Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (State Referrals and Other Measures) Bill 2009. This bill seeks, among other things, to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to allow state governments to refer their existing industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, specifically relating to unincorporated employers. Under the provisions of the bill, state governments will be able to amend or terminate the referral of industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth with as little as three months notice.

Under the bill, any future amendment to the Fair Work Act will not proceed unless it is endorsed by a two-thirds majority of referring state and territory governments. This is quite disturbing. It is an alarming measure because it effectively gives state governments control of the future direction of Commonwealth laws. Although the coalition started the movement towards a national regime in 2006, it is quite disturbing that this is being undermined in this bill through the effective veto that is given to the states.

In addition to that, we see that, if a state does withdraw, the Commonwealth laws as they apply at the time of termination are frozen and operate as at the point of withdrawal. They would continue to be administered at the expense of the Commonwealth. It is a flawed process to get to a national system, as was so eloquently said by the shadow minister earlier this evening. Although the coalition remain supportive of a national workplace relations system, we believe that fundamentally flawed legislation should not proceed.

I share the concern of many small businesses across Australia, particularly in rural and regional Australia, where we know that there is a higher proportion of small businesses than exists in the large capital cities. I share the concern that this bill will not create the harmonious national workplace relations system that Australia needs.

Under this bill, the power to control and determine the national workplace relations system and its operations has effectively been handed to state governments who choose to refer their existing powers. The problems with Labor’s industrial relations changes are well documented. As Labor have done with many policies, sadly, and in neglect of their fundamental duties as a federal government, they have rushed their workplace relations changes. In their panic, they have got it seriously wrong.

Labor have form and this is the template with which they operate. We have seen this with much of the Rudd government’s so-called stimulus package. We have seen billions of dollars wasted on bungled programs, red tape and failed policy. More recently, according to the latest budget forecasts, the Rudd government’s pink batts bill has blown out by a billion dollars and it has had to bring forward $986 million to meet demand. The bill for sheltering 78 Tamil asylum seekers on the Oceanic Viking has topped $1 million, costing $42,500 a day to keep them on the ship. Tax payments to dead people and expats have hit over $46 million. Nearly $1 billion has been spent on consultancies in two years in spite of promises to cut them. Legal fees are in excess of $550 million. The list goes on. The government’s incompetence in coming up with a well thought-out path to a national industrial relations system is no surprise. We should not expect anything different because it has bungled everything else that it has touched so far. Time will catch up with the government. Unfortunately, in the meantime many families and small businesses will be affected. This bill will affect unincorporated businesses in my electorate, many thousands of which are small businesses.

We in the coalition have called on the Labor government to hold off any further changes to the industrial relations system until it gets it right. There is nothing wrong with that. The changes will affect so many people in every corner of Australia that it is important to get them right. The coalition and the shadow minister have been instrumental in making the government’s Fair Work legislation, as was said by the shadow minister, less bad. Among the coalition’s improvements have been the Senate imposed stricter regulations on unions, a compromise being reached on unfair dismissal laws and Labor’s restrictions on greenfield agreements being removed. But that is not enough. This bill is so flawed we will not be supporting it.

One of the most well-documented problems, and one that has caused great alarm across many industries in my electorate, is the government’s so-called award modernisation, which is due to commence on 1 January. Despite the minister’s proclamation that no employer or employee will be worse off under Labor’s new laws, Labor has declined to enshrine this promise in legislation. We know why that is: it cannot keep that promise and it knows that promise will not be the reality for many workers. There is concern that many workers in my electorate in north-east Victoria will be worse off. That is shared not just in rural and regional Australia but in many other parts of provincial and metropolitan Australia.

The whole award so-called modernisation process is not yet complete, but it will be by December, we are told, leaving many employers with less than a month to prepare for a new system. Why? Just because this government wants to rush this through. It wants to be able to tick a box irrespective of whether the box is ready to be ticked. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations initially made a concession for restaurants, cafes and catering companies by requesting that they be treated separately from hotels. She came to the table for other industries as well. Her concession is an admission that the award modernisation process would disadvantage certain employers and employees in those industries. The retail, fast food and pharmacy sectors have spoken out against the government’s changes, all with very legitimate claims that they would be disadvantaged under the so-called award modernisation. Who will be the casualties from this bungled process? Who is going to bear the brunt of these government policy failures? It is going to be individual employees, and the impact is going to be felt more severely in rural and regional areas. It is going to be felt more severely there for many reasons, one of which being that people living in a country town are geographically limited in their job choices as opposed to those who live in a city with a population of millions and with hundreds of thousands of employers.

