Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this second reading amendment to the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014. The Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014 is the fulfilment of a coalition policy made prior to the 2013 election. No surprises here. It was a policy that outlined to the people our commitment to ensure Australian workplaces can get on with doing what they do best—that is, promoting jobs growth and productivity. And we are, in government, delivering on that commitment. Not only does this bill deliver on the coalition's commitment but it also delivers on broken election commitments made by the Labor Party prior to the 2007 election, and recommendations from the Fair Work Review panel, which was commissioned by the now Leader of the Opposition in 2012.

The Fair Work Amendment Bill will help to restore balance in the workplace through a number of features. It will improve the negotiation process for greenfield agreements to ensure that unions cannot actively set out to exasperate bargaining for these agreements through unrealistic and unsustainable claims and delays. Such claims and delays can threaten the very workers they purportedly support, threaten investment and delay the commencement of major new products that are crucial to our future—particularly, as far as I am concerned, Tasmania's future.

Another feature of this bill restores union workplace-access rules reflecting those in place prior to Labor's unbalanced amendments, and deals with excessive right-of-entry visits by union officials. It also improves workplace productivity and flexibility by enhancing the ability of employees to make individual flexibility arrangements with their employers to meet their genuine needs as determined by those employees. As the member for Braddon, I have a responsibility to ensure that flexibility arrangements are in place that will meet the needs of the employees in my electorate.

Another feature of the bill is that it removes the business-destroying 'strike first, talk later' loophole in the good faith bargaining rules which the previous, Labor government refused to address. Finally, the bill will maintain the value of unclaimed wages recovered for workers by the Commonwealth.

While the amendments contained in the Fair Work Amendment Bill are vital for the future economic growth of this country, and therefore for jobs growth, they are perhaps even more important for regions in Australia that are struggling at the moment to attract investment, and in areas like Tasmania, where the former state and federal governments conspired with fringe political interest groups to try and destroy an entire industry. I speak here, of course, of the forest industry. As this newly elected coalition government, together with the newly elected state government, sets about rebooting the Tasmanian economy and promoting jobs growth, laws such as those to be enacted by this bill will only build confidence for businesses to take the financial risk of putting on extra employees without facing the undue risk of unwarranted actions by overzealous officials.

The contrast between this government and the previous government cannot be greater than when it comes to economic matters, and this bill demonstrates the contrast dramatically. I have heard people say that the former, ALP government was addicted to debt and deficit. That is true, but in some ways debt and deficit was not really their addition; their addiction was cover-up. It was a government so incompetent that the only way it could hide its failings was by distracting the country on a regular basis with massive, uncosted, ill-thought-out spending programs. They went from one program to another. You would wake up in the next news cycle and there would be something else to be hailed by the leader—like a street-corner magician wanting to distract you while they empty your pockets

This government, in stark contrast, is not here to spend the country into the ground. It is here to create the conditions whereby businesses can thrive and employ more people and create prosperity.

The formula to prosperity is not that difficult. It is getting those environmental conditions right. The Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014 will go some way to achieving this by ensuring labour unions are not abusing their rights to represent employees in the workplace. The changes aim to get the balance right between the right of employees to be represented in the workplace, if they wish to be, and the right of the employers to go about their business without unwarranted disruption. This was a key election commitment of the Labor Party in 2007. It was one of the many commitments the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government failed to honour. They said one thing in opposition and another in government. When in government the Labor Party relaxed laws pertaining to right of entry. Labor's broken promise led to some atrocious abuses of the widely accepted right-of-entry principle. For example, the Pluto LNG project received over 200 right-of-entry visits in a three-month period. Furthermore, BHP Billiton's Worsley Alumina plant faced 676 right-of-entry visits in a single year.

But the unions in these cases of mass disruption are not my principal concern here. My concern is for the small-and medium-sized businesses that do not have teams of lawyers or the financial backing to take on these cashed-up unions determined on using right of entry to justify their own jobs. For small-and medium-sized businesses—the steam engine of our economy, I believe—these sorts of disruptions have the potential to inflict significant pain on productivity and influence decisions to employ even more workers.

