Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Everyone remembers the tragic crimes that happened on September 11, 2001, when planes flew into buildings and for many of us the world, as we knew it, changed. I missed much of the aftermath of that, because back then I was working as a lawyer representing many workers around the country. What people may also remember is that a day or so after that Ansett, the airline, collapsed and the fleet was grounded. Several attempts were made at getting the airline back in the air but they were ultimately unsuccessful. My job was assisting those workers of the Ansett collapse to help them to seek and receive the entitlements to which they were owed. Everyone was desperately hopeful that the airline was going to be able to become a viable going concern again, but in the absence of that people wanted to know that, if they did not have a job, at least they were going to get the payments that they were entitled to.

Most people here and most people in Australia would think that, if you have worked for an employer for a long period of time—especially if you are an older worker and you might be thinking that this is potentially the last job you are going to have and after this you are going to retire—the entitlements that you are legally entitled to if your employer goes under and makes you redundant through no fault of your own is something that you can potentially bank on, especially if that is going to be your last job. And so it was the case for thousands of Ansett workers who had given, in some instances, a couple of decades of loyal service to the company. They were presuming: 'Well, okay, I've just lost my job through no fault of my own and I've been made redundant. At least I'm going to have a payout.' Of course, what we found very quickly was that the money was not there. The money was not there not because the workers had done anything wrong—they had done nothing more than give loyal service; the money was not there because of the way the airline had been run.

So all of a sudden someone who had stuck with a particular airline out of loyalty and in part because their agreement said, 'Look, if you stay with this rule period of time, you should know that there will be some support at the end of it if, through no fault of your own, you have to be made redundant,' woke up to the reality that the money was not going to be there. For people who had been in employment for 10 years or 20 years, for some of them that was several weeks a year pay that they were entitled to. So if you are 52- or 53-year-old worker who had been with Ansett for 20 years—been with any company for 20 years but in this case Ansett—and you got made redundant, at least you knew there was something there. But all of a sudden that had evaporated. So we had to work out how we were going to get these people the money to which they were legally entitled.

It took us and the union and the several other unions who were involved weeks and weeks at the time to get every individual worker signed up as a creditor and to then go and stand with the administrators and say: 'Well, we are all creditors. What are you going to do to get some money?' And then go to the Industrial Relations Commission, as it was then, and go off to court. And so the matter went on for years. What we found was that, even a decade later, some workers had not been paid their full entitlement. It took years and years and years to get the last bits of money out of what is left of the company. This was especially so when it came to superannuation. When I got elected in 2010, I got a phone call from a constituent who said: 'I'm still chasing superannuation from Ansett. When am I going to get it?'

That served as a bit of a wake-up call for the country—that we were not looking after people who got made redundant and found themselves without a job through no fault of their own. That was a very high-profile instance, but it has not happened only there. Many clothing companies and textile companies in Australia have faced over the last year the winds of international change, including decisions in this place about reducing tariffs. We have seen many companies that make carpet or that make other forms of textiles, clothing and footwear close down because they were no longer viable. What we found again was that workers who had worked there the longest and who may have had no other job and may have had limited English skills—and this may have been the only job they had since they got off the boat when they migrated to Australia many years ago—all of a sudden they too were without money that they had been banking on and presuming would get them through to retirement. Many of them got left without their full entitlement. This is not to mention the instances where dodgy companies would close down in November only to restart again in February so they could avoid having to pay people annual leave and Christmas pay—again, leaving the workers stranded.

There was one textile company where, when it went under, the employees got paid out the full rate. That company happened to be owned by former Prime Minister John Howard's brother. They got their full entitlements paid out. Of course, people understood that this was unfair: for us to continue to leave people in the lurch went through no fault of their own they found themselves without redundancy pay, their annual leave—all of which are legally theirs, but the money is just not there.

So, what did we do? After a stopgap scheme for the Ansett workers, there was a full scheme set up that applied to everyone in this country. It has been modified and improved over time, It says: 'If you find yourself in that situation tomorrow—where all of a sudden the employer has just gone under, the business has just gone under, you knew nothing about it and there is no money there—the government has a safety net for you.' That safety net at the moment means that pretty much in every circumstance all your entitlements are going to be paid, because the government and the public has recognised that it is not your fault. It is not for your fault that you were loyal to your employer and that you work for them for a long time. And it is not your fault that the company has gone under. Sometimes it is bad management decisions, sometimes it is illegal activity and sometimes it is just the consequences of a shifting economy. But, in any event, it is not your fault. The scheme we have at the moment looks after people, but this government has not seen a measure of support for ordinary working people in this country they did not want to attack. That is what it is doing with this bill.

