Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Amendment Bill 2014 put forward by the Abbott Liberal-National government. I oppose the bill for the same reasons as other speakers on this side of the House—that is, it is unfair and an absolute attack on workers. Labor is very proud to be standing up for workers and for workers' rights. Unfortunately, the reforms and changes the government are putting forward in this bill represent everything but fairness. The changes they are bringing with the Fair Entitlements Guarantee are not fair at all. I note the lack of speakers from the other side. It is very disappointing that none of them have been prepared to come and speak and stand up for workers. Their ideology and their approach have been confirmed today by the absolute lack of speakers.

The Fair Entitlements Guarantee was initially designed as a safety net scheme to cover certain unpaid employment entitlements when employees lose their job through business liquidation or the bankruptcy of their employer. Labor in government introduced the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Legislation in 2012, which delivered the strongest protections for workers' entitlements that we had ever seen in this country. At the time, it replaced the General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme, or GEERS as it was known. GEERS was operated by the department in accordance with the GEERS operational arrangements and it had no legislative basis. The problem with this was that it made it too easy for the scheme to be amended or dismantled, and it was for this reason that Labor moved to strengthen protections and legislated our scheme. It is fortunate that we did this as we are now seeing what we were afraid—the Fair Entitlements Guarantee under attack from this government.

The bill seeks to cap the assistance for redundancy pay entitlements to a threshold of 16 weeks pay—a cut from the current four weeks per year of service—and aligns the payment with the maximum payable under the National Employment Standards. The bill also includes three amendments to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee legislation to clarify that a debt owed by a claimant for a particular entitlement can be offset proportionally against other entitlements payable to the claimant under the scheme if the debt exceeds the entitlement to which it relates; that amounts required to be withheld by law, such as pay as you go taxation, will be deducted from payments when they are made to the claimant; and that payments can be made to the estate of a deceased employee or claimant.

The bill also amends the act so that the issue of whether a person has reasonably pursued a debt owed by the employer is not a consideration for eligibility for any payment under the scheme. It is a matter that is dealt with when calculating the amount a claimant is owed. It establishes arrangements for costs associated with AAT appeals of decisions relating to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee to be drawn from the special appropriation.

While some of these amendments may not seem extreme at face value, if you closely at the detail you will see how harsh the measures and the changes in this bill are. When we look to the past of the Liberal-National government, they do have form when it comes to attacking workers—and we certainly saw that with Work Choices. I can reflect upon it in my area, in my seat of Richmond, where Work Choices is absolutely devastating and people still talk about how the National Party punished those people of regional Australia by introducing Work Choices. It was devastating. Many individuals had their working conditions slashed. It goes to the ideological basis of this government; what they do stand for is an attack upon workers.

Indeed, last week I raised in this House my concerns about Centrelink workers and how the government is now trying to outsource many of their jobs as well. Right across the board, in so many industries, we have seen many attacks. Time and time again since the election last year this government has demonstrated how many promises they are prepared to break in so many areas—and we are certainly seeing it in relation to this. As I have said, their capping of the Fair Entitlement Guarantee from a maximum of four weeks pay per year of service to a maximum of 16 weeks constitutes an unfair cut for those who are facing the terrible prospect of redundancy. It is devastating for those workers and their families to, firstly, be facing redundancy and then, on top of that, to have this unfair cut to their entitlements that they were hoping to receive. This is often a very sudden situation that occurs when the business they work in is not running anymore.

Fundamentally, this bill is very bad news for those facing redundancy or pursuing entitlements and lost earnings that are rightfully theirs. It is especially bad news for those in the automotive manufacturing industry and also mature-age workers. It is quite clear that the government's cut to this scheme disproportionately affects older Australians. The proposed changes are also ultimately at odds with some of the other policies we hear from the government and their objectives. They talk about decreasing the reliance of older Australians on the age pension and they also refer to their Restart program. What they are doing in terms of changing the scheme is really at odds with that. Given this contradiction in policy priorities, you can only conclude that this is an ideological assault on workers and their families. It contradicts other things the government have said.

But Labor understands the difficulties older Australians have in getting back into the workforce, particularly those in the manufacturing, automotive and textile industries. We on this side of the House remain committed to finding ways to assist those people—not dragging them down or punishing them as the government seems to be continuously doing.

The government recently abandoned the automotive manufacturing industry and its workers, and this bill will simply rub salt into that wound. Despite promises to the contrary, all we get are broken promises. The motivation for this unfair assault on our automotive manufacturing workers came from the recommendations that were set down by the government's Commission of Audit—the very same Commission of Audit that gave way to some of the harshest and cruellest budget measures set down by a government in recent memory. Given the harshness and extreme nature of the Commission of Audit's recommendations, it would not be surprising that many people simply do not accept that its advice was formed without the undue influence of a certain political ideology in mind.

