David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill is very essential to allow us to deliver what we said we would do in the last election. This bill encompasses amendments that go to the heart of fairness and productivity.

Before we go any further I would just like to bring to the House's attention what I, and most people, see as fairness. Fairness implies reasonableness: reasonable activity; being reasonable. It implies taking into account both sides of the argument—or the many sides to an argument—or the objectives and aims and the situation that the parties to negotiation find themselves in. It does not imply fairness to one party to the negotiations; it implies equal footings, equal validity and consideration of both sides of the argument.

In the Australian situation, one can almost justify anything by appealing to this higher Australian authority of something being fair or not, and our opponents on the other side have worked this principle of Australian society to the nth degree. The aim of this exercise is to put fairness back into the Fair Work Act because, to the humble observer, let alone large corporations or small businesses that are trying to get a new industrial arrangement in place, all the fairness seems to be on the side of the applicant. You have only got to see opposition to our budget. There is no economic angle in their arguments. There is just all this appeal to something being unfair. Fairness is a bit like beauty. Beauty, the old saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. Fairness is also in the eye of the beholder, and what we have in the Fair Work Act is a one-sided situation where applicants for an agreement can come in, strike first and argue later. This amendment addresses that situation.

It is also addressing the issue of productivity, which is not enshrined in this amendment, but it is just putting it on the table to make sure it is considered by the commission and by the people in good-faith bargaining. Everyone in the industrial space wants the business to succeed. Everyone who is employed wants to have a job. But, when applications cross over to manifestly unreasonable or excessive, you have to have the ability in our negotiation system to make sure the unreasonableness or the economic reality of a situation come to bear. So productivity is at the essence of this bill.

In Australia, we are pricing ourselves out of so many of our traditional markets. We have, for many years, being very efficient miners. We have been very efficient farmers and producers of wonderful produce. But, if we have inefficient industrial relations without productivity gains, all our competitive advantage will go. You only have to look at the JJ Richards case from three or four years ago or the case in the north-west with the tugboat negotiations, where there were unbelievably generous ambit claims put in. That is what this regulatory change to the act is aiming to address. It compels the Fair Work Commission to consider productivity changes. It also addresses the process by which protected industrial action can be taken. 'Protected industrial action' means whoever goes on strike is not liable, in a civil sense, for any of the consequences of the strike.

These are two essential problems for the nation: the return of our productivity growth, which was the marker of income growth and national prosperity through the late eighties and nineties into the early 2000's. That is why our society was in a really sweet spot where people's household incomes were growing and there was growth in businesses which employ more Australians. But we seem to have lost that. We have been on vacation regarding productivity growth. If we do not become productive, things become more expensive. Our products that we try to sell are less competitive. So our trade suffers. To make the most of our free trade agreements with Japan, Korea and China, we have to lift our productivity. The trade deals themselves will not get us the wealth and prosperity that we have within our grasp. It will happen if we become more productive.

One only has to look at the LNG revolution. There is a whole new technology being delivered in these floating LNG platforms because it was more efficient and more productive for the LNG processors to do it out at sea. We would much rather it happened on shore using Australian workers, but efficiency and productivity was woeful. So they have invented this whole new technology that bypasses a lot of Australian workers, and it is a pity. We do not want that to go on continuously. We want our workplace to be productive and effective.

Some of the amendments, in particular, insert new sections which put effect to those principles. Industrial action still can be taken with these amendments, but there has to be a genuine discussion about the productivity gains. Some of these productivity gains were mentioned by the previous speaker with some shock, horror and surprise. But getting rid of restrictive and inefficient work practices is to be commended. I think it is an excellent idea. Employees having more responsibilities, but then becoming more productive is another great principle. Improving design efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace is another great principle. But the previous speaker looked on in horror and surprise, thinking that this might be, essentially, a bad thing.

As I mentioned, it does not force productivity into the workplace. It is very gentle. It is just saying that you have got to discuss it. It has got to be part of the negotiation process, and before you have protected strike action you have to have a protected ballot to see if the workers do actually want to undertake strike action. These are hardly revolutionary ideas. But, if you do get manifestly excessive claims like a 38 per cent wage rise without any productivity gains, no business can survive that. These regulatory changes will introduce common sense. We said before the election that we would work with the Fair Work Commission—we are working with the Fair Work Commission and we are putting sensible regulatory changes in place, and good outcomes should result.

Subsection 443(1) provides that the Fair Work Commission must make a protected action ballot order if it is satisfied that an application for a protected action ballot order has been made and that each applicant has been, and most importantly is, genuinely trying to reach an agreement. How often have we heard about the rush to a strike action happening without genuine negotiations. We are putting on the table that this has to occur in a genuine fashion. We are putting on the table that improvements to productivity have been discussed. It requires, at the minimum, that discussions about those radical ideas that I mentioned, such as improvements to productivity by removing restrictive work practices, have been considered. Under subsection 443(1), the protected action ballot from an applicant is enshrined.

These reasonable initiatives are going to increase our productivity, they are going to make us more competitive, they are going to make businesses sustainable and they will get rid of manifestly excessive claims—and, if the claims do have an obvious adverse effect on the productivity of the workplace, they will be considered. What we want to have is a two-way street; we want to put the 'fair' back into the Fair Work Act so that the employer or the developer of a project gets the economics of the situation considered. It is then a two-way street; it is not a one-way street with random manifestly excessive claims and rapid moves to industrial action occur before true negotiations take place, and that the workers, if they are involved in it, have had a ballot to see if they really want to go down that route. So, let us put the Fair Work Act back into a fair space so both sides get to do genuine negotiations. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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