Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to be able to stand in this House once again speaking to the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014.

I remind the House that in the last parliament I put forward a private member's motion to bring into line some of the concerns that were raised by the previous speaker—that is, making unions accountable under the Corporations Act, and the penalties that would apply the same as those that already exist under the Corporations Act. It will not surprise those in this House that that private member's motion was not successful, because those on the other side of this House mostly owe their seats, their position in this parliament, either through direct or indirect funding, to a union movement. At the last election, the front bench of the previous government—I think it was 10 out of 12 of them—had some direct linkage to union movements.

The previous speaker also talked about how on this side of government we have a hatred for unions. That is just farcical. My operations in the transport sector work very closely with unions. I have found that the union reps that I deal with are always accommodating, because I put forward a logical, succinct argument about why some of the decisions I made would be for the greater benefit of my employees. So to come into this place and say that this side of that House has a hatred for unions is predominantly flawed.

The amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009 contained in this bill are important items of the coalition's Fair Work policy that we took to the election. We did not say one thing before the election and another after, which has been the mantra of those opposite as they have come into the chamber to debate this. That has been the thread or flavour of their debate. They have been making that claim. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are actually doing what we said we were going to do before the election, and we are doing it consistent with an eminent panel.

In particular, this bill responds to a number of outstanding recommendations included in the Towards more productive and equitable workplaces: an evaluation of the Fair Work legislation review conducted in June 2012 when it was commissioned by the now Leader of the Opposition. The very capable review panel of eminent Australians—comprising of the Reserve Bank board member John Edwards, the former Federal Court judge Hon. Michael Moore and the noted legal and workplace relations academic Professor Ron McCallum AO—were asked to provide recommendations on areas where the operation of the act could be improved. They provided 53 proposals to tackle a range of issues and inspired many of the amendments contained in this bill. Do those on the other side of the chamber suggest that those eminent gentlemen who I just mentioned are also union haters? That is not the truth. It is unfair to come in and cast those aspersions in this House.

An interesting conclusion drawn from the review relates to the economic aspects of the Fair Work Act. The panel determined that since the Fair Work Act came into force important outcomes such as wages growth, industrial disputes, the responsiveness of wages to supply and demand, the rate of employment growth and the flexibility of work patterns have been favourable to Australia's continuing prosperity.

The exception has been productivity growth. That is what is missing. As a government—

Ms Butler interjecting—

I sat here for the last three speakers and heard your speakers in silence, so do not come in here with your union intimidatory tactics and yell and shout. Just sit. The expectation has been for productivity growth. It has been disappointing in the Fair Work Act framework and in the two preceding frameworks over the last decade. It is this which has motivated the coalition's amendments. If you were not yapping, you would have just heard that. It is this which has motivated the coalition's amendments to the Fair Work Act. The coalition is dedicated to making Australia a more prosperous nation in which productivity growth plays an instrumental role. In order to achieve productivity growth, several of the amendments contain in this bill seek to eradicate loopholes, negatively geared systemic problems and prohibiting factors preventing Australian employers and employees from getting on with the job of growing their Australian economic pie.

One of the proposed amendments which the coalition has adopted from the Fair Work panel review relates to offering additional support to new greenfield industrial agreements. When reading it, I was quite surprised that the Fair Work Act review recommended:

Under Labor, the Fair Work laws effectively gave unions the power to veto new projects by requiring an employer to always negotiate a greenfield agreement with a union. To date, unions have exploited this veto power by deliberately causing delays and setbacks, while others have used it as a tool to demand exorbitant conditions. In addition, these irresponsible actions are responsible for the perceived doubt surrounding many important new projects which have failed to receive adequate investment as a result. The coalition wants to ensure that enterprise agreements for greenfield agreements can be negotiated quickly to ensure that infrastructure projects are not delayed and to encourage investment for everyone's benefit.

This bill also addresses the imbalance in union workplace access rules currently impeding the productivity of many workplaces. The Fair Work panel review expressed the need for changes to the right-of-entry provisions to unions as a means of encouraging productivity and fairness in our work environments. I have a real-life example on entry provisions. I took the opportunity to reach out to one of the processors where a number of people in my electorate are employed. It is in a neighbouring electorate. They turn over around $365 million, with a workforce of around 1,800. In spite of the employees voting in favour of working under a new EBA to secure the future of the plant and 1,000 jobs, the union has continued to run legal action through Fair Work Australia and now the Federal Court because it has lost its privileges. The union has lost privileges that do not matter to the workforce. The workforce said in this particular case that they were quite happy with the EBA. But the union has still taken the company to court. This has been ongoing for 10 months, causing great uncertainty and threatening the viability of the business. The union has already delayed the first wage increase of three per cent for employees. Fancy that—a union delaying an increase in employees' entitlements! It has extended the life of the new EBA by six months. If the union is successful, 70 per cent of the employees will suffer a wage decrease, which means they will come off the three per cent that they have agreed to in the workplace to receive a lesser amount. Groundbreaking, profit-sharing bonuses will be at risk—$3,000 to $5,000 per employee. It is about sharing the profits and sharing the productivity gains with the employees. The union would not have anything to do with that.

The new EBA is classic win-win: improved productivity, wage increases and profit share. The IR system has allowed this farcical situation to occur and flourish. In their email to me, this business went on to say that these government's amendments are only the start of much-needed reform if we are going to have any chance of running successful manufacturing and processing in this country.

Furthermore, the unlawful practices and inappropriate behaviour conducted by unions are well documented. For example, the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry of 2001 identified no fewer than 392 separate instances of unlawful conduct—

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