Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I support the amendments of the member for Mackellar. Firstly to the point the minister raised about businesses, that the agreement will not be a ceiling on wages but will be a floor, I take the point that it won't be a ceiling. However, if you are bringing businesses together to talk about wages and getting agreement on wages, it would not be a surprise if businesses, having built those relationships and bargaining around wages, come together and decide what they will do about wages and seek it to be an effective ceiling. I think it would be very hard to understand what is actually going on, because of the nature of these businesses.

The second piece I'd like to rise in support of is in public interest. In the bill currently you can only have a forced multi-employer agreement if it's not contrary to public interest. I support the member for Mackellar's motion to flip that, that a multi-employer bargain—where the business doesn't choose to enter the bargaining; the employees choose to enter the bargaining—has to be shown to be in the public interest. I see that there's real value in that, because there is deep uncertainty out there amongst the business community about who is going to be drawn into multi-employer bargaining and what sort of bargains and groups of businesses might be drawn in. I think if you flip this and make it that it has to be positively in the public interest you would deal with issues that the minister has rightly raised, where there's a concern about a race the bottom on wages. I can see that there would be strong arguments that the race to the bottom on wages is not in the public interest. Therefore, that would give that protection to that group of workers, but would stop the legitimate fear of many businesses who would say, 'I'm going to be dragged into an agreement which is not in the public interest—and is certainly not in my interests—and is going to take a significant amount of time for me to negotiate. And it won't support the growth and development of my business.' So I recommend the member for Mackellar's amendments to the House.

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