David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Brand proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government's driving down wage rates for working Australians by removing their right to penalty rates, leave loadings and shift work loadings without any benefit for the economy.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the House. What does the government have against the nans of Australia? What does it have against the grandmas, the granddads, the mums, the dads and the kids? What has the Prime Minister got against them that he wants their wages slashed and their conditions overturned? What has he got against them that he wants to produce fear and uncertainty in the workforce instead of decency and fairness? What has this government got against the Australian people? These Australian workplace agreements are purely and simply about slashing wages and conditions and have nothing at all to do with boosting productivity. They are all about pitting kids, in the first instance, against multinationals and businessmen with years of experience and regarding those kids as potential serious bargaining partners. The government’s plan for the future is to cut wages, cut conditions and take penalty rates away.

We in the Labor Party stand for a modern, flexible industrial relations system with collective agreements to boast pay and productivity. There is no doubt that Australia’s relatively good productivity performance in the nineties was, by and large, related to the flexible enterprise agreement system put in place by the Labor Party. That is why we had substantial growth in productivity, whereas New Zealand, which previously had productivity rates roughly the same as Australia’s but instead moved away from collective agreements to individual contracts, found its productivity effectively halved. The gap between Australian and New Zealand productivity rates, which had been nonexistent, became quite dramatic. That is why an enterprise agreement—it is not centralised wage fixing we are dealing with here—when put in place for employees and employers to sit down and work out how they can do things better in order to justify a pay rise produces productivity whereas an AWA produces just any old thing. It certainly can increase profitability for the employer, but it has nothing to do with productivity.

The experience of AWAs is that they have nothing to do with productivity. They are all about slashing wages. They are a lazy route to profit. They give employers the wrong incentives. Cutting workers’ wages does not increase productivity. Cutting pay and slashing conditions does not prepare the Australian workforce for the future. The government is dumping Australian workers on a low-wage, low-skill treadmill and condemning our kids—our youngest and most vulnerable workers—to compete with India and China in a race we can never win. It is a race to the bottom. This is about exploiting our youngest and most vulnerable workers and expecting them to take on multinationals and giant corporations in a no-win contest for wages and conditions.

The worst time we are going to have between now and the next election on the issue of AWAs will be January and February next year. That is when the kids will complete their training courses of this year. Many of them have been in traineeships, or what used to be described as traineeships, and some of them in apprenticeships. They are going to experience next year for the first time, as they go for their first jobs, AWAs without a no-disadvantage test applying. We will see horror cases day in, day out all next year arising from the sorts of AWAs that will be thrust upon these kids.

As I go around the business community and the broader Australian community, I am surprised at the commonality of views. Over the last 12 months I have talked to hundreds of businessmen and thousands of people in this country. Amongst the hundreds of businessmen to whom I have talked I have not found one who has said that they support unreservedly the policy this government has put in place in its industrial relations legislation. Every one of them says that John Howard has gone too far. None of them—not one of them—argued for what the Prime Minister calls the ‘flexibility’ that has been placed in the system. They understand completely the absurdity of the proposition that a businessman would sit down and seriously discuss each year with 1,000 workers the internal content of the AWA, as they would just about anything else. Employers would, of course, talk about a collective agreement. That is, a simplified, simple process. They don’t mind doing that. But the notion that they would sit down with every one of their employees is absurd. I remember one fellow telling me that he had signed off his AWA, which had a provision in it for maternity leave. When he raised a question about that the employer said: ‘I don’t care about it; just sign the blasted thing. This is the template that we have.’

