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

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

The mounting evidence that the Government’s extreme industrial relations changes are driving down the wages and conditions of many Australian workers.

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—

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

There is an historic struggle under way in this country in the industrial relations arena. There is an epic battle over whether Australians in the future will be forced to live to work or to choose to work to live. We in the Labor Party say Australian families ought to be able to work to live. The government’s Work Choices will force Australians to live to work. Both Labor and coalition parties agree that we need to be productive to maintain and enhance our standard of living, our quality of life. But only Labor believe it can be done without taking an axe to employment conditions and employment protection. It was Labor that ushered in the country’s modern economy. It was Labor that made the hard decisions to effect the structural changes necessary to produce the last 18 years of economic growth. It was Labor that shifted industrial negotiations from central wage fixing to enterprise bargaining. It was Labor—opposed by the coalition—that introduced compulsory superannuation to ensure Australian working families had a certain future.

When Labor devolved our industrial relations system, we put in protections for employees. Work Choices rips these protections away. Work Choices shifts all power to employers. Work Choices makes lawful what rogue employers have been doing unlawfully. Work Choices goes after unions and does not care who gets hurt in the process. This is all about putting Howard’s ideological obsession before fairness and common decency.

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

The member for Gorton will refer to members by their seat or their title.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is forcing upon Australian workers the obsession of the Prime Minister. It effectively attacks unions and goes after ordinary working Australians, because of the Prime Minister’s obsession with deregulating the market. The fact is that the government has a perverse obsession with this matter. If you look at legislation in other areas of public policy, you will find the hand of industrial relations: you will find an industrial relations dimension. When it comes to funding educational institutions in this country, you will find an industrial relations dimension forcing universities to impose Australian workplace agreements. The Australian technical colleges legislation that was debated in the chamber today also goes to forcing Australian workplace agreements upon teachers who may work in those colleges.

Every area of public policy that is introduced by this government has a particular twist, a particular dimension, that goes to adversely affecting Australian workers in this country. It is an obsession that the Australian people do not accept as a reasonable response in the area of industrial relations. There is no longer a balance in our industrial relations system—a system that since Federation has ensured fairness and a decent wage for ordinary working families.

The pursuit of these reforms has little to do with productivity. When you compare Australia with New Zealand in the 1980s, it is clear that the collective bargaining process that was undertaken and enshrined by Labor governments in Australia was more effective in productivity terms than the statutory instrument of the individual contracts that were imposed in New Zealand. In that period, Australia’s productivity outstripped that of New Zealand threefold.

This week we have had the OECD report findings in which it is quite clear that comparable countries to ours in terms of wealth can ensure that unemployment levels are low, without stripping away employment protections. The government chooses not to accept empirical evidence that has been provided by the OECD report. For example, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark have lower unemployment levels than this country but have not ripped away employment conditions or the employment protections that should be provided to employees in this country. There is no need, therefore, to rip away the basic entitlements of working people in this country in order to generate productivity when the evidence is to the contrary.

We see a government obsessed with attacking employee organisations registered under the Commonwealth act. Unfortunately, that is what a lot of this is about: an obsessive enmity towards unions in this country. You show me a country without unions or a country without democratic institutions representing employees, and I will show you a country that is very extreme either to the left or to the right. Countries without unions are not democratic. If the government believe it is okay to pursue an assault upon those organisations then they misunderstand the democratic institutions of a decent country and a decent society. The eminent economist Tim Colebatch, when referring to the OECD findings, said that our employment is well behind that of the countries to which I referred earlier.

But perhaps the biggest furphy of all that has been recently asserted by the Prime Minister and by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations is that AWAs are more productive than collective agreements. I refer not only to the earlier comparison I made between Australia and New Zealand but also to my own state, Victoria, where the Kennett government chose to enact legislation that forced individual contracts upon people. The result was that productivity went down.

