Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to follow the member for Dobell, who is on his long march to the front bench. He is only a couple of steps away. After that wonderful contribution of light and grace, I am sure he will be sitting there in the not too distant future with the member for Blaxland, who is at the table and who recently was promoted—rightfully too, I would have thought—to a higher position within the Labor Party and is on his march as well. It is a great honour to speak in this debate. I will not, however, go down the same road of vicious personal attacks that the member for Dobell unfortunately felt he had to resort to instead of concentrating on the debate—that does disappoint me. He knows the subject of the bill so well and it is so close to his heart. He spent many years working as a union official before he entered this place. I congratulate him and the other 80-odd per cent of Labor members of parliament who have followed that path.

On the Long Service Leave Legislation Amendment (Telstra) Bill 2009, I do have some familiarity with this issue. In 2006, the then government moved to ensure that Telstra workers were covered for their long service leave entitlements. The sale of Telstra meant that the workers were potentially going to fall out of the Commonwealth scheme, because they were not covered by the terms, and fall back to inconsistent state conditions. As the member for Dobell rightly pointed out in his history lesson on long service leave, different states have different levels of long service leave entitlement, which would have created massive confusion for Telstra workers, leaving some worse off and some better off. From memory, the balance was that most would have been better off but some would have missed out. So the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations moved to ensure that that situation was remedied. The then shadow minister for workplace relations, the member for Perth—who is now the Minister for Foreign Affairs—rose in this place and supported our moves at that time. It is with that same sense of bipartisanship that we stand today and support the government’s move to extend these provisions. It does raise a question, though, about what happens when the government’s plan to split Telstra up comes into being. What happens to the employees? I am sure the government are thinking at this time about what impact that will have on employees. That is the background to the issue.

Telstra is, of course, a company that over a long period has had many vicious and nasty industrial disputes. Many famous industrial disputes have originated in Telstra—or Telecom, as it was, when it was a government instrumentality. Today we see that tradition continuing. A report in the Weekend Australian is headed ‘Telstra unions set to strike’ and states:

THE five-month ceasefire between Telstra and its main union is on the verge of collapse.

This is because what had been a period of industrial harmony in Telstra has come to an end due to the changes made by the government with its Fair Work Act and particularly the good faith bargaining provisions, which will see this massive increase in industrial disputes. The Reserve Bank governor has said already that, if you have this massive increase in industrial disputes, you will see pressure being put on interest rates. That will unfortunately be the result of the government’s changes. We are seeing that already with big companies like Telstra at war with their unions because of the rights in the new act for third parties to intervene, as used to be the case. It is an issue which is very important for the parliament to consider.

It was brought to my attention by Workplace Express, which is a fantastic service dealing with industrial relations news, that the Australian Industry Group, a very firm supporter of the government, has put out a ‘First 100 days’ Fair Work Act bargaining provisions booklet, which talks about the changes brought about by the Fair Work Act and what it has done to the industrial landscape around the country. The report is actually quite critical of the new IR regime, which is surprising given the position of AiG in recent years. According to the Workplace Express report, the booklet says:

… the key principles that have emerged include that parties have the right to bargain hard and that industrial action cannot be taken prematurely.

In the booklet, the AiG says that since the 1 July introduction of the new bargaining laws the industrial climate had undoubtedly changed, with unions pursuing new claims with some vigour. This highlights the problem that we are starting to see. We have seen it with the stuff-up on the award modernisation. We have seen it with the Fair Work Act going too far and giving too much power to third parties to intervene, which will cause a massive spike in industrial disputes. That will be terrible for the Western Australian resource sector, where we are already seeing massive increases in these types of disputes. We have seen massive increases in the number of unfair dismissals. An article in yesterday’s Financial Review highlighted very strongly the changes in attitudes to unfair dismissal since the act was passed, which will of course impact enormously on small business.

In summing up, this is a bill which I support. I have had something to do with it in the past. It gives Telstra employees a lot of certainty. It does highlight the inconsistency of long service leave arrangements around the country, which is an issue I believe the government is turning its mind to. One measure that the government may be considering and which I think would be a massive mistake, particularly for long service leave, is a portable employee entitlements scheme. That would be a huge new tax for small business. It has been part of the Labor Party platform in the past; we will have to wait and see whether we see it in the future.

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