been not only a very extensive debate in this parliament on the Fair Work Bill 2008 but also a very extensive debate in this nation about what we wanted as a nation from workplace relations, and of course people voted to reject Work Choices, voted for fairness and balance, and that is what this legislation delivers. This has been an extensive debate and I thank all members of the government that have spoken during the course of it. I thank those opposition members who have contributed as well. We have seen a variety of contributions, with some members coming out as Work Choices supporters loud and proud, and some of them instead saying that they recognise Labor’s mandate—but always through gritted teeth, because the Work Choices ideology pumps very solidly through their veins.

What I want to do in this summing-up is deal with some of the sillier things that have been said during this debate as they should not stand unchallenged on the public record as descriptions of what is in the Fair Work Bill. Those descriptions, coming from opposition members, have been made to try to squirm and find an excuse to defeat this bill when it goes to the Senate. It is very transparent. That is what the opposition is on about—looking for any excuse to thwart the mandate of the Australian people and their wish for fairness and balance in Australian workplaces. Consequently, we will not allow those myths to stand on the public record.

First, let me state this very clearly: we are implementing the Forward with Fairness policy, the policy approved by the Australian people. We are implementing it clearly. We are implementing it with the strongest possible mandate. We have undertaken an unprecedented level of consultation with businesses, small businesses, unions, people who work in every sector of the economy. We have listened to their legitimate concerns. We have presented to this parliament a bill that puts workplace relations right where it should be—in the dead centre, where the pendulum should be, between the interests of employers and employees. It is a fair and balanced bill.

Members opposite have asserted that the Fair Work Bill will have a catastrophic effect on employment levels. Of course, this claim is nonsense. I remember that every day they used to stand at this dispatch box and say that Work Choices was the thing that was propping the economy up. Not many opposition members make those claims now. They were silly then; they are silly now. Obviously, there are a variety of factors that go into the employment horizons in our economy. What the government has been saying very clearly is that we are not immune from the global financial crisis, and everything we have done has been to keep this nation in front and protect jobs. But one of the things we also need to do is make sure we do not leave employers and employees in months of legislative limbo and uncertainty about what the workplace relations laws of this country will be. In these difficult times we should be delivering certainty, stability, productivity and flexibility, and that is exactly what this bill does. We need employees to have confidence that their pay and conditions are secure; we need a truly national workplace relations system; and we need a system that develops productivity and flexibility. We need all of this now. So there should be no unnecessary delay in the Senate in dealing with this legislation.

The shadow minister for employment and workplace relations has claimed that the government has not analysed the regulatory and economic impacts of the key legislative proposals contained in this bill. This claim, like much else said during the debate, is not true. Seventy-seven pages of analysis are included in the explanatory memorandum to the bill. The Office of Best Practice Regulation agrees that this analysis has effectively documented the regulatory implications of the legislative proposals.

We know that productivity based bargaining and flexibility are at the heart of the new system and studies show that collective agreement making is good for productivity. Bargaining allows employers and employees to examine the way they work, discover ways to improve productivity and efficiency and make workplaces more flexible. This keeps wages in line with productivity growth and helps to control inflation. We should remind ourselves that Work Choices coincided with a poor productivity performance. Annual productivity growth averaged only 1.2 per cent between March 2006 and September 2007 compared to the annual average over the previous two decades of 2.3 per cent.

This bill delivers to the Australian people what we promised them—fair protections and a productive workforce. As promised in Forward with Fairness, the Fair Work Bill outlaws pattern bargaining. False claims have been made about this during this debate. Industrial action in support of pattern bargaining is clearly prohibited and an injunction can be sought direct from the court to restrain any such industrial action. An employer who does not want to bargain for a multi-employer agreement is protected from adverse action, from coercion and from discrimination for being covered or not covered by a particular kind of agreement.

Perhaps one of the most distressing claims made in this debate was that somehow the low-paid bargaining stream is a form of pattern bargaining. These claims are nonsense. We went to the Australian people at the last election with a clear commitment in Forward with Fairness to help low-paid employees and their employers to gain access to enterprise bargaining and the benefits it brings. Through enterprise bargaining, businesses gain productivity and service delivery improvements, they keep good staff and staff morale is improved. Through productivity gains employees achieve real improvements to wages and conditions. We want to allow as many Australian employees and employers as possible to receive the benefits of enterprise bargaining. We know that there are people who have been left behind in sectors like cleaning, community work and security. We want through this bill to enable our industrial umpire, Fair Work Australia, to be able to convene conferences, help to identify productivity improvements to underpin an agreement and generally guide parties through the negotiating process.

When bargaining fails and agreement cannot be reached for a particular employer or employers, then Fair Work Australia in very limited circumstances can make a workplace determination to resolve the issues in bargaining. In order to make a workplace determination, Fair Work Australia must be satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of agreement, that the employees are employed substantially on the safety net and have never had a collective agreement, that it would be in the interests of promoting bargaining in the future, that productivity and efficiency in the enterprise or enterprises concerned would be promoted and that it is in the public interest. Further, in making a workplace determination, Fair Work Australia must ensure that employers are able to remain competitive and must consider how productivity in the enterprise may be improved. This framework delivers on our election commitment and could only be opposed by those who are not at all distressed by the circumstances of the low paid in our community. Labor believes they deserve justice. We believe they deserve the benefits of enterprise bargaining and that is why this low-paid bargaining stream is in the bill.