Many examples show that, when a government wishes to introduce statutory instruments that force employees to negotiate individually with their employers, it does not lead to productivity growth. With the ideological blindness of the government, we have seen instead example after example of employees being maltreated by certain employers who are choosing to take away the conditions of employment. We have seen examples of that raised in this place—Spotlight, the employee working for a juice bar, a very young employee working for Bakers Delight and the treatment of employees at the Cowra Abattoir.

We have seen time and time again that the government will endorse bad behaviour by certain employers. That is not what we want in this country and that is not what good employers want in this country. Good employers want a fair system. They want to be able to compete with their competitors. Let there be no mistake about that. What they do not want to do is force their employees to go below a minimum award set of conditions. Decent employers do not choose to go after their staff. Most employers, and particularly employers in small businesses, have an intimate relationship with their staff. They know their employees well. They quite often know their families. They do not want to be placed in the position, as they have been under Work Choices, of having to consider cutting conditions of their staff because some competitor up the road chooses to do that. That is not a system that is fair. That is certainly not what would have occurred if a decent government were enacting legislation to bring about changes for the better in this country.

I return to the assertions made by the Prime Minister and the Australian Mines and Metals Association in relation to AWAs and productivity. It is not the case that those instruments have provided productivity. When it comes to an alleged nexus between AWAs and productivity, I think the only industry that the Prime Minister has chosen to refer to to date has been the mining industry. What we have seen there are a number of assertions that somehow, without having AWAs in place in that industry, we cannot have a productive industry. I think that is entirely wrong. The President of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has made that very clear in his own opinion piece. He chooses to make a comparison between the metals mining areas and the coalmining and non-coalmining areas. Mr Maher said:

In terms of productivity growth, the performance of the mining industry as a whole over the last 10 to 15 years has been good, with average annual productivity increases of 4.7% for the years 1985 to 2003. Indeed, the main employer lobby group for the non-coal sector, the Australian Mines and Metals Association, has frequently cited these figures to justify its position in support of individual contracts as the non-coal sector has had a very high take up rate of AWAs in comparison to other industries.

However, the general mining productivity figures have been good partly because they rely on coal mining.

He went on:

This is where the facts become rather inconvenient for the AWA cheer squad. That is, when one examines the characteristics of coal mining in comparison with the other mining sectors there is one feature that stands out. The coal mining industry is full of members of my union and is largely regulated by collective agreements. The coal mining industry is characterised by an estimated 85% union membership density. In addition, almost every pit has a collective agreement negotiated between the union and the mine operators that include Business Council notables BHP-Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata.

Mr Maher is asserting, quite correctly, that if you were to draw a comparison between those mines that have collective agreements and those mines that have instituted AWAs, the former category has a greater productivity level. It is those mines that have collaborated with their staff and have encouraged enterprise agreements—collective arrangements—that have been more productive. So it is not the case, as the Prime Minister has asserted, that somehow removing AWAs from workplaces will in fact reduce productivity. There is no evidence to suggest that that will be the case in that industry.

I had the good fortune some years ago to speak to that peak employer body and they asked me about AWAs. I told them that I had seen rigid AWAs and flexible collective agreements. It is not necessarily the instrument that provides productivity; it is the intention of the parties to find ways to overcome inefficiencies for the collective good. So it is not the case that AWAs are necessarily flexible. However, in certain circumstances, they have been instruments that have, effectively, adversely affected an individual employee. In that industry there are many employees who have a rare set of skills. They travel to remote areas and they have some market power to negotiate their conditions.

An AWA under the Workplace Relations Act is a totally different creature to the AWA that is now being foisted upon the Australian workforce. The AWA that is now being instituted is effectively an agreement that does not contain a no disadvantage test. It is an agreement that does not provide any protection for employees, and we have seen those examples. I would ask the Prime Minister to reconsider the logic behind his assertion that there is a nexus between AWAs and productivity growth because, when you compare mine to mine, that is not the case in the mining industry. I am beginning to realise that, in effect, these AWAs are being forced upon Australian workers, without any proper protection.

