Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I went to bed last night I had a big smile on my face. I had been to the coalition Christmas party, where we thanked all our staff. It was a terrific night. Everyone was in great spirits. The Prime Minister spoke. He thanked our staff for the hard work they do. There was a great feeling of camaraderie there. After the party, I did a little bit of work in my office and then headed home. As is my wont, I got my iPod out. I thought: 'I'll just watch 7.30 because Bill Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, is going to be on it. This will be worth watching.' Leigh Sales said: 'Leader of the Opposition, you've left the government with an enormous budget hole. MYEFO is about to once again show that the income the government receives is going to go down. Spending is not stopping because all the spending cuts promised are being blocked in the Senate. What is your solution?' The Leader of the Opposition said: 'What we need to do is improve productivity. "Productivity" is a word the government has stopped using.' I thought: 'Isn't this wonderful news! This is a real change that we are seeing here. The Leader of the Opposition has recognised that we must improve the nation's productivity. This is wonderful news.' So I went to bed with a big smile on my face thinking this is going to be fantastic.

So I came in here today and thought: 'Let's see whether the Leader of the Opposition is going to back his words with some action. We've got a bill here which is all about increasing the nation's productivity. This is going to be great. All of a sudden the opposition is going to say, "Yes government, we're prepared to help you."' And then, sadly, I had to sit through 15 minutes of the member for Griffith. And what did she have to offer in terms of our efforts to increase productivity? I am not saying that this is a ground-breaking bill that is going to change the nation's productivity overnight; but it is going to do a bit, it is going help. But what did we get from the opposition? Sadly, we got nothing but negativity—and, not only that, we got the outlandish statement that this is putting additional red tape into the process and that we should be taking red tape out of the workplace relations system. If the member for Griffith truly believes that, then I look forward to seeing what the opposition proposes to do. If she wants to deregulate the workplace, if she wants to take all the red tape out, we on this side are all ears, we are ready to listen to what the opposition has to say. We are extremely keen to take out of the system the red tape that was added in the last six years to the extent that we are sadly now seeing once again youth unemployment and long-term unemployment rise in this country to levels which all of us here collectively should be alarmed at and saying we need to collectively do something about. The member for Griffith said, 'Where is the evidence?' That is the evidence of how the six previous years of Labor government failed. There is the evidence of what their changes in the Fair Work Act did. Have a look at what is happening to youth unemployment and long-term unemployment in this nation. You could not have evidence more stark. Everyone said when the Fair Work laws came in that youth unemployment and long-term unemployment would be the litmus test of those laws. Sadly, they have failed—and that is the evidence.

So what are we trying to do here in terms of changing the productivity debate in the nation? The explanatory memorandum sets it out—and this is not major:

Examples of improvement to productivity may include but are not limited to elimination of restrictive or inefficient work practices; initiatives to provide employees with greater responsibilities or additional skills directly translating to improved outcomes; and improvements to the design, efficiency and effectiveness of workplace procedures and practices.

That is what we are asking for here. Yet those opposite cannot bring themselves to say they understand that, given the current circumstances the nation finds itself in, we need to do something to lift labour productivity. If we are to address the current budgetary circumstances, improving and increasing labour productivity has to be a key aspect of it.

And that is what this bill seeks to do. It is part of a suite of bills that honour the commitments that we took to the last election. There has been much outrage from those opposite when, on occasion, we have had to readjust some of our policies because of the budgetary circumstances we find ourselves in. We have been accused of all sorts of things, including breaking election promises. Yet here we are, with three workplace relations bills that implement the policies we took to the last election, and when we try to implement them, what do those opposite do? They say to us, 'Sorry, no; you cannot implement the commitment you took to the last election.' The hypocrisy knows no bounds.

So, what is this bill, in greater detail, seeking to do? The Fair Work Amendment (Bargaining Processes) Bill 2014 implements the final tranche of the government's amendments to the Fair Work Act that were clearly outlined in the coalition's election policy to improve the Fair Work laws. The bill makes three important improvements to the processes of bargaining whilst retaining important employee protections and employee rights. The improvements are: putting productivity back on the agenda, as I have outlined, by requiring parties to at least discuss improvements to productivity during negotiations for a new enterprise agreement, and ensuring that unions and employees do not use industrial action as a tool of first resort by ensuring that they have at least first attempted to engage in a meaningful discussion with the employer before resorting to industrial action. To ensure that the claims in support of which industrial action is being taken are not unrealistic or implausible, industrial action is an important employee right. It is a right that must be exercised responsibly rather than capriciously.

This is not radical legislation. This is legislation that implements policy that we took to the Australian people, and the Australian people gave us a tick to say yes, we approve of your policy agenda—then opposition, now government—and we vote you into office and would like to see it implemented. We must ask the question of why, sadly, those opposite will not allow us to implement our workplace relations agenda. And we need to take a step back, because we also need to look at why the changes to the Fair Work Act were put through by those opposite. They did it because they operate at the behest of the union movement, and they cannot objectively stand back and say: 'Okay, yes: unions, you are an interest group, and we understand what you are arguing for, but, as a government, we have to correctly listen to what you have to say, but we also have to take into account what employers are saying. And we also need to take account of those employees outside of the union movement, because, as we know, union movement membership is declining.'

If you are implementing legislation by listening to only one part of the debate, you get a skewed debate. And, as I highlighted earlier, that has consequences. And the sad thing at the moment is that the consequences are hitting our young and they are hitting the long-term unemployed. I ask the House collectively again to look at the statistics in those two key areas, because that is where the impact is being felt of the stubbornness of those opposite to not allow the government to implement the policies it took to the last election. And I would ask those opposite: what is wrong with us trying to put a productivity component into bargaining? What can be wrong with that? These are not unreasonable requests. Why won't you allow us to do it? Why won't you support this? This is asking that productivity be a component of bargaining.

Say you went out into the community and said, 'Well, we're actually opposing this.' And the explanatory memorandum sets out what they are opposing: 'elimination of restrictive or inefficient work practices; initiatives to provide employees with greater responsibilities or additional skills directly translating to improved outcomes; and improvements to the design, efficiency and effectiveness of workplace procedures and practices'. They are opposing that, at a time when we have to do everything we can—as the Leader of the Opposition said on 7.30 last night—to enhance the productivity of the nation. That is what he said last night. And I had a big smile on my face and thought, 'We're going to see a change from those opposite; we're going to see those opposite actually looking to do what is in the best interest of the nation rather than continuing to play political games.' Yet what do we have today? Back in the cold, hard reality of the chamber, the political games continue.

This government is about laying the foundations of long-term, sustainable growth for this nation. We know we have to do this to fix the budget. We know we have to do this to make sure that young Australians in particular have a future where they will have real incomes that are greater than ours. We want to set the next generation up so that they will have an improved standard of living compared with the one we enjoy here. But we need to wake up, because what is happening at the moment in this place is that every measure we take to try to do that is being opposed. And who will suffer the consequences? It will be our children and our grandchildren. And I would hope over Christmas that we can have a long hard think about that—about not what is in our short-term political interest but what is in the interests of the nation.

Christmas time is a time to reflect, and I say to my wonderful communities in Wannon: have a very merry Christmas. Enjoy the festive break and take some time to contemplate. And I say to those opposite: please do the same. Please reflect on where we are at, as a nation, at the moment. Because, if you will not willingly participate in us taking the action that we need to get the nation back on track, to make sure that we can provide the standard of living that we enjoy for our children and grandchildren, we as a nation are going to be all the poorer for it. So I ask you and beg you to think about that over Christmas.

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