Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a real pleasure for me to stand 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. It is a great pleasure for me to be supporting these bills with the member for Charlton in the House—a member with whom I have had a long association on these issues.

The Fair Work Act was assented to on 7 April this year and it represents, against a dark recent past in this area, a bright future for industrial relations where we have fair, flexible, stable and predictable laws. The extreme experiment of statutory individual contracts, which was undertaken by the Howard government, is now at an end and these bills provide the bridge from that dark past to the bright future.

When you listen to the ranting and the table thumping of the member for Moncrieff you get something of an idea of what is still in the heads of those in the opposition. It is very clear that deep in the recesses of their hearts the opposition is the party of Work Choices. Indeed, I think the word that the member for Moncrieff used was ‘galling’. I have no doubt that it is galling for the opposition to see Work Choices being thrown on the scrapheap. But they need to understand that what ordinary working Australians want is simply a fair system of laws and that is what these provisions provide for.

There are a number of key dates which are set out in these two pieces of legislation, as well as the road map from the past to a stable industrial relations future. Under the bills, the National Employment Standards and minimum wages will now apply to all national system employees from 1 January next year irrespective of whether they are working under an instrument which has been entered into under the Work Choices regime or under the new regime. The Australian Fair Pay Commission standards will continue as transitional minimum wage instruments for the back half of this year—1 July this year until 1 January 2010. Fair Work Australia will give its first annual wage review by 30 June 2010.

Supplementing that safety net are awards and there is a process of award modernisation underway. The process of award modernisation is intended not to reduce any person’s take-home pay. Fair Work Australia will be given the power to put in place orders to ensure that no working people suffer a significant reduction in take-home pay by virtue of awards being modernised, taking into account, of course, whether there are other provisions of a modernised award which compensate for any reduction in pay in another way.

Agreements which have been entered into under the previous law or under the new law will continue or have the ability to continue until their expiry. Unmodernised award instruments will be replaced by modernised awards as those awards are modernised. Fair Work Australia will be empowered to remove any discriminatory provisions in these instruments and to resolve any ambiguity, particularly in relation to the introduction of these instruments with National Employment Standards. Individual transitional employee agreements will continue to be able to be entered into until the end of this year—31 December 2009—and current individual agreements that workers find themselves in can be conditionally terminated in order for those workers to participate in collective bargaining.

The processes for establishing protected industrial action will not carry over to 1 July this year. That is to say, any processes for protecting industrial action which are underway right now must either result in a concluded agreement by the end of this month or if that does not occur then they will need to be re-established under the new law. Agreements lodged between 1 July this year and 1 January next year will continue to be tested against the no disadvantage test and after that time they will be tested against the new provisions in the Fair Work Act.

In terms of the industrial institutions, the Workplace Ombudsman will cease to operate from 1 July this year. The Australian Fair Pay Commission will cease to operate from 31 July this year. The Workplace Authority will continue to operate through until 31 January next year for the purpose of assessing agreements which have been entered into prior to the introduction of the new law. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission and the Australian Industrial Registry will continue through until 31 December this year but Fair Work Australia will commence from 1 July this year, meaning that there will be a dual period of operation for six months. Industrial Relations Commission members will be transitioned to Fair Work Australia on the same terms and conditions that they currently hold. There will then be a specific fair work division of the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court established from 1 July this year.

In terms of representation rights, deeming right of entry permits under the Workplace Relations Act will be valid under the Fair Work Act and arrangements will be put in place which will allow state registered unions to participate within the federal system with Fair Work Australia being given broad powers to provide for representative orders for those state registered unions.

The Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009 will operate to provide for a seamless and streamlined national industrial relations system, which is a very important microeconomic reform in the Australian economy. It will enable states to refer matters to the Commonwealth. It will provide for transitional arrangements for Victorian employees who are currently working under the Victorian provisions of the Workplace Relations Act. They will be placed into these provisions within the Fair Work Act. Indeed, it is anticipated that the state of Victoria will provide a new referral of power to cover the operation of the new provisions in the new act relating to those Victorian employees. All of that provides a framework for other states to engage in similar referrals of power to the Commonwealth.

As I stated at the outset, what these provisions do is provide the process by which we move from that dark recent past of extreme industrial laws to a fair, modern, moderate, sensible system of industrial relations. It provides for the end of statutory individual contracts—a discredited and failed experiment on the part of the Howard government, where they sought to make statutory individual contracts their pre-eminent industrial instrument in the workplace. That is now gone and what we have in its place is a return to enterprise based collective bargaining being the centrepiece of our industrial relations system and the basis upon which we establish the pre-eminent industrial instrument. In doing that, we will bring ourselves into line with the rest of the developed world.

This represents the establishment of a proper safety net. It represents the establishment of a much fairer bargaining system. It represents a balanced, settled, fair, flexible set of laws which will promote productivity and employment within our economy but will do all of that in a way which protects and enhances fairness for all working Australians. This is a set of laws which will in turn have a fair set of unfair dismissal provisions.

In a way, what typifies the approach of those on this side of the House when it comes to industrial relations—and contrasts with the approach of those on the opposition benches—is the consultative process which has been undertaken in reaching the Fair Work laws and these transitional bills. Under the Howard government we had the introduction of Work Choices, but before the 2004 election not a word of those reforms was ever breathed, and yet Work Choices became the signature reform of that term of government. There was no question of mandate; it was not even mentioned in the election, but the opposition woke up one day to discover that they had control of the Senate and they said, ‘Yippee! Here we go,’ and introduced, from their point of view, their lifelong dream of an ideologically extreme set of industrial laws. And they pushed them through the parliament in about a month.

By contrast, in the process of establishing the Fair Work Bill, we have had extensive consultation with employers and unions—and to that extent I would like to congratulate the employers and unions who have participated in extensive meetings which have given these laws a sense of robustness which simply did not exist with the previous laws. To that end I would also like to congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister for the role she has played in overseeing that consultative process. I would also, with your indulgence Mr Deputy Speaker, like to mention Andrea Lester, in the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, who has done an extraordinary amount of work in bringing all these laws to a conclusion.

These bills represent the bridge from the dark days of Work Choices to a new fair era of industrial relations in this country. These bills represent the final nail in the coffin of Work Choices. This is the end of that. It is the beginning of something bright, new and fair. And for that reason this is a very significant day indeed. I commend the bills to the House.

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