There is a material difference, however, between the AWAs now and those that were first introduced by this government. We have not liked them at any point of time. Despite what the Prime Minister says, he has to concede that they are not a heavily utilised instrument. AWAs have been in place for seven years and they have achieved the magnificent distinction of being only 2.4 per cent of the total number of agreements put in place covering working conditions in this country. That is not much progress, considering that the federal government has been effectively levering in AWAs by forcing its own employees to take them. It has also been forcing state governments to take AWAs when those state governments enter into agreements with it. Anyone who contracts to the federal government for road building or whatever else is also forced to take an AWA—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been standing over them.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The federal government has been standing over the workforces that receive government contracts. When one considers that, it is a bit of a surprise that after seven years of AWAs only about 500,000 people out of a total workforce of more than 10 million are covered by them. But there is a difference, which I suspect is going to produce circumstances now where these figures may well start to change. Previously, under the amendments forced on the government when it last put in place its industrial relations legislation, a proposition was put in place for a no disadvantage test. There was a definite limitation on the capacity of an AWA to massively undermine conditions that workers in their previous place of work had enjoyed. Now it has all changed. In the legislation put in place by the government at the end of last year and now coming into operation, out went the no disadvantage test and in came the Spotlight AWA. Out went the no disadvantage test and, with it, out went penalty rates for overtime, out went penalty rates for holiday work, out went breaks, out went shift allowances—out went a whole range of conditions which could be effectively traded away for virtually nothing. That is what happens when you remove the no-disadvantage test.

The Prime Minister comes in here with absurd statistics on how much better off people are on AWAs. He knows darned well that when you take out the managers, when you take out the supervisors and when you take out groups of miners previously on common law agreements or common law individual contracts and now put on AWAs you get a very different picture indeed. Why do you think Freehills has been going around with these briefing notes? Freehills has been saying to employers whom they are briefing that if you take a look at last year’s wage rises, the last year we have statistics for, the average AWA based employee got 2.5 per cent, effectively the same as the inflation rate, and agreements generally produced a four per cent increase in income—union collective agreements 4.3 per cent and non-union collective agreements 3.5 per cent. What point do you think Freehills was making to the employers? Do you think Freehills was going to those employers on behalf of the government and saying to them, ‘Look, we think this is a terribly unjust situation, so could you chaps please gird your loins, get yourselves together and make sure that this performance of 2.5 per cent is improved to at least four per cent next year?’ No. What Freehills is doing, what the government’s advocates are doing, is saying to employers, ‘Look at this little ripper product we have got for you—the capacity for you to slash away at all those benefits that have been built up by your workforce over the years. And here is the positive feature, here is the proof positive.’

It is not about productivity. Freehills were not producing a set of statistics on the productivity outcomes of people who work on AWAs, collective agreements or whatever. It was simply the pay. What they were saying, as this government is saying to employers now, is: ‘Get out there and do your worst. Do your worst first with the people who are entering the workforce. Do your worst second with the people who are changing jobs. Do your worst third with the people whom you can now unfairly dismiss, sack and reemploy. Do your worst with the women who come to you and seek flexible hours so they can deal with their families. Do your worst to the blokes when you have managed to put in place a sufficient percentage of your workforce which is massively underpaid in comparison to your more long-term employees.’ That is what is going on here.

God help us with these laws if we ever enter into a period of some form of economic downturn. Because when we enter into a period of economic downturn, you will see this law in full pomp—you will see this law raging through the industrial relations conditions of ordinary Australians. And don’t think that ordinary Australians do not understand this. They understand this absolutely, despite the fact that the government has structured the law to conceal as much as possible from public scrutiny the impact of their AWAs. It is an offence, if an AWA is actually signed, for either party to reveal the content of it, so we can only see the statistics in their rawest sense; we cannot actually see the statistics involving an individual, unless it is an AWA that is not signed as opposed to an AWA that is signed—though, in the case of Spotlight, I must say they had the brazenness to put their AWA on their website, so I suppose that we can have a good look at the Spotlight AWA. But, generally speaking, the real stories of injustice in this community, we cannot see.

But we can see enough of the victims of this government’s legislation to this point—people like Arthur Ledwidge, a 46-year-old Melbourne field technician, sacked along with 70 other workmates and told he could buy a company van and become a contractor doing the same work but earning $180 less a week; people like Emily Connor, a 23-year-old Canberra child-care worker, sacked after five years’ employment, not even allowed to say goodbye to the kids she cared for or their parents—no warning, no reason; and people like Leonie Wong, a 17-year-old worker in an ice-cream shop, sacked because she rejected an AWA that signed away annual leave, overtime, weekend penalties and superannuation. Then we had Karen Palmer here today, sacked after 14 years with a company. The Prime Minister had the brazenness to say to Karen Palmer—so kind, Prime Minister: ‘Go and take a court case against the company that dismissed you, for which we’ll give you four grand’—for a case that will start at 50 grand and probably end at 150 grand. Big-hearted old Uncle Arthur on that one! One thing she needs of course is a statement from her employer that he has sacked her because she carried an injury. Do you think she got a statement like that from them? Yeah, go and tell it to the marines; call on them—sure the employer would do that for her!