I am already getting correspondence about this process from concerned businesses in my electorate. A local supermarket owner contacted me in regard to the so-called new general retail industry award. He is concerned about the impact that the award will have on his business and his ability to employ people. Many of his employees are working mothers or students who need to have flexible working hours and casual work. But under the so-called modern award he is going to have to pay casual staff $39.48 an hour and $31.58 an hour to work full time on Sundays. He says in a letter to me:

As a concerned employer I do not want to reduce staff but I fear that this may be one of the inevitable consequences of the introduction of this new award.

His will not be an isolated story. Small business owners are integral parts of their communities and towns. They will not want to sack people and they will not want to cut the number of jobs that they can provide in their local community, but they will be faced with no choice because the whole award modernisation process has been handled in such an incompetent and unrealistic way without due regard to the realities and diversity of businesses within particular industries.

In September, the National Retail Association warned that retail costs on Sundays will rise by $100 million due to penalty rate increases. The award modernisation will greatly affect not just those in the retail sector but also those in the tourism sector. If you happen to live in an attractive part of Australia, such as north-east Victoria with its wineries and mountains, and you are a small business in the tourism sector, when do you earn your income? You earn it during public holidays and you earn it on weekends. So these businesses will be additionally hit.

We have also seen the horticultural industry being particularly hit, and local fruit growers have contacted me over many months. Not only are they suffering due to prolonged drought but they are very concerned that the award modernisation process and final outcome will make many of their businesses unviable. They are estimating that there will be an increase of up to $10,000 per hectare. And, believe it or not, fruit is picked when it needs to be picked—if that is on weekends, then it will be done on weekends and, if that is what the wholesale and chain stores demand for delivery on Monday, then that is what needs to be done.

Limits on hours will seriously disadvantage seasonal workers as well. Strict rules on overtime will mean that employers will have to pay workers overtime if they work more than 38 hours in one week. Fruit picking is a seasonal industry. Workers can earn as much as they can when the season is right. Unfortunately, we could see a situation where employers have to restrict working hours. Who knows how this will affect an industry or whether there will be a serious shrinking of the horticultural industry?

As reported in the Australian in September, the Rudd government’s award modernisation process will impose pay cuts on apprentice electricians. Over the last 10 years under the previous Howard government we saw growth in the number of apprentices, and that has been a particularly welcome move in rural and regional Australia. But we are going to see these struggling young apprentices, who do not have an easy time until they finish all their training, have a cut in pay. According to union figures, first year apprentices will be left $34 to $70 worse off per week, which is equivalent to a pay cut of between 12 and 23 per cent. You have to wonder: what sort of process has led a Labor government to penalise some of the lowest paid in our communities? Fourth year apprentices face a cut of $92 to $151 a week. It just defies any reason, any economic sense and any understanding of how tough apprentices do it and what they have to sacrifice—the opportunity cost they give up—to pursue training for their trade.

Why has all this occurred? Because this government needs to pay back some of its paymasters in the trade union movement. That is more important than coming up with serious, well thought out reform in the interests of all Australians and the Australian economy. Instead of imposing their outdated ideology, they should be providing a fair environment in which business can develop, grow and flourish. This bill certainly does not do that. For some time, along with my coalition colleagues, I have called on the government to stop, rethink and suspend the award modernisation process until they can come up with something better. I am sure they can; there are many talented people in the department and I am sure there are many talented people in the opposition who could put their minds to this and come up with a better system that Australians actually deserve, not something that is so substandard. But for some people on the opposite side, in government, those who have put them there and those who pay them to stay there through generous election donations are more important in their list of priorities than the vast pools of employers in every corner of Australia.

For these reasons, for the fundamentally flawed process that is leading to a so-called national system, the coalition will be opposing this bill. In closing, I urge the government to think again, not for the sake of what the opposition says but for the sake of Australian workers and Australian small businesses.

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