Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

And I acknowledge the member for Newcastle, who is in the chamber at the moment. Workplace conditions today, of course, have improved dramatically, and we must always be looking to improve conditions even more, especially in places such as underground coalmines, with the inherent difficulties and dangers that they have.

I now turn back to the bill we are debating today, which is about coalmining industry workers—and which, I might add, has the support of key stakeholders in the industry. Employees in the coalmining industry are entitled to long service leave on the basis of service in the industry rather than service with a particular employer. Funding of long service leave entitlements is supported by an industry scheme established by the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Act 1992 and related legislation, including the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Payroll Levy Act 1992 and the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Payroll Levy Collection Act 1992. Under the funding act, employers are reimbursed from the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Fund for any long service payments they make to eligible employees in respect of their long service leave entitlements.

From 1 January, the present industry awards prescribing long service leave will be superseded by modern awards under the Fair Work Act 2009. Modern awards will not include long service leave entitlements. Rather, existing award based entitlements will be preserved as a statutory entitlement under the National Employment Standards pending the development of national long service leave arrangements. As a consequence of these changes, because the funding act does not currently cover entitlements determined by the National Employment Standards, employers will not be eligible for reimbursement from the fund in respect of the long service payments they make to their employees.

The amendments contained in this bill address this situation. The amendments ensure that from 1 January 2010 employers will be entitled to reimbursement from the fund in respect of long service payments they make to employees pursuant to the preserved entitlements in the Fair Work Act, in addition to the current arrangements for reimbursement of entitlements paid under industrial instruments and contracts. This is a technical amendment which will not affect employees’ long service leave entitlements or employers’ long service leave fund obligations.

The current long service leave entitlements in the Coal Mining Industry (Production and Engineering) Consolidated Award 1997 will be extended to all eligible employees who do not otherwise have an award-derived long service leave entitlement. The bill also aligns the definition of ‘black coal mining industry’ in the funding act with the definition in the coal award, amends the definition of ‘eligible employee’ and introduces definitions of ‘employee’ and ‘employer’ to ensure that the scheme applies universally in the black coal mining industry.

Let us not forget what employees in the coalmining industry faced back in the bad old days of Work Choices—and those bad old days were not all that long ago. In a newsletter to its members in June 2006, APESMA, the union covering engineers, scientists and the like, had a question and answer article about long service leave, which I will just take a few quotes from to show how they saw the effects of Work Choices on long service leave. The first question was:

What happens if my employer is not bound by the Award, or if I move to a new mine site?

Answer: WorkChoices means that to access the all-important legally enforceable entitlement of Long Service Leave staff at any new mine site not bound by the Award as at 27 March 2006 do not have access to an Award Long Service Leave entitlement. Instead staff must rebargain for the Coal Mining Industry standard Long Service Leave in an enterprise agreement.

The next question was:

I have an entitlement to long service leave in my contract—isn’t this enough?

Answer: Should there be a disagreement about bridging your service between one employer to another, or deeming your service, then your common law contract doesn’t provide the answer. This is because the only way a Tribunal can determine bridging or deeming if there is no agreement, is if the legal power to determine the dispute is given to them via the Award or enterprise agreement.

The third question was:

My employer is paying into the Long Service Leave Fund anyway, so why should I have a problem in getting my long service leave?

Answer: All employers in the Coal Mining Industry are bound to pay into the Long Service Leave Fund pursuant to the Long Service Leave Funding Act. That Act puts the responsibility on the employer to make contributions to the fund. Unfortunately, that Act does not provide employees with a legally forcible entitlement, and a way to solve disputes where there is disagreement about bridging or deeming.

You can see that there were all sorts of issues that were being faced by coalmining industry employees under Work Choices in relation to their long service leave. In fact, what they were being faced with, quite simply, was the possibility that their entitlement was going to be much diminished. The issue of portability, which is so crucial in this industry, was very much under threat. Yet there are still many of those opposite who would not hesitate to bring back Work Choices if they could.