There is no saving these industrial laws, which is why we say we will rip them up. What we now see is a new AWA in a new format, the format with the no disadvantage test ripped away. And we now have the practical examples, the Spotlight examples and the other examples that I have been referring to. We now know what an AWA—not a terribly popular mechanism for employing people hitherto—can do now that that no disadvantage test has been ripped away from it. That is why we are taking you on on that, and you are going to be defeated on it. (Time expired)

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the weekend the Leader of the Opposition showed once and for all why he is unfit to ever be the Prime Minister of Australia. The reason is that what he showed on the weekend was that, in return for $50 million from the unions in Australia, he was prepared to cave in to their demands. He was prepared to cave in to their demands to keep his job. As the Sydney Morning Herald said in its editorial headline: ‘Beazley’s real agenda: his job. Cynical backflip on AWAs’. And almost every major newspaper in Australia over the last day or two has had a similar headline in relation to the announcement by the Leader of the Opposition. The Herald Sun in Melbourne: ‘Beazley steps backwards’. The West Australian: ‘Beazley plans return to an unwanted past. The Adelaide Advertiser: ‘Beazley fires wide of a sitting duck’. The Financial Review: ‘Beazley goes back to the ’50s’. The Australian: ‘BEAZLEY’S BACKFLIP’. The Daily Telegraph, from Sydney: ‘Sop to the unions’. And it goes on and on. The small business writer in the Australian: ‘Beazley backs wrong horse in the industrial stakes’. Again, a comment in the Australian: ‘Beazley bombs as economic manager’. On and on it goes—the Courier Mail: ‘Backflip a risky move in IR world’. Steve Lewis: ‘Beazley’s backflip on AWAs will undermine the ALP’s quest to be seen as economically responsible’.

Why is it that almost every major newspaper, almost every major news outlet in this country, has said over the last 48 hours that not only is this a backflip on the part of the Leader of the Opposition; it is one that is irresponsible in terms of taking Australia and Australians’ prosperity forward. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that what the Leader of the Opposition proposes is to rip up the wages and conditions of hundreds and thousands of Australians. That is what he proposes to do. The reality is, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows—not my data, not some false data manufactured by the Leader of the Opposition—those who are employed under Australian workplace agreements are on average paid 13 per cent more than those who are under collective agreements. And if you compare individual Australian workplace agreements with awards in Australia then the differential is that 100 per cent are generally better off under individual agreements than those people who are employed under awards in Australia. The policy of the Australian Labor Party is essentially to take us back to having an award as the core of every workplace arrangement in this country. So the first point about what the Leader of the Opposition has been condemned for is that he wants to rip away the wages and conditions of hundreds and thousands of Australians who have made use of individual agreements.

The second point is that he wants to tear down the economic structure that has delivered economic prosperity in this country. The Leader of the Opposition wants to rip up—to use his expression—not just what was put in place in this parliament at the end of last year, and came into operation on 27 March this year, but Australian workplace agreements in their entirety. He wants to rip up those provisions put in place in this country almost a decade ago. What have those provisions done for the economic prosperity of this country? We saw last week in this country for the first time in 30 years an unemployment rate starting with the figure ‘4’. For the first time in 30 years in this country the unemployment rate fell below five per cent. We have the Leader of the Opposition complaining in this place and elsewhere about examples. I do not hear him saying one word about the fact that 55,000 jobs were created in the month of May in Australia.

I do not know who the Leader of the Opposition is talking to, but as I have gone around this country I have had small and medium business operator after business operator come up to me and say, ‘Because of the changes that you’ve made to the industrial relations laws in this country, I’m going to or I have employed somebody else.’ On television just a few weeks ago, there was an employer from Darwin who said that she had employed an additional seven people as a result of getting rid of the unfair dismissal laws in this country. Those sorts of anecdotal experiences, which are related to me day after day and week after week by employers around this country, are revealed in part I believe in those 55,000 additional jobs created in this country in the month of May alone. A 4.9 per cent unemployment rate, something we have not seen in a generation or two in this country, is a result of the economic prosperity that reforms undertaken in 1996 and again last year have led to. That is what the Leader of the Opposition wants to rip away.

