Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

Our Australian version of fairness, of the fair go, has always been inextricably linked to our concept of industrial relations. In the early 19th century industrial relations were governed by laws such as the New South Wales Masters and Servants Act 1828, an act which provided for the imprisonment of workers who refused to work or damaged equipment. Indeed, sneak off for an hour if you dare: one hour’s absence by a free servant without permission meant prison or the treadmill. But of course as the 19th century rolled on unions started to form and combine, first as a kind of friendly society helping out sick work mates, widows and work-orphaned children, and later as the real deal with political clout.

After a long struggle it became almost universally acknowledged that workers were entitled to some dignity at work. They were not just cogs in the machine, to be worn out, thrown away and replaced, but human beings entitled to reasonable conditions, to fairness, to decent hours and to a life of some kind outside of work. In 1856 the eight-hour day was born in Melbourne and the seed had taken root: workers were individuals due proper respect. This was extended through the concept of the living wage, the family wage, determined first in the Harvester judgment of 1907, a case that was triggered by a dispute in the western suburbs of Melbourne within my electorate of Maribyrnong, in the suburb of Sunshine.

Australians have understood and accepted the idea that people’s democratic rights do not cease when they step onto the factory floor, through the farm gate, into the shop or indeed into the office; the idea that employment is not just the grace or favour or the whim of the employer but should be governed reasonably by principles of justice that could be enforced by independent rules; the idea that workers have the right to organise and be represented by unions when they are unable to effectively represent themselves; and that not all wisdom about how an organisation should be run is held at the very top by the owners and the managers. Indeed, they recognise that workplaces should be equitable and run in cooperation and harmony between employees and employers. These are the workforces which unlock the potential of workers, to the benefit of everyone. As the previous unlamented government found out, those who do not respect the Australian public’s bedrock values about fairness in the workplace do so at their peril. The Fair Work Amendment (State Referrals and Other Measures) Bill 2009 continues the journey to build a framework that provides a fair and modern national workplace relations system for the private sector.

This bill has been the subject of comprehensive negotiations with the states and is part of the Rudd government’s efforts to create a national system of industrial relations with fairness, productivity and flexibility at its heart. We are not following the example of the previous government, which introduced the divisive policy called Work Choices—a truly Orwellian name. This was a policy which slashed conditions through unfair statutory contracts, removed the right of workers to join unions and stripped away protection against unfair dismissal.

What we are doing here tonight goes to the heart of the difference between those of us on this side and the opposition. What we are doing here is both economic and social policy. Work Choices, sadly, was an obsession, not a policy. It was a Howard-Costello neurosis, untreatable by modern medicine. It was a rabid set of views, poor in principle and poor in practice and rightly rejected by the Australian people. It was a policy which led to a sorry trail—and a sorry tale—of cut wages, lost entitlements and reduced protections. Work Choices had its effect in every street and at every kitchen table. Everybody knew someone who had been dudded by an Australian workplace agreement, who had been humiliated by the fear, the panic and the hope and then the anticlimax of losing a good job one morning and being offered a worse job doing the same thing for less money and under worse conditions the next morning.

One may be familiar with the evidence from the Office of the Employment Advocate about Australian workplace agreements under Work Choices, but it bears revisiting: 51 per cent of them cut overtime loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 64 per cent cut annual leave loading, 46 per cent cut public holiday payments, 52 per cent cut shift loadings, 40 per cent cut rest breaks, 46 per cent cut incentive-based payments and bonuses, 48 per cent cut monetary allowances and 36 per cent cut declared public holidays. What a blatant grab for conditions fought and negotiated for for over a century. The previous government did not try to reintroduce the treadmill, but they did everything but.

As part of my previous work I spoke to a lot of senior managers and CEOs. They knew too well that Work Choices was first and foremost an ideological agenda, one which bore little relationship to the genuine, effective labour market reforms which were needed and had pretty much nothing to do with providing answers to some of Australia’s biggest challenges, such as productivity. The previous government’s blinkered and bullying approach and refusal to work with the states led to a system that was not only unfair but also increased the legal uncertainty and complexity of an already complex system. This should not be how we handle workplace relations in the 21st century.

Instead, the Rudd government is working with the states to create a national system which will be as simple as possible whilst protecting the right of people at work to fair treatment. In the 21st century it is innovation and knowledge which are becoming the main drivers of economic growth around the world. In order to create these conditions it is businesses—and indeed nations—that invest in people and use their potential to the fullest who will succeed. Australia is a small nation on a vast globe, and the world does not owe us a living. That is why the future for our businesses cannot be based on cutting wages to match the lowest-dollar overseas competition for payment of humans at work. That is why industrial relations should be about fairness, not fear. That is why it must be about flexibility—about giving people real choices as they increasingly move in and out of the workforce, from job to job and from career to career. That is why it must be about simplicity and certainty, especially for small- and medium-sized businesses.