It is not just me who makes that comment. In today’s Daily Telegraph the state Nationals’ leader, Andrew Stoner, attacked the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. He called him a particular name that is unparliamentary. I ask people to read the Daily Telegraph. The Nationals’ leader said that he thought it was outrageous that Minister Andrews had introduced an AWA that did not contain a no disadvantage test. In fact, he said he was not even aware that there was no test. The word starts with a ‘d’ and the second part is ‘head’.

No wonder the Nationals’ leader is concerned. We have seen The Nationals vote against this legislation in the Queensland parliament. Now we have seen the Nationals’ leader in New South Wales say that the minister is acting in an improper way and the reason for that is that this legislation is unfair on ordinary Australian workers. (Time expired)

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Another week and another ALP and union scare campaign on industrial relations—it just rolls on. The scaremongering campaign keeps claiming extreme industrial relations. The only thing that is consistently extreme in this entire debate is the language coming from members opposite and their union masters—language which we have heard all too often over the last 10 years—and claims that do not bear out the facts. In a very short while I will go to some of the claims by the previous speaker, the member for Gorton, in his much touted report WorkChoices: a race to the bottom. The exaggeration and the extremism just keeps going. This time Labor have put it in a nice binder, printed it off and put it in a coloured cover et cetera to give it some sort of respectability, but it still contains the same extreme, untruthful claims. The ALP believe that if they continue making these claims then they will magically come true. I hope the member for Gorton is not leaving the chamber. This is his MPI; he should be here to support it. But, obviously, he is so concerned he has decided to go away. We have seen this before.

It is time the ALP were honest with the Australian people. They should come clean with the Australian people. They should tell them how their opposition to Work Choices—in particular, their recent knee-jerk reaction of ripping up AWAs—will remove flexibility in the workplace. They should come clean and tell them how they will remove reward and incentive for the skills and effort that much needed labour has to offer to the community. They need to come clean and tell the Australian people how they would destroy the aspirations of people wanting to get on in their careers. They need to tell the Australian people how their knee-jerk reaction will cost jobs. That is what they need to be telling the Australian people, not the exaggerated claims we hear over and over again from members opposite.

The ALP are fond of quoting statistics on industrial relations, but rarely if ever are we given all the information. Those opposite, especially the member for Perth, are fond of referring to information provided at recent Senate estimates hearings detailing a sample of AWAs lodged since Work Choices came into effect. Let us look at some of that information. We are not told by the member for Perth or any of those opposite that, of those sampled, 78 per cent provide for wage increases. Yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, you heard me right—wage increases of 78 per cent during the life of the agreement. Furthermore, we are not told that 84 per cent of the sampled agreements contain higher wages than the comparable standard, the hourly rate in the award. We are not told that either because it is not convenient. Isn’t that surprising!

I have a couple of other statistics. In the Australian on Tuesday this week it was stated:

Workers following Kim Beazley’s advice to reject Australian Workplace Agreements lost $27 a week after a stationery company offering the contracts abandoned its plans for further change.

That is the message that members opposite should be spreading. That is a real factor in this debate. Follow the advice of the Leader of the Opposition and you will suffer. Nothing could be simpler. It is the centrepiece of Labor’s overnight knee-jerk reaction on workplace policy—and that is what it was: a knee-jerk reaction to pressure from New South Wales unions. Tearing up AWAs will mean that the workers that the ALP claims to support will suffer.

