Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Monday marked a dark day in Australian history. I am of course not referring to the visit by Tony Blair to our parliament but to the beginning of a new industrial relations regime that will see Australian workers and their families worse off. We have a task as parents, as parliamentarians, and that is to leave a society for the generations to come that has been enhanced and not diminished. This government has failed in this most fundamental of tasks, with 1,200 pages of legislation and explanatory memorandum, plus an extra 400 pages of regulations that were snuck out the day after South Australia and Tasmania went to the polls and under the cloak of the Commonwealth Games. They were snuck out so that there could be no real scrutiny by the people whom it affects most.

We should not be surprised. This gutless government refused to take their plans to the people at the last election. There was no mention of this extreme industrial relations agenda during their campaign. They were too busy lying about interest rates to even have the ‘decency’ to lie about industrial relations. No worker will be worse off; there will never, ever be a GST; children were thrown overboard; AWB is a fine, upstanding company—and pigs fly backwards at noon.

The people I represent in the Fowler electorate are among the most vulnerable in the country when it comes to exploitation in the workplace. Already there is a reliance on low-paid, low-skilled jobs, and attacking their conditions is simply another insult they should not have to bear. Already this group is open to exploitation more than most and the government has just legalised exploitation in a way that has not been seen since 12-year-olds were sent down the mines for 14 hours a day. Take what is offered or take a hike—that is the message, and the full weight of the law is behind an employer who wishes to cut the wages and conditions of their employees.

One of the most insidious aspects of this legislation is the fear and silence that it will engender in the people who most need to be able to speak out. There will be a few high-profile cases that the media will focus on of people being exploited, ripped off or sacked unfairly by unscrupulous employers, but what of those too scared to speak out? Regardless of what the Prime Minister tells us about unlawful dismissal, if an employee speaks out against the treatment they are getting then they live in fear of the sack. How many thousands of cases will go unnoticed and unreported because the worker involved is simply too scared to speak out for fear of losing his or her job? Fear and silence are deadly to a society. We have seen it all too often in domestic violence cases or child abuse cases, where the victim will not speak out for fear of retribution. What happens to those people?

And it is not over. Senator Nick Minchin let the cat out of the bag to the HR Nicholls Society when he said that the government were far from finished in their program for the punishment of the Australian workforce. The Prime Minister may have tried to stuff the cat back in the bag, but when you look at the departmental document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and see huge swatches of black covering the detail under the heading of ‘Unfinished business’, you know that the cat is out to stay. Minister Andrews himself can point to absolutely no short-term gain. His estimate is three to five years before any of the vague benefits he claims will begin to be realised. Why then do this?

This is the 21st century and this policy will not take our nation forward. Backward looking, insular, reactionary and wrong—it sums up the Prime Minister, this legislation and the government as a whole. I urge everybody who is adversely affected by this legislation to come forward. I know it will be difficult. I know there may be severe consequences, but if we are to put an end to the cycle of fear and silence, then it is what must be done. Your employer may be against you, this government may be against you, but you are not alone. There are those of us within this parliament that are on your side and together we can redress the imbalance and return our nation to sanity. It is so true—the Prime Minister’s dream has definitely become the workers’ nightmare.