No wonder once again editorial writers at every major newspaper in Australia have condemned the announcement made at the weekend by the Leader of the Opposition. Why have they condemned it? They have done so because they know that this has helped to not only drive down unemployment in this country but drive up real wages. Let us make a comparison. What do Australians think real wages went up by under 13 years of a Labor government? During the time that Labor was in government and the Leader of the Opposition was the minister for employment, real wages went up by just 1.2 per cent. In the 10 years that this government has been in office, real wages for Australians have gone up by 16.8 per cent. They went up by 1.2 per cent when the Leader of the Opposition was responsible for employment in this country and have gone up by 16.8 per cent since we have been in government. That is the comparison that Australians understand—a 4.9 per cent unemployment rate, a 16.8 per cent increase in real wages. That is what the Leader of the Opposition wants to tear down. He wants to tear down the edifice that has brought about these changes and these benefits for real Australians.

There is something more significant in the criticism of the Leader of the Opposition for the announcement he made at the weekend. He announced, ‘I am going to abolish, if I win government, individual workplace agreements in Australia.’ The real significance of that announcement was that it showed the weak and vacillating character of the Leader of the Opposition. That is what Australians know about Mr Beazley, the Leader of the Opposition. They know he is a weak man, and this just showed it in spades again at the weekend. It reinforced in the minds of Australians what a weak Leader of the Opposition we have in this country. He did not even consult his backbench. He did not consult his caucus. He apparently did not even consult the shadow ministry. The member for Perth conceded this morning in the media that he did not consult him about it, that he just told him that it was a fait accompli.

The Leader of the Opposition could have made a choice at the weekend. The choice can be summed up in two personalities. One of them is a successful Labour Prime Minister, namely Tony Blair, the Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain. Mr Blair had a similar choice to make when he became Prime Minister of Britain. When he became Prime Minister, it was widely expected—indeed, it was being pressed upon him by the trade unions in the United Kingdom—that he would undo, that he would wind back, that he would rip up the reforms which Margaret Thatcher and the previous Conservative government put in place in the labour market and industrial relations in the UK. When Mr Blair, shortly after becoming the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, went to the Trades Union Congress he told his comrades that he was not going to cave in to them. The Leader of the Opposition in Australia could have made that decision when he went to the New South Wales conference of the Labor Party and the unions at the weekend. Back then, Mr Blair said:

We will keep the flexibility of the present labour market, and it may make some shiver but, in the end, it is warmer in the real world ...

If we had a Leader of the Opposition who had some strength of character, who was prepared to stand up to those who were seeking to destabilise his leadership of the Labor Party, as John Robertson and his mates in Unions NSW were doing—and the member opposite, the member for Perth, knows better perhaps than many others in this place that that is what was going on—and who had some real guts and decency and the courage to stand up for his convictions, he would have said what Mr Blair said to the trade unions in the UK when he became the leader. We do not have a Tony Blair insofar as the Leader of the Opposition in Australia is concerned.

This is a man who did not have the courage to stand up for his convictions, who did not have the courage to say, ‘We’re going to do something to continue to drive down the unemployment rate in Australia.’ This is a man who has no concept of and no concern about unemployment in Australia, who presided over almost 11 per cent unemployment and who said when he was the minister for employment and a question about the long-term unemployed was put to him that they might as well stay on the scrap heap. This is a man who does not have any concern for jobs in Australia. As the editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald said, the Leader of the Opposition is not concerned about jobs for Australians. He is concerned about one job and one job only—that is, his job. Instead of doing a Tony Blair at the weekend, the Leader of the Opposition gave a Mark Latham performance. Mr Latham has been widely criticised.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members opposite are laughing now. They were not laughing when the former Leader of the Opposition did not consult them. The two members at the table, the member for Perth and the member for Lilley, know that better than anybody else in this place. We had in Mr Latham a man who did not consult, who just went off and made decisions by himself. He made a decision, for example, about having the troops home by Christmas. We have had a similar response from the Leader of the Opposition: ‘We’ll get rid of AWAs by the following Christmas.’ Instead of a Tony Blair performance, we had a Mark Latham type performance from the Leader of the Opposition at the weekend.