Let us not leave the criticism of this knee-jerk policy simply to claims that I or members on this side make. Let us look at what people out there in the community are saying. Let us look at an excellent opinion piece by Terry McCrann that appeared yesterday in the Courier Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sunit was in a number of newspapers. If those opposite have not read it, I suggest they do so. It appeared in the Courier Mail under the headline ‘Beazley a goose for threatening Australia’s golden egg—axing AWAs to hit resources’. I will read into the Hansard some of the comments that Mr McCrann, a very considered commentator on economic issues, made:

Let there be absolutely no mistake. If Labor won the next election and if it delivered on its promise to abolish AWAs (Australian Workplace Agreements), it would seriously hurt every single current and future Australian. Any benefit delivered to individual workers—and even that is highly dubious—would be swamped, swamped, by the damage to the broader economy, along with the mass destruction of jobs—right across the broader economy.

It goes on to point out that the Mineral Councils has said:

... one out of every two employees in the minerals sector as a whole are covered by AWAs.

The bigger point is that all the rest of us benefit from the success of the resources industry, every which way.

That is Mr McCrann’s analysis of the knee-jerk reaction by the Leader of the Opposition, whose only job he is trying to protect is his own when faced with the pressure put on him by the unions in New South Wales. Furthermore, Mr McCrann writes:

The resources industry employs barely 100,000 people directly but it generates the prosperity on which the jobs of the other 10 million of us rest.

Mr McCrann is right. We do rely on the minerals sector. Those opposite are willing to tear down the same sector that is giving us our prosperity today. I find that a curious proposition, particularly when you see that the Leader of the Opposition comes from a state where that sector is actually thriving. The entire state’s fortune and prosperity have been based around that sector. No wonder he has moved house to Sydney. I wonder how often he gets back to Perth these days to front those people who at the moment are enjoying the benefits to the Western Australian economy created by the resources sector. The analysis of the ALP’s response continues, this time by Dennis Shanahan in the Australian on Tuesday.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, you’re not going to quote Dennis!

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe the member for Bruce is one of these guys that Dennis Shanahan is referring to. He writes:

But there were also concerns among frontbenchers and backbenchers—

there is a frontbencher and a backbencher in the chamber now who have concerns—

that it was bad policy, would alienate aspirational voters who’d built businesses and lives from trade backgrounds, and was not well planned.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I talk to journalists; I don’t talk to Dennis Shanahan.

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

The member for Bruce!

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure the member for Bruce would say that he is not one of those backbenchers or frontbenchers. I do not know what position you hold these days; it is all over the place—concerned about aspirational voters being alienated.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don’t know much, mate, that’s for sure.

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

The member for Bruce!

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party are making exaggerated claims about our Work Choices legislation, but the one thing we do know is that their latest foray into policy announcement has been discredited by the business community and by those who study these issues through the media. They have even been discredited, if not threatened, by some of their own supporters.

The much touted Work choices: a race to the bottom task force report was released by the member for Gorton, whom I must say is a decent bloke. At least he does not resort to the antics of the stunt man on the frontbench, the member for Perth. The member for Gorton puts forward arguments, and he follows those arguments, rather than resorting to stunts. Unfortunately for the member for Gorton, the task force report should be discredited.

The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, and the member for Gorton went out to the media yesterday and said that the business community is against the industrial relations changes. Mr Beazley said in today’s paper:

Members of the ALP task force had been surprised to learn many small businesses do not support the Work Choices regime. They did not like the idea of a race to the bottom in wages.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is true.

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is true, says the member for Bruce. Let us look at that task force. Before I came into parliament I did a lot of work as a psychologist. Those who know anything about research and sampling would know that you need to make sure that your sample and the foundation for your research is sound. The task force is based on 21 hearings and 147 statements. Eight of those statements were from employers. The rest were from unionists, academics and employees. Eight came from the business community that Labor says is worried about the Work Choices legislation. We are told that employers will cut wages to compete against businesses up the road.

Let me tell you what will happen if an employer followed the prescription of those opposite: they would not be able to hire good workers. We have a skills shortage at the moment. Why would someone want to be in a race to the bottom when they need people to work because their business is growing and when there is prosperity with high consumer confidence? Why would you do something which would ensure that your employees left you to go up the road to better pay?

