James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the amendment to the second reading of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, because this amendment bill—I think we should just start by clarifying—is this government fixing all sorts of problems with something called the Fair Work Act. I wonder who introduced the Fair Work Act. It was the Rudd-Gillard government. I think in 2009 it ultimately passed the parliament. It is remarkable—and I'll certainly highlight and make the point—that we've got Labor members of this chamber coming in and sledging all these dramatic problems and issues in their own legislation, which they introduced when they were last in government.

Apparently this legislation that the Rudd-Gillard government brought to this parliament and that passed through this parliament is so terrible that they have to call this amendment bill the 'Closing the loopholes bill'. In and of itself, the Rudd-Gillard government legislated spectacular loopholes, in the worst interests of Aussie workers. I appreciate the clarification and that now being on the record. I look forward to the history books recording, by those that can be bothered writing about the Rudd-Gillard era into the future—make sure that the most important thing we know about the Rudd-Gillard government is that they legislated workplace legislation that the Albanese government felt was so poor and so substandard that they brought a bill into this chamber called the 'Closing the loopholes bill' on their own legislation. That's the reality of the legacy of the Rudd-Gillard government's workplace relations laws, and that's what the Albanese government thinks of the Rudd-Gillard government's era of workplace reform.

We know Paul Keating's got his own views, of course, on the regime that exists now—the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work Commission. I join Paul Keating in his lament of the situation we've got with workplace laws in this country now, compared to the excellent reforms of his era and the Hawke-Keating reforms bringing in enterprise-level negotiations. They were certainly transformative for productivity in this nation and for the relationship between employees and employers, putting businesses in a position to negotiate with employees and to have agreements that suited workers and that business that wee unique and specific to their circumstance. Indeed, before my career in politics, I worked for many years in the textile industry, and we certainly had a very unique workplace relationship in that business, and we were certainly appreciative of the ability to have negotiations and undertake enterprise negotiations with unions and, via them, the workforce. It is so lamentable that the Rudd-Gillard government brought in reforms that, as Keating and Bill Kelty have said, really dismantled the great era of enterprise bargaining in this nation. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that the Albanese government has such a low view of the Rudd-Gillard era's workplace laws that they are here again amending those laws in what they claim to be a very substantive way and what they even call 'closing the loopholes'.

This bill, of course, is excellent for the union movement, and I just want to congratulate the union movement on the return on their investment! I haven't recently calculated just how many tens of millions of dollars they gave to the Labor party in the 2022 election, but it was really money well spent for the unions. They've done very well out of this legislation. I'm sure they're very happy that the millions of dollars they gave to Labor at the last election are achieving such a return for the union movement and for the power of the union bosses in this country and in this economy.

I haven't heard many speakers opposite talking about the new rights that unions get in this legislation. That's curious in and of itself. But the union movement is in a tough spot. Private-sector-workforce union membership is down to eight per cent, and those statistics are a year old, so the ABS's most recent statistics—calculations done by the Financial Review are that the private sector workforce is about eight per cent unionised. If you were the union movement, you'd really lean on the political party that you funded into government to make dramatic changes to the laws to try and turn that around, wouldn't you? So it's to be expected that this legislation that's before us now is excellent for the union movement. It's frightening if you're an employer, it's frightening if you run a business, it's frightening if you work in a business that isn't unionised, because they're coming for you. They're coming for you in legislation like this, and no doubt a lot of other little chip-away, loophole-closing future bills will do the same—the salami slicing of expanding union power.

The workplace access allowed in this bill is particularly concerning to us on this side of the chamber. Alas, that need not worry any of us, because if our second reading amendment is supported then a parliamentary inquiry can happily look at all these things and happily dispel any concerns that we and industry have got about what the consequences are, if this legislation is passed by the parliament, for the power of unions in the workplace.