With this bill—which the government did not take to the election and did not tell people about during the campaign period—the government is saying to people, especially those older or more loyal workers: 'If you find yourself in that situation, we are only going to pay a portion of what you're entitled to. For the rest of it, if the money's not there, then bad luck.' If the money is not there, then bad luck. You may be a worker who is 50, with limited English, and have given your employer loyal service for many years, and you may be expecting you will get two, three or four weeks a year if your company goes under; but do not count on that anymore. This government will not support you any longer. That is the effect of this government's bill.

When you look at it together with some of the other policies of this government you can see a pretty grim future for many people. In my state of Victoria, for example, one of the other things this government is trying to do—after having dared to the car makers to leave, which they then did—is cut the assistance that would primarily go to states like Victoria and South Australia. They want to cut the assistance they are giving to car makers and component manufacturers over the next three years—which might, in fact, force the car makers to leave even earlier. You will find tens of thousands of people who have worked for companies like the car makers or component manufacturers who, at least at the moment, think they have until 2017 to plan their lives. They may also find themselves, if the government gets its way, out of a job in a very short period of time, through no fault of their own. This government has taken the safety net away from them as well.

When you combine that with the fact that this government's approach to jobs and industry is to say: 'Hands off! We have no plan. We'll let whatever happens, happen. That is our only plan. We'll continue to give billions in subsidies to the likes of Gina Rinehart so she and her associates can buy cheap petrol and diesel fuel, but when it comes to an actual jobs plan and transitioning this country to a clean energy economy, we're going to ignore it. Away you go! If tens of thousands of people end up on the unemployment line, so be it.' When you put all these things together, you can see a grim future for workers who have done nothing other than be loyal to their employer and who have made no mistake other than to do what everyone of us does, which is to grow older and give loyal service. They are the ones who are going to be hardest hit.

The government talks about moral hazard and says: 'We can't keep doing this because it will potentially encourage businesses to behave badly.' There is no evidence this scheme is being abused. There is absolutely no suggestion, at all, this scheme is being abused. This is nothing other than an ideologically motivated attack. If there was evidence the scheme was being abused, and that some companies had said, 'Oh, tell you what, we will go under because we know the government is going to pick up the tab,' then bring it here and we will have a look at it,. There are other ways of looking after workers if we want to. We could have industry trust funds where employers are required to pay a certain percentage or fee into a fund which is there to look after people if they go under. That would be an incentive to employers to do the right thing. If we did that, or if we had an industry insurance scheme a bit like WorkCover where employers had to pay a fee, we could say to employers: 'Look, if you go under or you do the wrong thing, and you don't have enough money in there to look after your employees, we're going to put your premiums up.' There are many other ways to skin this cat, if the government is concerned about it, that would avoid moral hazard. But it is not moral hazard they are concerned about; they are simply out to take entitlements away from Australian workers.

They went to the election running a very small target campaign on people's rights at work. They went to the election saying: 'We are not going to reintroduce Work Choices.' But this is what we are seeing when we match this bill with other budget bills. Under another fair work amendment bill this government wants to put through, workers will be able to be paid in kind by their employer—a fish-and-chip shop owner is going to be able to pay you in fish and chips, which may be great for the owner of small business, but does not help you pay the rent. When you look at the fact that someone under 30 is going to spend six months of every year without any income at all and so will be forced to work under conditions that they perhaps would not have before, what does that mean? When someone under 30 is prepared to work for lower wages or be paid in fish and chips because they know the alternative is poverty, what does that mean for someone who is over 30? Why, if you are an employer, would you employ an older worker if you could employ a younger worker who is being forced, under pressure of poverty, to do it for less? It might not be called Work Choices but it is Work Choices by any other name. It is coming back in by stealth through the budget and measures like this.

This is a broken election promise. The government told people: 'We are not going to do things we have not told you about,' but this one of the things they did not tell us about. More than that, this is one of the biggest punches in the gut to older, loyal workers who should be entitled to think that, having worked somewhere for a particular period of time and having annual leave, it is theirs. If you have earnt long service leave, it is yours. If you have worked there and you are entitled to a redundancy pay under your agreement, it is yours. If you have not been paid your outstanding wages, they are yours. The Greens are very proud to say we agree with you, and we will make sure the government supports people who find themselves in difficult situations through no fault of their own. We oppose this bill.

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