The member for Gorton referred to teachers a little while ago. I am glad that the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education is here with us, because he has reminded me of this notion of a race to the bottom. We should be promoting skills and good workers. The state governments promote their best teachers out of teaching and into the bureaucracy and some sort of administration role. What are we left with because we do not reward talent and skills and we do not differentiate? We are left with the best and the worst on the same conditions and on the same rates of pay.

No wonder a lot of teachers say when they get to a certain level: ‘I’m doing a great job here. I’m putting in a lot of effort during the day, after hours and on holidays and all I get is the same amount of money as the next bloke.’ There is no differentiation. Whether they be in the teaching profession, in the small business down the road or in the mineral sector wherever it may be, people will realise in this time of a skills shortage that all they need to do is leave that place that is not doing the right thing and move elsewhere.

There are a lot of claims in this document Work Choices: a race to the bottom. I will not have time to go through it, but I would welcome the opportunity when we return in August to go through every aspect of this task force report and discredit it. The report claims that many small business owners do not understand Work Choices, that it is prescriptive, complex and confusing. Work Choices is a simple matter for small businesses. Work Choices exempted small and medium sized businesses from unfair dismissal laws when, previously, small business entrepreneurs faced a prospect of financial damage or even failure due to unjustified unfair dismissal cases. That is what the 1.2 million small businesses in Australia with 20 or fewer employees faced, yet the member for Gorton has written his report based on statements from eight employers. It is an absolute joke.

There are a lot of things in this report. I cannot go through all the claims about women, migrants, volunteers, families and the no disadvantage test. Every single one of them will no doubt be torn apart in due course. In the one minute that I have left, I will go to what the ALP and the Australian public will face in the future. Unions New South Wales has demanded that the Leader of the Opposition show some backbone and strength and put out a policy position. In a knee-jerk reaction, he did that and ripped up AWAs as a consequence. What will the unions ask for next? We already know that Greg Combet has demanded that compulsory collective bargaining be a part of Labor policy. This will mean dealing with unions in every workplace negotiation, whether or not they have employees that are unionised. I wonder whether the member for Gorton told that to the small businesses that he talked to. Did he tell them that one of the things he will be pushing for is collective agreements and that Bill Shorten is demanding that non-union workers be slugged with compulsory union fees? (Time expired)

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fifteen minutes from the member for Deakin and what have we learned? We learned that he had a past as a psychologist. We learned about his thoughts on the Leader of the Opposition and his living arrangements. We learned that he thinks the member for Gorton is a good bloke—that is one of the few things I agree with him on—and we learned that he does not want the member for Bruce to start doing stunts, which is one of the other things I agreed with him on. What we did not hear is anything which disproves that the mounting evidence shows that the government’s extreme industrial relations changes are driving down the wages and conditions of many Australians. As a member of the ALP’s industrial relations task force I can absolutely say that this evidence is overwhelming. I would remind the member for Deakin and other members opposite of the reason why it was necessary for us to establish this task force and to work so hard on its deliberations. The ALP had to take this initiative to set up the task force in order to do something that the Howard government did not have the courtesy to do: that is, to let the Australian public have their say.

Labor had to step in and stand up for the people of Australia when the government refused to hear them out. This happens on many occasions, but with industrial relations the feelings of betrayal, confusion and outrage with the Howard government were certainly at the highest levels that I have seen in my time in this parliament. The government, let us remember, had absolutely no mandate to push these changes upon the Australian people. Where were these plans during the election campaign? Where were they on the member for Kingston’s brochures during the election campaign? They did not let Australians have a say about them then. What a disgusting abuse of our democratic institutions and, more importantly, what a disgusting abuse of the faith of the Australian people. By not making its plans for extreme industrial relations changes clear during the last election campaign, this government deliberately misled the people of Australia. What an absolute nerve this government has.