We don't even necessarily know how 'workplace' is defined, on the basis of the legislation that's before us. I've heard examples that are pretty frightening—the Farmers Federation. If you're a farmer and you live on your property and it's also a business and you employ people, what part of that farm is a workplace? If whatever part of the farm, possibly the entirety of the farm, is a workplace, this legislation allows unions unfettered access, without notice, to that home. 'Come on in, fellas. Can I make you a cup of coffee? Take a load off and watch some of my Netflix.' What is going to be possible under this? We don't know, but we can find out by undertaking a parliamentary inquiry into this legislation before this chamber debates and passes it.

There are dramatic changes to the tests for casual labour. Again, we saw this legislation for the first time yesterday and we are already debating it, and I admit it is difficult to digest hundreds and hundreds of pages, so I concede that I am not an expert on the legislation yet. I have to say that I am a little bit sceptical and suspicious about whether or not the legislation in its voluminous detail is designed, in fact, to make it as difficult as possible to properly identify some of the loophole-closing, if not loophole-opening for the unions that may well also be in this bill—all sorts of new loopholes for them to use to access workplaces and to do things that are not in the interests of businesses, that are not in the interests of employees, but are certainly in the interests of union power.

We debated in the previous parliament some clarification of the way that casual labour is determined, on the back of a Federal Court decision. It was important to put clarifications in place because a vital part of our workplace system and a vital part of our economy is being able to employ people in casual circumstances. Indeed, employees get a loading on their hourly salary rate, as we all know, if they're employed as casuals. The changes to the definition of 'casual' and particularly the 12-month mark becoming the six-month mark, as it appears from early cursory glances at this legislation, are very concerning, and I think that's going to result in people losing jobs. I think that's going to result in businesses making decisions about whether or not they open for the same hours they currently do and undertake the same amount of economic activity in our economy as they currently do. I fear that this will lead to job losses. I fear this could lead to businesses reducing their turnover and not trading as broadly as they currently do.

All these are things we can look at, of course, in this inquiry, and we can give industry groups in particular and employers, employees, unions and anyone that wants to a chance to give evidence—and for us to test and look very closely at some of the provisions of this legislation. So why would we not want to do that? Maybe one category have already been thoroughly consulted. Maybe the union movement have already had their special access to put input into this legislation. Maybe this is legislation that was effectively written by them and given to certain people to bring into this chamber; I don't know. But it seems curious that, if this legislation is so important and so good for the economy, the government doesn't support properly scrutinising it, allowing that scrutiny and seeing the results of the scrutiny before we have to debate in this chamber and pass this legislation through this chamber.

It's not the first workplace legislation that we've seen under this government, and in this term it clearly won't be the last. But there's a bit of a pattern here, a bit of consistency. At the Jobs and Skills Summit, some more innocent interlocutors in the process of public policy development would, I think, in hindsight, concede they were dramatically misled by the intentions of the government when it came to consulting and looking to pursue and undertake meaningful reform that achieves the sorts of things that Paul Keating did when his government undertook workplace reform, particularly around the productivity outcome of negotiations and ensuring that growth in the economy is appropriately shared between return on capital and return on labour—that is, rising wages.

We all want to see that happening and we all want to see businesses, at the enterprise level, working together to talk about how their employees can earn more and their businesses can be more profitable. We had that in the enterprise bargaining era, and it's been lost to us, through the Fair Work Act under the Rudd-Gillard government, but even more so now that we see the return of the spectre of pattern bargaining in our economy, through reforms that were rushed through this chamber last year.

We're very concerned on this side of the chamber, and obviously I commend the contribution of our lead speaker, the member for Bradfield, and the second reading amendment that he has moved. I urge the chamber to support that amendment because we are in a situation where we are debating legislation we saw for the first time yesterday. We are very concerned about the ramifications of it. We would certainly like to give others that do not have the honour of serving in chambers like this, but who have views on this and are important stakeholders, the opportunity to put their views and have their questions answered. By supporting this second reading amendment, that is us supporting holding this inquiry and reflecting on the results of that inquiry before this progresses through the parliament. On that basis I commend the second reading amendment to the House.

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