And what is this going to do as far as workplaces in Australia are concerned? This gives a green light to certain sorts of activities. It says to the mining, resources and other industries in Australia: ‘We don’t care about what circumstances have actually helped you to make this economy thrive the way it is thriving at the present time. We don’t care about that.’ The fact is there was a mass migration of workers in Western Australia from the state system into the national system when the state Labor government in Western Australia effectively abolished individual agreements, which the Leader of the Opposition plans on doing. What happened in the mining industry? Not just the employers, but thousands of employees in the mining industry in Western Australia went from the state system over to the federal system so that they could take advantage of individual Australian workplace agreements.

The Leader of the Opposition’s home state has about 10 per cent of the Australian workforce yet some 30 per cent of the AWAs which are utilised in this country. But has the Leader of the Opposition learned anything from that lesson at all? None whatsoever. He just says to the mining industry in Australia, producing billions of dollars of profit and income for this country, ‘Oh, we’re going to rip up the arrangements that have enabled you to be profitable in the way you are and that have ensured that this country has thrived in the way it has.’ No wonder we have this massive condemnation from the media in Australia.

But worse than that, this gives a green light in a couple of ways. As reported in the Australian today, ‘Unions push ALP for more’. I say this to the member opposite, the member for Lilley: once you start to appease people, as the Leader of the Opposition has done, once you start to appease the thugs in the union movement, as the Leader of the Opposition has done, once you say, ‘I’ll cave in to you, because that’s the only way I’ll keep my job,’ the reality is there is no end to it. What do we see in the newspapers today? ‘Unions push ALP for more’. This is just the start, as far as the unions are concerned, because they know what we know, which is what every Australian knows: you have a weak Leader of the Opposition. If he is prepared to cave in once, he is going to cave in again, and again, and again. I predict that in the coming weeks and months, what we will see from the Leader of the Opposition is not just this first cave-in, but a series of cave-ins, because essentially he is weak, he is known to be weak, and that is what the unions know.

But worse than that, he will obviously give a green light to the sort of the thuggery we have seen in workplaces in Australia—a green light to the CFMEU and their mates to go back into the mining sites, to the construction and building sites in Melbourne and Sydney, and push up the cost of building and housing in this country. That is what this sort of decision is going to do. It has happened because the Leader of the Opposition is weak. The Leader of the Opposition could not stand by a decision which he made some eight months ago, and we are going to see the consequence of that played out not just this week, but in the weeks and months ahead in Australia. As the leader writers in the newspapers around Australia said, this is a backward step taken by a backward Leader of the Opposition.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can neither believe nor trust what the government says on industrial relations. You can neither believe nor trust what the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, says on industrial relations, what the Treasurer, Mr Costello, says on industrial relations, and what the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations says on industrial relations. In question time today, we had another classic example. This is what the Prime Minister said to Alan Jones on radio 2GB on 4 August last year—and this quote was put to the Prime Minister in question time a couple of weeks ago, on 25 May from memory—before the legislation went through the House:

I mean some people have to work on public holidays.

…            …            …

… it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half.

…            …            …

I just want to make the general comment that those arrangements are going to continue.

The Prime Minister said:

… it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half.

That statement was put to the Prime Minister again today at question time, and it was put in the context of the Spotlight AWA—the 2c an hour AWA, where Mrs Harris was offered the princely sum of 2c an hour extra per hour for all her entitlements, penalty rates et cetera being knocked off. She lost 90 bucks a week. Two cents an hour for 90 bucks a week. When you isolated the public holiday pay loading, she got an extra 2c an hour for working on a public holiday, but lost $21.40. The Prime Minister walked away from that at question time, because he knows he disingenuously misled the Australian people on the Alan Jones program in August last year, but he cannot walk away from that quote. It is just another example of how this government can be neither trusted nor believed when it comes to industrial relations.