Let us not forget that when the government ran its last election campaign it was based on a scare campaign on interest rates. This government gained re-election by scaring the most economically vulnerable members of our community into believing that they would be better off under a coalition government. What a disgraceful nerve it now has in turning around and robbing these very same Australians of their fair pay, their conditions and their rights in the workplace and hurting the workers who rely most upon protection. I believe that an integral part of the role of government is to look after those who have trouble, for any range of reasons, in looking after themselves and their families. This government spits in the face of those Australians who most need government support, those Australians who rely on their government to watch their back. It is the ALP, though, who are seeking to listen to these Australians and to let them have their say.

Let us look further into why we had to set up our task force to listen to Australians. The Senate committee established to investigate the proposed laws last December contained terms of reference that did not allow senators to examine the potential impact of the unfair dismissal laws. And, unlike the Labor task force, the committee sat for only five days and it did not leave Canberra. It spoke to a fraction of those who put in submissions and it failed to properly analyse the impact of these changes on the broader community and those that these changes would most affect.

In contrast to this, the ALP task force set out to give ordinary Australians a say on one of the most extreme industrial relations changes our nation has ever seen. Since January the Labor task force on industrial relations has travelled to cities and towns, listening to the concerns of employees, families, community organisations, unions, church groups and small businesses. We have visited every state and territory and held public hearings in 20 electorates, including the two electorates of the members opposite. We asked Australians how they felt, and Australia replied to us. Their answers were incredibly interesting and the government should stop and pay them some attention.

It is of no surprise that concerns should be so widely shared across the community, especially when one considers the incredibly broad range of people who have been affected by this legislation. This legislation affects millions of Australia’s most vulnerable workers. It affects workers who will be punished by unfair Australian workplace agreements which they have no choice but to sign up to. It will affect millions of pensioners, whose pensions are set in relation to average male earnings, which are now threatened by the establishment of the so-called Fair Pay Commission. It will affect our society as a whole and the fair go that we have afforded each other for so long.

I would now like to draw the attention of the House to several of our task force’s key findings. Firstly, we found that the Fair Pay Commission has been established simply to drive down minimum wages. It has already delayed the first national wage decision, denying the lowest paid a much needed pay rise. And, contrary to the government’s beliefs, the ALP is not alone in calling attacks on minimum wage standards an outrage. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell, commented on Sunday, saying:

I don’t particularly like the new IR laws because I’m frightened they could be used to force down minimum wages.

And Laurie Oakes, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, wrote in this week’s Bulletin:

Cardinal Pell is right to be concerned. These laws will lead to lower pay and worse conditions for a not insignificant number of workers. The government has known it all along. It lied in claiming other-wise.

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

The member for Adelaide will have to withdraw the word ‘lied’. You cannot even do it in a quote.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw the word ‘lied’. Furthermore, the 2006 OECD unemployment outlook report concluded that coordinated wage bargaining at the enterprise level ‘is found to significantly reduce unemployment’. The OECD further concluded that, ‘No significant direct impact of the level of the minimum wage on unemployment is identified,’ and that, ‘The minimum wage could encourage higher participation by helping to make work pay for the low skilled.’ The government has been so blinded by its arrogance it can no longer draw a distinction between untruths and the truth. Sadly, it is our constituents, the Australian workers, who are feeling the impact of this government’s ideological rampage on standards that ensure a fair go for all Australians.

Secondly, one of our further findings was that, contrary to assertions by employer bodies, many small businesses worry about the impact of Work Choices on their employees and on their businesses. They have expressed the concern that Work Choices condones the actions of rogue employers and pressures good employers to take the low-wage road. I represent many small businesses in my electorate of Adelaide and have spoken with many of them, and many others, throughout this task force’s inquiries.

Unlike the government, who come in here and talk pure rhetoric, I am actually interested in what small business owners themselves have to say—and I am giving them their chance to have an input. Many businesses, particularly small businesses, have good relationships with their employees and they have expressed concern that the use of Work Choices by their competitors will force them to choose between their employees’ employment conditions and the future of their businesses. Furthermore, the task force found that many employers consider Work Choices to be prescriptive, confusing and complex.