As it stands—after former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd broke his promise to implement a level of common sense on right of entry—right of entry for discussion purposes can occur when the relevant union is entitled to represent the industrial interests of the employees at the workplace. This means that unions can enter the workplace and hold discussions even if they have no actual members at that workplace and even if no-one has sought their presence. Importantly, this bill will amend the act to ensure that entry to a workplace by a union is fixed to the recognised role of the union representative at that workplace or to an employee's request for the union's presence at that workplace. A union will only be entitled to enter a workplace for discussion purposes if: firstly, they are covered by an enterprise agreement or, secondly, they have been invited by a member or employee that they are entitled to represent.

The bill also enacts the right of an employee to seek a union representative to enter the workplace under anonymity. In this case a union will be able to apply to the Fair Work Commission for an invitation certificate. The Fair Work Commission must issue a certificate if it is satisfied that a worker, who performs work on the premises and whom the union is entitled to represent, has invited the union to the workplace to hold discussions. The certificate, importantly, will not identify the employee who has made the request. This will restore the balance in the right-of-entry regime so that it is similar to prior to the commencement of the Fair Work Act and is, in fact, absolutely consistent with the bipartisan consensus at the time of the 2007 election—a fact that seems to have been missed, conveniently, by those who have spoken before on this bill. Furthermore, the bill gives the commission the ability to ensure union officials do not abuse their position by disrupting workplaces and inflicting an unreasonably high frequency of visits. Under the current arrangements it is only in the most extreme cases that the commission is able to act. This bill centres the pendulum, allowing unions to go about their business but not at the expense of productivity in our workplaces.

Another aspect of this bill that I want to focus on is greenfields agreements. Importantly, this bill will wind back union power to unilaterally veto greenfields agreements. This veto provides unions with the power to disrupt and frustrate the process of these agreements with unrealistic demands on wages and conditions. The Fair Work review, established by the now Leader of the Opposition, highlighted this very concern. It is not our review; it is the now Leader of the Opposition's review. According to this review, these union tactics:

… potentially threaten future investment in major projects in Australia.

Again, these words are not my words, these words are not the Minister for Employment's words and these words are not the Prime Minister of Australia's words. These are the words of the review initiated by the now Leader of the Opposition. Unfortunately, that potential has been realised with major resource projects worth billions of dollars being delayed.

The bill will extend existing good faith bargaining rules to greenfields agreements to raise the conduct and tactics used in bargaining negotiations. This means that both the employer and the unions will be required, among other things, to consider and respond to proposals appropriately and in a timely manner. To assist in timely agreements, this bill will establish an optional three-month negotiation time frame. This time frame will apply where appropriate notice is provided by an employer to the relevant union or unions. If the parties are not able to come to a satisfactory agreement the employer will have the ability to take its proposed agreement to the Fair Work Commission for approval. The agreement will need to meet the workplace agreement requirements under the Fair Work Act, which you would expect, including the 'better off overall' test. The agreement will also have to satisfy a new requirement that it provides for pay and conditions that are consistent with the prevailing standards within the relevant industry for equivalent work. I repeat: the agreement will also have to satisfy a new requirement that it provides for pay and conditions that are consistent with the prevailing standards within the relevant industry for equivalent work.

Consistent with the existing framework, the Fair Work Commission must also be satisfied that the union or unions to be covered by the agreement are able to represent the majority of future employees. This is vital to ensuring that major projects are not needlessly held up by unions intent on making unreasonable demands in order to gain the upper hand in negotiations. These tactics, which have become so commonplace in so many workplaces around this country, have no place in this economy or in a fair nation and this government, through this bill, will not allow them to continue.

By any measure this bill is reasonable. This bill is fair. And this bill takes up, in part, many of the issues raised by the very review that the Leader of the Opposition, in his former capacity as minister, ordered. These are not my words. They are not the words of the government. They are, in fact, the words of the review ordered by the now Leader of the Opposition. Any fair-minded person will understand, if they are not in the pockets of the unions, that this is fair. It is reasonable and it is in the best interests of the restoration of the prosperity and financial viability of many companies in Australia. More importantly, it is in the best interest of seeing more people employed in jobs in this great country.

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