When we draw the adverse consequences of the government’s legislation to their attention, they do one of two things: they pretend they do not know about it, or they pretend they do not exist. But then they say: ‘Look, even if those terrible, shocking, adverse consequences are there, guess what? This is good for the economy.’ And then they say, because we’ve now committed ourselves to abolishing AWAs, ‘The heart and soul, the be-all and end-all, of what is good for the economy is the ongoing existence of AWAs.’ That is now their position—the ongoing existence of AWAs. I remember the last election being called. We heard nothing about these matters in the run-up to the last election. We only heard about these things when the government got all the power under the sun and returned to its Jobsback 1992 proposal, and returned to the old-fashioned obsession and ideology that John Howard has had since the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1996, when the government first came to office, it introduced AWAs, but the Democrats in the Senate required 230-odd amendments, including a no disadvantage test, which protected and secured penalty rates, overtime, leave loading, shift allowances and the like—the 20 allowable matters. That gave some protection to people’s rights and entitlements and conditions and living standards. And even before this government’s legislation came into effect on 27 March this year, even before then, what did we know? Based on the most recently available government stats, we know that the government’s be-all and end-all instrument of good economic management, AWAs, made up about 2.4 per cent of agreements in the workplace. The rule of thumb is that we had 20 per cent of people on awards, 40 per cent of people on collective or enterprise bargains, 30 per cent of people on individual common-law agreements—three million people—and about 2.4 per cent or 2.5 per cent on AWAs. Of the 10.1 million people in the workforce, there are three million on common-law agreements, four million on enterprise agreements, two million on awards and, in accordance with the most recent stats delivered by the government’s man in Senate estimates a couple of weeks ago, 538,000 on AWAs. This is the thing which is the be-all and end-all of our economic performance and our economic future!

Before we come to what the OEA had to say, in a presentation on 22 February, the government’s hired legal gun, Freehills—after the bill had gone through the parliament and after it had been enacted but before substantial features of it had been implemented—gave a snapshot of current agreement making:

Currently:

40 per cent of employees are on collective agreements

2.4 per cent are on AWAs

20 per cent are paid on awards

…       …            …

20 per cent to 25 per cent by individual arrangements ...

Average annual wage increases between June 2004-05:

In agreements generally=four per cent

Union collective agreements=4.3 per cent

Non-union collective agreements=3.5 per cent

AWAs=2.5 per cent

So the government’s own legal adviser—the government’s hired legal gun, which is paid hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars over the years to help draft the government’s legislation on industrial relations—says that, if you are on a union collective agreement, from 2004-05 your average wage increase was 4.3 per cent and, if you were on an AWA, your average increase was 2.5 per cent. Looks like pretty good legal advice to me! It continues with an ‘Overview of effect of Work Choices’:

Potential—threats

Existing Industry Player:

Current Enterprise Agreement with:

Overtime

Shift penalties

Annual leave loadings

Based on:

Award

New Entrant:

AWA

Overtime has crosshairs through it; penalties have crosshairs through it and loadings have crosshairs through it. All gone. Freehills give legal advice under the Prime Minister’s so-called default position, ‘protected award conditions’:

Conditions protected but may be bargained:

Public holidays

Rest breaks

Incentive payments

Annual leave loadings

Allowances

Penalty rates

Shift/overtime loadings

A red box says:

Must be specifically addressed by Agreement.

On the next page there is legal advice on how to knock them over:

This agreement excludes the protected award conditions, as defined in the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (as amended from time to time).

That is how you do it: a one-line throwaway. All those things that make the difference between Australian families keeping their heads above water and making ends meet have all been sold down the river in a one-line throwaway—under a Spotlight AWA, for the princely sum of 2c an hour. Guess what? The government’s hired legal gun says that under a collective agreement average annual wage increases were 4.3 per cent in 2004-05 and under an AWA they were 2.5 per cent. They are now saying that all the things that helped to sustain the 2.5 per cent for the AWAs—penalty rates, overtime, leave loading, you name it—are all gone. So a one-line throwaway, down the river for the princely sum of nothing if you want it to be to that effect in the contract.