One of these, George Liarakos, is a small business owner who feels threatened by the new changes. A small business owner and pharmacist from Melbourne, George told our task force that the government’s IR laws are unfairly skewed against the interests of employees, they prevent genuine bargaining and they allow competitors to undercut the conditions of employment that Mr Liarakos offers his employees, which will place him under considerable stress to do the same. This parliament should be encouraging best practice in employment relations, not worse.

Who do you think we should believe? Do we believe the government, who would have us believe that workers will not have their wages and conditions cut—though they certainly will not take the time to guarantee this—or do we instead listen to the employers themselves, the employers who themselves are saying that they will have no choice but to cut wages and conditions once their competitors do so? That is what these laws do: they start up the race to the bottom.

Thirdly, the task force found that the abolition of the no disadvantage test means that Australian workplace agreements ignore the inherent inequality in the bargaining relationship between the employer and an employee. The task force considered that AWAs were always unfair, except in the rarest of circumstances. We have seen this backed up in the Senate estimates, where it was revealed that 100 per cent of these AWAs which had been checked since Work Choices’ commencement have excluded at least one award protected condition.

I could talk for a long time about the mounting evidence which is showing that these changes are driving down the wages and conditions of most Australian workers. Unfortunately, Mr Deputy Speaker, I recognise that you cannot be as generous with your time as I would like, but I will say one thing: the government did not give the Australian people the opportunity to have their say on these laws. This is what the Labor Party is doing now and you can be sure that this is what the Labor Party will be doing into the future. We will be ensuring that there will indeed be a time when the government will be forced to listen to the views of the people, that is, when they have a chance to be heard loud and clear next year on election day. You can mark my words that I and members on this side of the House will be making sure that this mounting evidence of the detrimental effects of these laws on Australian workers is well known to all workers and to those in Kingston. (Time expired)

Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today on the matter of public importance both frustrated and annoyed at the disservice, dishonesty, scare tactics and misinformation that those opposite are trying to sell to the Australian people. I realise that rule No. 1 in the Labor Party book of how to be a good opposition is to simply oppose government policy for the sake of it, similar to The Latham Diaries. But I have a tip for the Leader of the Opposition and his team: the Australian people are not interested in your stunts or your behaviour during question time, which the young people in the galleries and young people in general see. It is disgraceful. Get onto the real issues—you are the leaders of the nation.

The member for Gorton spoke about the mining arena which will be disadvantaged. Perhaps he should go and speak to the opposition leader’s own home state of Western Australia, where over 8,000 miners have told their unions: ‘Please stay away: we are happy on our AWAs.’

The Australian people want good government, and that is why we sit on this side of the chamber. The Australian people want the opposition to support this government. They want an opposition that has the moral fortitude to stand up and support government legislation when it is good legislation that will move our nation forward and keep the economy strong. Most importantly, the Australian people want an opposition that will support government policy when it is policy that will create jobs and keep them off the dole. We saw this appalling opposition in action when dealing with the introduction of the GST, when they ran around claiming the sky was going to fall in and our economy was going to be ruined.

The proof is in the performance: the Howard record. The member for Adelaide wants to compare the Howard National-Liberal coalition government to the Labor Party.  Since their time, and in our time, we have seen an increase of 16 per cent in real wages. We have seen an exceptionally low level of unemployment—when the Leader of the Opposition was minister for employment, unemployment hit 10.9 per cent—which, under this government, has just hit a 30-year low of 4.9 per cent.

Under Labor, we saw home loan interest rates reach 17 per cent—let alone business loans, which peaked with the small business sector overdraft at a 20.5 per cent interest rate—in contrast to this government which has managed the economy so well. We now see the official rate of interest at only 5.75 per cent. So, if the member for Adelaide wants to compare our record to their record, look again at the facts.