Undoubtedly, if this bill before the House is passed, the effects on the automotive manufacturing industry will be devastating. Many workers within that particular industry have worked there for in excess of 10 or 20 years. Under the current scheme, their entitlements under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee are based on their years of service—for example, 20 years. But under the scheme being advanced in this bill, they will be entitled to a maximum of 16 weeks pay irrespective of their service—and that is essentially why it is not fair. Also, this Liberal-National government has overseen the painful death of the automotive manufacturing sector. Now, when workers most need assistance through the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, this government has moved to take it away, so it really is doubly cruel. The cut to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee is connected to and compounded by cuts to the Automotive Transformation Scheme. Labor's scheme encouraged competitive investment and innovation in the Australian automotive industry to place it on an economically sustainable footing.

The government have stated they will save $618 million over eight years by terminating the Automotive Transformation Scheme from 1 January 2018. However, this includes $200 million in cuts over the next two years, long before the scheduled closures of manufacturing operations for Ford, Holden and Toyota. This is in direct contrast to the comments that we heard from the now junior infrastructure minister, the member for Mayo, who said before the election:

The Coalition has committed to ongoing support for the auto industry and has agreed to continue funding the Automotive Transformation Scheme.

Clearly, that is not the case—another broken promise—because this bill is just another attack upon workers and their entitlements. Again we see that in opposition they say one thing and, in government, totally change. In fact, as late as July last year the current Minister for Employment promised Australian workers: 'You can be satisfied there is no risk to your entitlements.' Yet here we are debating this bill and that is exactly what they are doing: cutting those entitlements—yet another untruth from the government.

The introduction of this bill highlights how very little the government respect the truth. Clearly, they do not respect it at all. We know they have told a whole series of different lies on different issues, whether about cutting pensions, the GP tax, the petrol tax or an increase in university fees. Now we are seeing a whole host of untruths about protecting workers and their fair entitlements.

There are also many concerns that this bill may act as an incentive for vulnerable automotive component manufacturers to close their doors early, while their employees remain covered by the guarantee arrangements that the former Labor government put in place. The problem will be compounded then because, if automotive component manufacturers close early, this may deprive car makers of key components for the assembly of their vehicles, making continued production of specific models no longer possible. You would potentially have a knock-on effect. The fear is that the closure of two or three small automotive component manufacturers may spark more closures of automotive manufacturing in a very short period of time. The concern with that is that this could lead to economic downturns and troubles for the industry and a wide-ranging flow-on for the country generally. It would be quite concerning if this were to occur. Again, this is all a result of this government's unfair attack upon both workers and the automotive industry.

This bill truly is a sad reflection on the government's commitment to Australian jobs. The fact is that they do not have any commitment to creating jobs. Despite the grandiose statements they may have made to the contrary, they do not seem to have any plans in place. They are not doing anything. All they are doing is demonising hardworking Australian workers. Constantly in this place we hear them demonising workers. Instead of spending their time attacking and demonising, they should be getting on with articulating a plan for jobs. That is where their focus should be, particularly when we look at Australia's unemployment rate, which is just over six per cent. Of course, in the regions it is a lot higher than that and youth unemployment is a lot higher than that, yet the government still have no plans for jobs and no plans to address those high levels of unemployment. Particularly, as I say, in regional areas, where the unemployment rate is much higher, they have no plans at all and are not addressing the issue. It is a devastating truth but a reflection of the lack of concern that the government have towards providing employment and training. We have also seen many massive cuts to training and education right across the board, which, again, more severely impacts people in regional areas.

At the heart of this, the government did not make any mention of any of the changes that we see in this bill before the election, so, essentially, there is no mandate for them to be taking this action and scrapping the Fair Entitlements Guarantee. Despite telling voters before the election that they would not make changes to workers' pay and conditions, we see again that the government are slowly eroding our industrial relations system. That is what really concerns people. People raise with me all the time the fear that Work Choices will be brought back and they do not trust what the government say because they made all those promises before the last election—no cuts to health or education, no cuts to any entitlements, no cuts across the board and no new taxes—but we have seen all of those things come about. They have broken all of those promises.

So, quite rightly, people have a huge amount of concern about whether we will see a return to Work Choices and their working conditions will again be severely slashed, particularly penalty rates. A lot of people in my area raise that issue constantly with me. We saw a very good report recently from the McKell Institute about the impact of cutting penalty rates in the retail sector in regional areas. In areas like mine, Richmond, in far north New South Wales, it will be absolutely devastating for those workers to have their penalty rates cut. But that is what people are concerned about. In our area, they know that is what the National Party do. The National Party cut penalty rates and cut working conditions. People know that is absolutely the case and they have very legitimate fears about a return to Work Choices.

It is only those of us on this side of the House and the Labor government who have stood up for workers. We will continue to do that and we are very proud to do that, which is totally opposed to those on the other side, who continually attack workers. We are very, very proud of our record and we will certainly stand by workers and keep fighting for them.

It is for the reasons that I have raised this evening—the unfairness and the fact that it is essentially a broken promise—that I oppose this bill. I condemn those on the other side, one, for failing to speak in the debate on this bill and, two, for failing to support the workers of Australia. They have abandoned the people of Australia and, indeed, the National Party members have abandoned the people of rural and regional Australia—yet again. As we have seen so many times, they continue to abandon the people in the country areas, who need security in their employment and access to so many services. For all those reasons, I oppose this bill.

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