These things were put to the Prime Minister during question time, and the truth is that he had no response. But it gets worse. That was before the government changed the legislation and knocked off that no disadvantage test. What did we find out from the Office of the Employment Advocate at Senate estimates hearings? Since the legislation came into effect, there were 538,120 AWAs in operation as at 31 March this year. Since 27 March, when the act came into effect, 6,263 AWAs were lodged. Of the AWAs sampled, guess what? Under the one-line throwaway—sold down the river—all penalty rates have gone, 100 per cent exclude at least one protected award condition, 64 per cent remove leave loadings, 63 per cent remove penalty rates, 52 per cent remove shift loadings, 41 per cent do not contain a gazetted public holiday, 16 per cent exclude all award conditions and 22 per cent do not provide for a pay increase over the life of the agreement. And the Prime Minister clutches a straw and says, ‘Well, that must mean that 78 per cent do.’

At question time today the Prime Minister disingenuously misled the House when he said that the quantum was there for all to see. Not true. If the Prime Minister wants to table the quantum in those AWAs, I invite him to so do in order that we can all see that the average increase in those AWAs is a princely sum of 2c an hour. So if the Prime Minister wants to assert that 78 per cent of those agreements have a pay increase, let him tip out the information and show that they are not the Spotlight AWA—2c an hour.

We have had other interesting examples from other jurisdictions where this has been utilised. The Leader of the Opposition drew attention in question time to some stats from Western Australia. It is interesting that, when the Gallop Labor government knocked over state based AWAs in Western Australia, the state Liberal Party and the business community in Western Australia said exactly the same things that we are hearing now. In the West Australian of 3 May 2003, they said it would take us backward, that the whole world would fall in, there would be a diminution of job opportunities and a return to the bad old days—all the things we are hearing now. Last time I looked, after 15 years of continuous economic growth and a resources boom to China, Western Australia had 10 per cent economic growth.

This notion that AWAs are the be-all and end-all of economic management is a complete nonsense. The government’s legislation is not good for the economy. It is bad for the economy because it is a straightforward shift of part of the economy from wages to profit. It rewards bad management and it does not require productivity. It is a straightforward slash on wages—a straightforward attack on wages. It is bad for our economy. The government tries to pretend that 5,338 AWAs are an economic management issue of the same realm as a half a trillion dollar foreign debt, 49 consecutive monthly trade deficits and an increase in the current account deficit of six per cent. It is a nonsense and you will find that out at the next poll. (Time expired)

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I look across this chamber, what do I see? I see union hacks, sons and daughters of union hacks and union hacks that have worked for union hacks. Is it any wonder that I do not see one worker who has bent his back as have many workers on this side of the parliament? Is it any wonder that in 1996 the Australian people woke up to what the Labor Party stand for? It is anti workers, anti incentive and anti productivity. Is it any wonder they are out there making the statements that they are making today. Is it any wonder that their leader, Kim Beazley, has done an enormous backflip as a result of the pressure by his union mates? ‘Turn over on this legislation, Kim. Get these AWAs out of the workplace or you won’t be leader next week.’ The Leader of the Opposition does not have the intestinal fortitude that Australian people expect of a leader of a political party, and they will judge him on that at the next election.

You can live in hope, comrades, but I can tell you: you will still be in opposition after 2007, and you may still be in opposition for many years after that, because the Australian working class people—and I am one—understand what this government is about and what it has delivered to them as a people. They understand where this country has gone in the last 10 years and that the prosperity in this country has been brought about by the strong leader of this nation, the Hon. John Howard. I commend them for their commonsense.

Just before Christmas last year, members of the opposition condemned the government’s changes to the industrial relations system—an archaic system that has operated for over 100 years now—and said that Australian married couples would stop procreating and that there would be no more family barbecues—stupid rubbish like that. But what do we see? Birth rates are going up and there are more barbecues today than you would have seen in the last decade. So much for the irresponsible fearmongering by members of the ALP. The decisions that the government makes now—these are decisions that give me heart for my children, my grandchildren and, hopefully, for my great-grandchildren—will determine whether jobs growth and the increase in wages and living standards we have seen over the last decade will continue into the next decade.