The Fair Work bills which have been introduced by this government are based on that enduring principle of fairness whilst meeting the needs of our modern economy. They balance the interests of employers and employees and the granting of rights with the imposition of responsibilities. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008 was introduced into parliament on 13 February 2008. It abolished the making of new AWAs, which I referred to earlier, and introduced the no-disadvantage test to ensure that workplace agreements could no longer disadvantage employees. That act also commenced the process to create new modern awards, which when coupled with the National Employment Standards will complete a fair and comprehensive safety net of conditions for employees.

Award modernisation will result in the creation of around 150 easy to find and easy to apply modern awards with national application to replace more than 4,000 state and federal instruments. We have delivered a fair and comprehensive safety net of minimum employment conditions that cannot be stripped away; a system that has at its heart bargaining in good faith at the enterprise level. This is essential to maximise workplace cooperation and improve productivity—productivity which had shamefully fallen during the Howard years. We have delivered protections from unfair dismissal for all employees. And, indeed, we seek to deliver a balance between work and family life and the right to be represented in the workforce. These rights are guaranteed by the legislation and overseen by a new industrial institution, Fair Work Australia, which will operate with both independence and balance. Once enacted, this bill will give effect to the references of power to be made by the great state of South Australia, from which the Minister for Sport and Youth Affairs comes; the great state of Tasmania, which elected only government members of the House of Representatives in the last election; and any other state that refers its workplace relations powers to the Commonwealth on or before 1 January 2010.

The bill will give effect to references of matters relating to workplace relations from the states to the Commonwealth for the purposes of section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution. These references will enable the Commonwealth to: extend the Fair Work Act in referring states to cover unincorporated employers and their employees and outworker entities and extend the operation of the general protections; amend the Fair Work Act so that it applies uniformly in referring states; and establish arrangements for the transition of referral employees and employers from state industrial or workplace relations systems to the new national system. Referring of power to the Commonwealth will end much of the confusion that bedevils smaller enterprises who may fall under the state or federal system, depending on how their business is structured. At the moment a farmer who operates as an unincorporated family trust for tax and other reasons is in the state system and may be right next door to a similar farmer in the same market who operates under a company structure and is subject to different laws and awards.

It is ridiculous for charities to have to worry about whether they will move from one system to another if they open a second-hand shop to raise money for disabled children and other charitable activities. For all of these reasons, there is significant support among the states for the national system. My home state of Victoria remade its referral earlier this year. The successful passage of referral legislation in the Tasmanian and Queensland parliaments and the introduction of referral legislation in the South Australian parliament followed. I am pleased to report that discussions with New South Wales are continuing cooperatively. Only the Barnett government in Western Australia has said it will not refer powers, which is a statement that is opposed by the Western Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who in my industrial experience are not automatically strong supporters of all that Labor does federally. For whatever reason, the Western Australian government has chosen to stand outside the benefits of being part of the national system, and I would hope that in time it reconsiders its decision.

I am pleased to report that there is also support from industry. The Australian Industry Group said as early as 2005:

No matter how well many of these systems operate the fact remains that no employer wants to be faced with dealing with six different systems in order to expand its business throughout Australia. The intermeshing and clash of these systems has nourished generations of industrial lawyers.

Although, I should say, some of them have gone on to work for the Australian Industry Group—but be that as it may. Other estimates have put the cost of maintaining the duplication of industrial relations systems at over $100 million a year. Replication and overlap between state and federal systems is becoming more and more of an anomaly in an economy where increasing numbers of businesses are operating in more than one state. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry issues paper on the subject, again written as early as 2005, said:

… current multiple overlapping systems of Commonwealth and State regulation on employment laws are the product of colonial disputes of the 1890s—

and those decades immediately after—

and unsuited to the modern era of national economic integration and globalisation.

Genuine reform of our industrial relations systems based on cooperation with the states will do more to encourage employment and improve productivity that any of the harsh and punitive so-called reforms that were part of the unlamented Work Choices.

I hope that, with the passage of this legislation, we will see the completion of one of the goals of the Rudd government, a government that keeps on delivering on its election promises—to establish an industrial relations system based on the understanding that workers and businesses need certainty and protection; to understand that fair treatment of workers is not an optional extra but is the foundation of our prosperity; and to recognise that a modern industrial relations system is one that encourages and rewards the innovators.

The businesses which work to improve the potential of their workers and increase their productivity, rather than engage in a race to reduce their wages and conditions, and create rewarding and sustainable jobs are the future businesses of Australia. We want to create a system that will lead to workplaces where our children do better than we did and where Australia’s continuing prosperity is forged. I commend this bill to the House.

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