We saw in this chamber only last week the debate on legislation to bring about a national workplace relations system. That is something that the previous government said they believed in, but we faced the incredible situation of those opposite opposing this position even though they said it was one of the key motivations behind Work Choices. In fact, they went to the High Court in relation to the corporations power to have a national system, and they said that that was fundamental. But what we found here was that there was a more overriding principle that has always lurked beneath the opposition’s psyche and that was that they actually still believe in Work Choices more than the philosophy of a national system. That is why they voted against the national system. The opposition spokesperson made it clear that one of the two reasons they did not want the legislation that was here before this place last week and that the opposition voted against was they did not like the fact that the new system did not have many of the principles of Work Choices.

Between the member for Stirling and the member for O’Connor, they listed the three key issues that they thought should be in a national industrial relations system before they would support it. The first was the reintroduction of AWAs, and employees in the coal industry in particular were subject to more AWAs than almost any other industry. They wanted those to be returned. The member for O’Connor said that he did not believe in penalty rates and if there were penalty rates in any system then he could not support it. Then the issue of flexibility of hours generally was also raised by the member for O’Connor. The position of the opposition spokesperson on workplace relations, the member for Stirling, was that any system that provided unfair dismissal rights was a system that he could not support.

They are three fundamental issues that the Australian people voted on in the last election, and they voted overwhelmingly to support this side of parliament’s position in terms of the type of industrial relations system they wanted—making sure that there was fair access to unfair dismissals, making sure that individual contracts were no longer part of the system and making sure that penalty rates were not stripped away. These three issues are fundamentally the issues that those opposite want to see returned to any industrial relations system and that caused them to make the extraordinary decision to oppose a national industrial relations system in legislation that was there before.

It is little wonder that it is this side of the House that is left to make sure that the long service leave entitlements of those working in the coal industry are protected, because we know quite clearly, from the actions of those opposite in the past and the actions of those opposite only last week, that they would be looking at ways in which they could strip back entitlements from workers in all industries but in particular in relation to this industry. We need to make sure that we are protecting those long service leave entitlements for those who work in the coalmining industry.

The coalmining industry will remain important in this country for many years to come. To give you an idea of just how significant an employment role the industry continues to play, projections are that demand for skilled labour in coalmining, even based on various assumptions about energy use, will remain very high over the longer term. The government’s energy white paper released earlier this year stated that the projected demand for skilled labour in the coalmining industry will rise from over 35,000 in 2008 to about 55,000 in the year 2020. This is an increase of 19,000 or 53 per cent. These projections are based on mineral output projections for Australia’s current major mining commodities to 2020 and they take full account of global market conditions and domestic market conditions such as the proposed emissions trading scheme that is obviously plaguing the opposition’s party room right through all of today.

There are strong partnerships in place to improve the industry’s safety and efficiency. In November 2007, to specifically address the domestic energy supply industry and the demand for skilled labour, the Australian government committed to work with the state and territory governments in the energy sector to improve the consistency of state based regulations such as occupational health and safety requirements that apply to the energy sector. In June 2008 the Ministerial Council on Energy agreed to establish the Energy Technical and Safety Leaders Group to develop a plan to harmonise state and territory electricity and gas supply industry technical and safety regulations. Harmonisation would facilitate greater labour mobility and swifter emergency response in the energy supply industry especially in the context of skilled labour shortages. The leaders group is shortly due to deliver its final plan to the ministerial council. So you can see that the coal industry remains important to Australia, and this government recognises that.

To sum up, the effect of the bill is to preserve existing arrangements for employees in the black coal mining industry with respect to long service leave and also to ensure the reimbursement of employers from the fund with respect to long service leave payments they make to eligible employees. The government considers that this is a desirable measure that recognises the unique historical circumstances surrounding long service leave in the black coal mining industry. This government is about making sure that workers’ rights are preserved. This stands in stark contrast to those opposite, who look at every opportunity they can to strip back and take away employees’ rights. I commend the bill to the House.

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