Let me compare what has happened in the last decade to what happened in the previous 10 years of the Labor government. Since March 1996, the coalition has created more than 1.8 million jobs. More than three-quarters of all jobs created in the last two years have been full-time jobs. Under the previous Labor government, when Kim Beazley was Minister for Employment, Education and Training, unemployment reached a peak of 10.9 per cent, putting nearly one million Australians out of work. The unemployment rate under this government is now at a 30-year low of 4.9 per cent. Since the coalition was elected to office, unemployment has been reduced by 218,800, or 29.6 per cent.

Is it any wonder that private sector union membership is down to about 19 per cent? And is it any wonder that union membership in the public and private sectors combined is around 21 per cent? They are waking up to you guys in droves and moving out of the system. All this nonsense you are pushing into the public arena—you are willing to compromise your principles and your integrity and to lie to the Australian people to get back into government—is being absorbed by the Australian people, particularly by the working class people of this nation. They will react as they reacted a couple of elections ago to not only the former leader, Mark Latham, but also to your current leader.

The only good thing that the trade union movement has done is to give Kim Beazley a little bit of confidence to think that he has something to offer the Australian people. The only problem with that sort of mentality is that they have underestimated the intelligence of the Australian people, who know that Kim Beazley has absolutely nothing to offer them. He has no strength. He capitulates to the Australian Labor Party trade union movement when he is put under pressure.

A few minutes ago the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations mentioned a significant number of headlines appearing in the national media. An article on page 4 of today’s Australian Financial Review by Steven Scott is headed ‘Unions test Iemma over contract deals’. The Premier of New South Wales might get a shock at the polls in March next year. Hopefully, the New South Wales constituency have woken up to what he is about. The article stated:

The NSW government is under pressure to block companies that use Australian Workplace Agreements from winning government contracts after the state Labor Party conference endorsed calls for tougher procurement policies.

However, before speaking at the weekend conference, Premier Morris Iemma warned such a move could breach federal laws and would be difficult to enforce.

The current New South Wales Labor government has awarded a number of government contracts to companies, including Westpac, who are using AWAs in their workforce. The Labor premier has recognised that the AWAs are a workable alternative for businesses. The unions saying to him, ‘We are cocking the .45 pistol and putting it up against your head through the trade union movement. You had better change your attitude about giving contracts to these companies with AWAs or we are going to do to you what we have threatened to do to Kim Beazley. We will make sure we take you out as the leader of the New South Wales Labor Party and we will put someone else in.’

That is the despicable, degrading level the once proud Labor Party has stooped to. My grandfather would be turning in his grave to know that the party that he used to be a member of and stand for has stooped to that level—deceiving and lying to the Australian people. But, more importantly, he would be disgusted—

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He would be shocked at where you are standing today, Alby!

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to see the move away from the working class people that has occurred under this present regime in the last 10 to 15 years.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Kerr interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Denison is not assisting the chair.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So I can understand why the Australian people will continue to reject the Australian Labor Party for what it is. They know that Work Choices offers more employers and employees the opportunity to make agreements that are relevant to the needs of their businesses rather than their being forced to work under the old one size fits all awards system. They also know that our living standards will rely on the productivity of our workplaces. Work Choices will allow Australians to continue enjoying real wage increases, will boost productivity and will provide the flexibility necessary to allow Australian employers and employees the choice to work out what they want.

Nobody knows that more than I do, with my experiences in the Australian meat industry. I spent 32 years not only as a slaughterman and a labourer but as a manager, and I saw both sides of the equation there. I spent more time out of work on industrial strikes that should never have occurred than I did at the workplace. One of the reasons I opted out of the trade union movement and went and applied for a management job, was so that I could support my wife and young children. We were in a situation in those days where workplace agreements were being ignored and pushed away by the Australian Labor Party through its trade union movement, even to the point where we were physically threatened by the trade union movement when we tried to negotiate agreements with our employers on the day.

So don’t any of you guys over there, who have absolutely no idea what it is like to work for a living, stand in this chamber and preach to the working class representatives of the people over here in the Liberal-National Party coalition government, because we know more about what hard work is all about than you could ever dream of. You have listened to what your trade union mates tell you about what work is about; you have never experienced it. (Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just remind the member for Hume that he is addressing his remarks through the chair, and the chair is trying not to be too thin skinned.

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Schultz interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hume. The discussion is now concluded.