Federal Labor, please do not try to fool the Australian public again. You have no credibility left when it comes to economic management. Labor put the Australian people behind by passing to the coalition government a $96 billion debt when we took over in 1996. For over 10 years now, taxpayers and the government have paid out $8 billion in interest. Mr Deputy Speaker, members opposite and those in the galleries, just imagine the additional moneys we could have provided to essential services and the people of this country if Labor had not put us in that position.

The opposition has done nothing but try to scare Australians with its lies and deception over industrial relations. That continues today in the appalling MPI brought by the member for Gorton. The member for Gorton is foolish if he thinks the Australian people are going to take his half-baked complaints and criticisms seriously. The Australian people are sick and tired of the Australian Labor Party’s innuendos. As the member for Gorton is a member of the Labor Party, he labels himself untrustworthy and unreliable on the subject of industrial relations and good economic management.

There is no greater evidence of the campaign of lies and fear than the exposure of the Leader of the Opposition’s lies in relation to workers on AWAs. First of all they came to this place, waving newspapers, claiming that the world was going to end for Australian workers. Then this week prominent union leader Joe de Bruyn comes out confirming what we had always known, that the members opposite had ‘been taking a lot of liberties with the facts’. I will say it again: the ALP and the opposition leader have ‘been taking a lot of liberties with the facts’. Sorry, let me clarify that: a union boss—one of the very people who run the Australian Labor Party—came out and told the Australian people that the Leader of the Opposition and the entire Labor Party had not been telling the truth. They distorted the facts to suit themselves in an attempt to scare Australian workers as much as possible. The scare tactics continue. Those are not the actions of a responsible or effective opposition—and it does not end there either.

Next we have the case of Esselte Pty Ltd where, in the Labor Party’s imaginary world, workers were going to be $65 a week worse off under a proposed AWA because of a loss of Saturday penalty rates. Thank God for the honest employer from that company who came out and told the Australian people that this was a complete lie because they simply do not roster staff to work shifts on Saturdays. Thank God the employer was able to set the record straight because, again, the Labor party were not going to. After all, you cannot scare Australian workers with the truth when it comes to the industrial relations reforms, so members opposite have to rely on blatant lies and misinformation.

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

Order! The honourable member should be very careful and he needs to withdraw that accusation. During his speech he has modified his language to an acceptable fashion, but I believe that the word ‘lie’, because of the indication of deliberate deceit, should be withdrawn.

Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I unconditionally withdraw the word ‘lie’. I think that Mr Paul Starick, a very good journalist from the Adelaide Advertiser, summed it up best when he said in an article on Wednesday:

In his private dreams, Kim Beazley must be hoping for an economic downturn and substantial job losses.

I think Mr Starick hit the nail right on the head. He must know the Leader of the Opposition well because he has discovered that this is a man who would rather see Australian workers on the dole line and suffering from a poor economy, like they were when he was in the Labor government, in order to better his own political ambitions. If Labor are elected next year, Mr Beazley would undoubtedly get his wish because we all know their record on economic management.

The timing of this MPI is interesting. When I was at Edge Church on Sunday I spoke to a young couple with a small business within my electorate. We had an interesting conversation with respect to their staff and the industrial relations reforms. Since the introduction of the new laws, their workforce has gone from eight staff members to 14. They pay staff above the award and receive loyalty and flexibility from employees who are rewarded with opportunities. There are other examples such as the Subway franchises, particularly in Sydney. An owner there provides flexibility in work hours for two single mums, parents, university students and the disability sector. These are true stories to come out of the IR changes. These are not made up. The facts are not twisted like those we hear from the Labor Party. These are true stories, but we will not hear true stories like these coming from the Labor Party because, again, you cannot scare people if you tell the truth about reforms. (Time expired)

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

Order! The discussion is now concluded.