Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and for her interest in this area. As the Treasurer noted, more jobs and more competition for jobs is what drives wage growth. One thing that members opposite very rarely like to acknowledge is that more people on enterprise agreements means higher wages. The whole purpose of Paul Keating's design of the enterprise agreement system was to move people off awards and onto enterprise agreements, where the wages are higher. At the peak of the COVID recession, there were some 1.3 million Australians who had either lost their job or were stood down on zero hours. The goal of this government is to create jobs. Everything in the bill that we put before the parliament this morning is designed to create jobs and put upward pressure on wages.

When we look at the enterprise agreement making system, the bargaining system, there is absolutely universal agreement that it no longer works, that it's no longer fit for purpose. Employers agree with that proposition, employees agree with that proposition and the government agrees with that proposition. We all want to do something about that—except for members opposite. In fact, it was Paul Keating himself who said, 'Enterprise bargaining doesn't work as it should do, as I designed it to do'. And that is preventing bargaining from increasing productivity and increasing wages. In the last 10 years, we've seen enterprise agreements in freefall. They peaked at 25,150 in 2010 and were down to just 10,711 at 30 June this year. That's a 57 per cent drop in people who are covered by enterprise agreements. If you are covered by an enterprise agreement, your median hourly ordinary time earnings are 40 per cent higher than if you are on the awards. More enterprise agreements—higher wages. More jobs—higher wages. It's a fairly simple calculus.

That's why we are actually making changes, bringing ideas to the table, to try and fix the enterprise agreement making system—simplify procedures and cut red tape—and there are a number of improvements that we are making. These improvements are designed to stop the sort of things we've seen happening recently, where it becomes untenably difficult to actually conclude an agreement. In the Officeworks agreement in 2019, enormous time and effort had to be allocated to discussions around coolrooms for Officeworks. Undertakings were sought and had to be provided by Officeworks that it would not require employees to 'engage in work that would entitle them to a cold work disability allowance within the meaning of clause 28 of the General Retail Industry Award' or hold a liquor licence. Officeworks did not at all want to have a coldroom or hold a liquor licence. These types of legalistic, technical accoutrements that have grown around the system meant it doesn't work—and it can be improved. (Time expired)

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