Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to comment upon Labor’s industrial relations task force that has been established. I know that some in the gallery and, indeed, in this chamber think that somehow the effects of the industrial relations legislation will slip from the memory of the Australian people. I am here to tell you, Mr Speaker, that will not be the case. There is no doubt that over the course of the months ahead and until the next election the Australian people will be considering the extreme and unfair provisions of the Work Choices act that has been passed by this parliament, having been put by an ideologically obsessed government which is clearly anti worker and, indeed, has an extreme enmity towards unions.

I am happy to say that the task force first met last week in Launceston, in the electorate of Bass, where six Labor members and senators met with local Launceston people raising concerns about the potential adverse effects of the Work Choices act upon employment and employment conditions in that community. I am aware that the member for Bass spoke in favour of the legislation. I think he will have to eat his words once he starts to listen to the comments of the residents of Launceston. For example, we had before us a small business operator, Andrew Lovitt, who had worked on Warwick Smith’s campaign, so he is a person who would indeed associate himself—at one point in time at least—with the Liberal Party. He had taken out an advertisement for $5,000 in the Launceston Examiner opposing the laws for their extreme and unfair provisions. He told us of his concerns and of how difficult it would be for honourable employers to maintain decent employment conditions under this new system, which will drive wages and conditions down.

We were also fortunate to hear from Debbie Butler, who is the Launceston Community Legal Centre manager. Debbie Butler was the author of a submission to the sham Senate committee of inquiry into the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Bill 2005. I remind the members present that the sham Senate committee inquiry into the bill lasted for five consecutive days, confined to Canberra. It did not leave this place and it did not go and speak with communities, churches and other organisations about the concerns they have about this extreme set of laws. She did put a submission into that process but was not invited to appear. So you had a situation where this sham Senate committee inquiry, which was of course then followed by the ramming through of the legislation after the debate in this chamber was gagged, did not invite any Tasmanians that had put in submissions to the inquiry to appear except for the Tasmanian government. So we had one Tasmanian witness appear before the entire Senate committee inquiry, the so-called committee of inquiry last year into the Workplace Relations (Work Choices) Bill 2005, and no other Tasmanians were invited even though they had put submissions into the actual process and wanted to appear before the committee.

We invited Debbie Butler, the manager of the community legal centre, the opportunity to explain her concerns, and she listed a number of them, which included a concern that the legal cost for even an employer to have to deal with unfair dismissals was going to become too costly. She emphasised how difficult it will become for unfairly dismissed workers to actually take recourse. We know, as we continue to travel throughout Australia, as we will for the first half of this year before reporting back to our party room, the caucus, and to Kim Beazley, that there will be more and more examples. If the government think that this matter will fall from the eyes of the Australian people, they are very much mistaken. We will make sure that this is front and centre right up until the next election. I look forward to hearing more Australians putting their views, an opportunity that was denied them when the so-called Senate inquiry was convened last year to look into the Work Choices bill. (Time expired)