Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise as a member of the Labor Party, the political arm of the trade union movement, in support of the Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 and the Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009. These bills are another step in the Rudd government’s campaign to restore fairness to Australian workplaces. One of the worst legacies of the Howard government is the absolute shemozzle they made of workplace relations, particularly the individual contracts which were known as Australian workplace agreements.

After forgetting to mention the idea during the 2004 poll, the coalition government—drunk on the power of their Senate majority—forced an unfair, unwanted and non-mandated workplace relations system on the Australian people. Unlike the Howard government, the Rudd Labor government is holding true to our commitment to create a fairer, more balanced system. There is nothing duplicitous about our pre-poll commitment and our post-election delivery. Kevin Rudd’s word is his bond. The legislation before the House delivers our election commitment in full. 20 March 2009 was a great day for Australian workers and fair-minded employers because it was the day the Senate buried Work Choices.

This legislation drives another nail in the coffin of Work Choices. Let us hope that those opposite do not attempt to resuscitate the lumbering beast. We certainly do not want the member for Higgins to come in. The member for Mayo is also someone who is particularly interested in re-attaching electrodes to the bolts in the neck. The member for Kalgoorlie is another one of those people. We could call him Igor and hear him say: ‘The storm is at its peak. Let’s re-attach electrodes.’ Let us hopefully never have a reawakened Work Choices beast.

The legislation before the House repeals most of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and renames it the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009. It puts in place transitional arrangements to move from the old Workplace Relations Act to the new system established under the Fair Work Act 2009. This legislation outlines the bargaining and agreement-making rules which will be in place during the transition phase. For example, it allows employees on individual statutory agreements to enter into a conditional termination to enable them to participate in collective bargaining; it allows Fair Work Australia to recognise the prior bargaining history of the bargaining participants when making judgements under the Fair Work Act; and it ensures the application of the no disadvantage test to enterprise agreements made before modern awards and the start of the National Employment Standards on 1 January 2010. It also ensures that the National Employment Standards and award wages will apply to all national system employees from 1 January 2010 and sets up transitional arrangements to establish the Fair Work Ombudsman and Fair Work Australia. The Workplace Ombudsman and the Australian Fair Pay Commission will be abolished as at 1 July this year. The legislation also creates the specialist Fair Work Division of the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court.

These amendments are further evidence that the Rudd government is serious about ensuring Australians enjoy fair and balanced rights in the workplace. We are serious about enforcing these rights either through the checks and balances we have built into the system or, if necessary, through the courts. The legislation also puts in place transitional rules regarding right of entry and enables state registered unions to participate in the federal system.

I know a lot of people who fought for almost three years to rid Australian workplaces of Work Choices. With the indulgence of the House I will mention some of those who were so passionate: Terry Wood and Kate Perry from my campaign team; Andrew Ramsay and his wife, Trish, from the CFMEU, who put in so much time and effort into the Your Rights at Work campaign; Michael Ravbar from the same union; Darcy Orr, Russell Carr and Kelly Bush from the AMIEU; Ros McLennan, my campaign director, Michael Hayworth, Michael Moy, Pat Atkinson and Brad Hayes from the Queensland Independent Education Union, which I used to work for; Jonathan Mamerial, Don Brown and Braedan Hogan from the LHMU; Amanda Freude, who did so much, Genevieve Siddle and Barbara, just to mention a couple from the Queensland Nurses Union; Peter Allen, Owen Doogan and the many delegates from the RTBU who came out on the weekend to do work for the campaign; Brendan Crotty, Robyn and Ken Boyne, to name but a few from the Queensland Teachers Union; Shannon Fentiman and Andrew Dettmer from the AMWU; so many people from the plumbers union that I cannot begin to mention them all; people from CFMEU mining; Michael Clifford from the FSU; a swag of people from the ETU; David Forde, who worked tirelessly; Simon Finn; Peter Shaw; Cameron Crowther; Alan Clark-Jones; Alison Skau; Andrew Dallas; Brett Machin; Bruce Gillman; Chris Begley; Claire Stimpson; Dallas Elvery; Daniel Doran; Denise Redfern; Gary O’Halloran; Gaye Vale; Geoff Taylor; Ian Bosley; Ian Wallis; Jo Clark-Jones; Joan McGrath; John Park; John Savill; John Wheeler; Julie-Ann Cork; Justine Clark; Karen Struthers; Larissa Knight; Len Ardill, the legend; Lyn Griffiths; Marcus Smith; Noel Morris; Norm Bullen; Rod Beisel; Rose Matters; Steve Griffiths; David Newman; Doreen Ferney; Nick and Shannon Sahlqvist; Greg McPhee; Jean Rousseaux; Jill Ashmore; Yasmine Childs; Peter Allen; and Faisal Hatia.

Those are just some of the people in my electorate who care about fairness in the workplace. Obviously, there are many more. Many are passionate about some workplace rights, such as the ABCC, where we still have some discussions to go. More importantly, as I am sure those opposite know, many employers also had concerns about unfair workplaces. The problem was that it was a race to the bottom. It did not matter how fair you were as an employer. If the employer next door in the same industry was prepared to be a bad boss, then they lowered wages and it was a race to the bottom, otherwise you were not able to compete. It did not matter how fair you were; it was how unfair the business next door was.

It is good to see that the Rudd Labor government is committed to bringing fairness back to the workplace. Unfortunately, one state has some concern about those referral powers. Perhaps some states are prepared to dance with the devil again. I am sure the House will remember that Western Australia led the rush towards unfairness in the last century—not at the start of the century at the time of the horse and buggy but at the end of the century. The member for Charlton might remember very well when Western Australia brought in the Western Australian workplace agreements—WAWAs, as they were called. On election night on 24 November 2007 ‘wah, wah’ was heard in more than 20 electorates when people spoke about employment practices in Australia—‘We don’t want unfair workplaces.’ That was a different time, from when John Howard had control of the Senate through to election night on 24 November 2007.

In these tough times around the globe it is a time for harmony and fairness, not division and fear. Some of my friends who are industrial relations lawyers agree. One mate of mine—and I do not think he votes Labor—is a lawyer. In giving advice to employers he had to do his job properly so he gave advice to employers that meant they basically almost had to be bad bosses to compete with the businesses that were taking advantage of John Howard’s workplace legislation. It would be unAustralian if we were to go down that road again. I have been listening to some of the speeches of those opposite. I can see that the seeds are there and they are happy to try to sow those seeds of division again. This would be a dangerous thing to do for Australia. It is not what we need. It is not what fair-minded employers need. It is certainly not what employees need.

I remember vividly on election day in 2007 a group of young plumbers. People talk about jackbooted union bosses, but they were not those kinds of people at all. In 2004 you would barely have been able to motivate these young fellows to get off their backsides to vote, but in 2007 they were in T-shirts handing out how-to-vote cards at the front of the booth. Why? Because they understood that what John Howard had done was unfair.

I hope those opposite do not pick another election based on workplace relations. This is not what Australia needs. If they want to do so, then bring it on. If we need to have an election, it should be on the emissions trading scheme or nation building—something that is important for the future of this country. Surely those opposite do stand for something and they will pick the right thing to go to an election on. The Irish poet Yeats said that too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. We all recognise that we do not need to battle over workplace relations in Australia all over again. It is time for fairness. I hope those opposite understand this. I commend the bills to the House.

See this speech in context