Throughout the debate, members opposite have also claimed that the Fair Work Bill enables bargaining fees. Nothing—I repeat: nothing—in the bill allows a union to impose bargaining fees on a person without their consent. It is plainly misleading and mischievous for members opposite to suggest anything to the contrary. The effect of the provisions in the Fair Work Bill is exactly the same as the current provisions in the Workplace Relations Act, which date back to 2003.

As outlined in Forward with Fairness, compulsory arbitration is not a feature of the new system, despite claims to the contrary. The Fair Work Bill delivers on this promise. The focus of the new system is to encourage employees and employers to bargain in good faith and reach agreement voluntarily. This is the way that most bargaining takes place. Employers and unions must bargain in good faith. This means that they must meet, exchange positions and refrain from capricious and unfair conduct. But good faith bargaining does not require either side to make concessions or to make an agreement. The new system is not about delivering access to arbitration any time parties get into a disagreement during the bargaining process. Far from it. Parties can take a tough stance in negotiations. Workplace determinations can only be made in clearly defined circumstances: when industrial action is causing significant harm to the national economy or threatening the health and safety of the community, where a protracted dispute is causing significant economic harm to the bargaining participants, or where a party has engaged in serious and sustained breaches of good faith bargaining requirements and is flouting the law. We believe such conduct should not be rewarded.

Forward with Fairness outlined that we would fully respect the right of employees to join and be represented by a union or not to do so as they wish. Using its tired old anti-union mantra, the opposition claims we have breached our commitments. Far from it—we are implementing our policy to the letter. There are no longer union or non-union agreements. All agreements will be made directly with employees. Where 50 per cent of employees approve an agreement, the agreement is made. Employees can be represented in the bargaining process by a union or by another person they nominate.

The government promised in Forward with Fairness that it would maintain existing right of entry rules and outlined those commitments in detail. The government promised that our right of entry laws would strike a balance between the right of employees to be represented by unions and the right of employers to run their businesses. The Fair Work Bill delivers on all of these promises. Unions will have to comply with very strict conditions of entry. They must hold a permit, give 24 hours notice and comply with strict requirements for conduct on site. Sanctions apply to a permit holder who misuses entry rights or acts inappropriately. Importantly, when a union exercises entry for discussion purposes, it can only hold discussions with workers who want to participate in those discussions. The union cannot compel workers to speak to it.

The claims that we are swinging wildly in favour of unions on right of entry are arrant nonsense. It was the extreme, anti-union Work Choices laws that in 2005 provided for the first time that non-union agreements and AWAs permanently removed the right of entry for unions to enter to hold discussions with employees. In our view, this was completely over the top and a blatant breach of a person’s fundamental right to join and be represented by a union if that is their wish.

We all have an interest in making sure awards are complied with and rogue employers do not get away with underpaying employees. Unions have a longstanding role under industrial relations legislation, even under Work Choices, to investigate suspected breaches of awards and to take recovery action to make sure employees are paid correctly. We are allowing a right of entry permit holder to inspect those documents that are directly relevant to investigating a breach of the award or the act that affects a member of the union. Any claim that this can be used to copy lists of names and addresses of employees is nonsense. We are also introducing very strict requirements on the use that can be made of any such documents. Privacy Act requirements apply and any misuse results in a significant fine and the cancellation of the permit. The right of entry scheme we have put forward in the Fair Work Bill gets the balance right between the rights of employees to join and be represented by a union and the right of employers to run their businesses free of interference.

In closing, this is a good day for Australian working people—a good day for anybody who believes in fairness, decency and balance in Australian workplaces. I understand that it is a difficult day for the Liberal Party. We understand that the Liberal Party is now the party of Work Choices and will always be the party of Work Choices. There is only one simple proposition that now stands in front of the Liberal Party in this place and in the Senate when the Fair Work Bill reaches it—that is, are they going to stand in the way of the Australian people who voted for these policies at the last election?

The Leader of the Opposition said Work Choices was dead. Every day since members of his political party have supported Work Choices and have left the impression that the Liberal Party of this country will do everything it can to frustrate this bill becoming law. Can I say to members of the Liberal Party and to the Leader of the Opposition what the Australian people are expecting them to do, whatever they believe. They can well and truly believe in Work Choices every day they are in this parliament and every day they live; they can have the term ‘Work Choices’ put on their gravestones if that is what they believe is the animating principle of their involvement in public life. That is a matter for them; but what is not a matter for them is standing in the way of what the Australian people want.

This bill will go from here to the Senate irrespective of how opposition members vote now. In the Senate we are expecting an inquiry process. That is proper. But we are not expecting that inquiry to be used to hold up the delivery of this bill and we are not expecting the opposition in the Senate to play games, to hold this bill up or to stop the delivery of what the Australian people want. The Australian people will be watching this process very carefully and they will be judging the Liberal Party by it.

I conclude by thanking all those who have been involved in the development of this bill—all of my caucus colleagues, particularly my caucus colleagues who served on the caucus reference group; my own staff, who laboured on it long and hard; the departmental staff, who may be looking a little bit hollow-eyed in the advisers box over there because they have laboured long and hard on this over the course of the year as well. I thank them for their professionalism and their dedication to this task. I think the fact that this bill is short compared to Work Choices, that it is clearly drafted and that it can be read and understood is a great testament to their endeavours, and I thank them very much for that. I am proud we have got to this stage. I am delighted that we have got to this stage on the last sitting day of this year, and we look forward to this bill becoming law in 2009.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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