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

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes the detrimental impact that the Howard Government’s WorkChoices legislation is having on young workers across Australia;

(2)

expresses deep concern over the number of teenagers who now find themselves employed under the Howard Government’s workplace agreements; and

(3)

takes immediate action to restore employment protections for the 2006 graduates from Australian high schools, many of whom are entering the workforce for the first time upon their graduation and are at risk of being exploited under these new laws.

I move this motion today to draw the attention of the House to the detrimental impact the Work Choices legislation is having on Australian youth. I would firstly like to acknowledge the fundamental role our young people play in building this great nation. Their contribution to the workforce does not go unnoticed, at least on this side of the House. I would also like to point out that these young Australians are our future. Their first experiences in the workforce are vital in shaping the future role that they play in this country and how they will add to our economy.

This motion notes the detrimental impact that the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation is having on young workers. It expresses deep concern over the number of teenagers who now find themselves employed under the Howard government’s workplace agreements, and it takes immediate action to restore employment protections for the 2006 graduates from Australian high schools, many of whom will enter the workforce for the first time upon their graduation.

This House, and indeed this nation, has borne witness to the devastating impact that these extreme industrial relations changes have had on thousands of Australian workers. Senate estimates revealed earlier this year that 100 per cent of all AWAs excluded at least one protected award condition; 63 per cent of these AWAs removed penalty rates; 31 per cent modified overtime loadings; and 22 per cent did not provide a pay increase over the life of the agreement.

I move this motion today to highlight in particular the horrendous impact this legislation is having on Australia’s young people. Whether they are working full time, part time or casually or are trying to squeeze in some extra hours with full-time study, Australia’s working youth have been universally disempowered by Work Choices. Australian children as young as 14 are signing AWAs under the coalition’s extreme IR changes. According to figures released by the government, 598 AWAs were signed by children under the age of 15 from July 2005 to May 2006. There were a further 7,779 individual contracts signed by youth aged between 15 and 18 years, and over 13,000 were signed by young workers aged 18 to 21. Considering the devastating impact individual agreements can have on young people, this is very troubling information and should be of deep concern to all members of this House.

By stripping away the provisions that ensured fair and equitable outcomes in workplace negotiations, the Howard government has made our youth increasingly vulnerable. When entering the workforce for the first time, many young people are in no position to negotiate an AWA. I am not saying this to be condescending, but many young people do not feel like equals with their employers. Young people who are most inexperienced in the employment market, thus operating from a weakened bargaining position, will face highly exploitative employment arrangements slanted heavily in favour of the employer. The Work Choices legislation abolishes basic protections for younger workers, leaving already vulnerable young workers in a worse position. It is painstakingly clear that this legislation is having a devastating impact, particularly amongst this group.

In 2006 some 330,000 young Australians are either working part-time but wanting more hours or unemployed and wanting to work, although they are not presently in the labour force. Young inexperienced individuals entering the workforce for the first time face a number of obstacles in finding and maintaining quality work. We are all familiar with the cruel contradiction of young people needing experience to get a job but unable to find a job because they do not have that experience.

With relatively high levels of youth unemployment they fear that, if they do not sign AWAs, their employers will simply hire someone else. Job security is fast becoming a thing of the past—something relevant to earlier generations but not a basic right of our youth today. As a member of the Labor Party’s industrial relations task force, I have heard from numerous young people struggling under the repressive grip of these changes. Cases brought to the task force in Launceston have included examples of young workers earning up to $2.10 per hour less, with no penalty rates.

The task force found that due to the low-skilled or entry-level nature of jobs sought by many young workers, employers can simply present individual contracts and coerce workers to sign them without negotiation. In this House, the government likes to stand up and dispute the cases that are put forward by this side of the House. (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first point to make in this debate on young workers is that there are youth protections under Work Choices. Australian workplace agreements require a written adult consent for any employee aged under 18 entering into an agreement. That would be either a parent or a guardian. If that has not occurred, the requirements for approval of an AWA have not been met. Secondly, any employee can appoint a bargaining agent. This can be a parent, a family friend or a trade union official. Thirdly, youth wages are adjusted by the Australian Fair Pay Commission. When the Fair Pay Commission adjusts wages, it must ensure that they are competitive in the labour market.

It is important to look at the record of the Howard government over the last 10 years. The second part of the motion expresses deep concern about the number of teenagers who now find themselves employed. This was never a problem under the Labor Party, when one in three teenagers was unemployed. The teenage unemployment rate was 34½ per cent under Labor. But let us just have a look at the record of the Howard government: over two million Australians have begun apprenticeships and traineeships over the last 10 years. That is more than triple the number under Labor in their last 10 years in office. The unemployment rate for young adults aged 20 to 24 has almost halved. The number of young people in full-time education has increased by 69.3 per cent.

The approach of the Howard government is to provide people with opportunities to enable them to get jobs. Under Labor, youth unemployment peaked at 15.8 per cent. It is now 9½ per cent. The teenage unemployment rate was 34½ per cent. This occurred with all the protections in the world in place under awards and industrial relations law. None of them helped the young people who could not find a job to get a job. If you want to provide people with a job, it is important to have a strong economy. It requires a lot of discipline and a lot of experience to run an economy which is now over $1 trillion.

When Labor left office, there were almost 100,000 more 15- to 24-year-olds unemployed compared with those unemployed now. Think of the human cost of 100,000 young Australians not being able to find work. When we look at the electorates, we see that 10 years ago in my electorate of Boothby, for instance, the unemployment rate was 7.3 per cent; it is now 3.8 per cent. Under Labor, the unemployment rate in the electorate of Adelaide—and the member for Adelaide has not even stayed to hear the debate on her motion—was 10.8 per cent; it is now 5.6 per cent. It has almost halved.

Since Work Choices was introduced, 165,000 jobs have been created, and 129,000 of them are full-time. The unemployment rate at 4.6 per cent is the lowest in 30 years. Total rates of pay, excluding bonuses, have increased by 1.1 per cent in the June quarter and by 4.1 per cent over the year to the June quarter. Under the Howard government, real wages have increased by 16.4 per cent since March 1996. They actually fell during Labor’s 13 years in office.

In relation to strikes, we have now seen the lowest number of days lost in industrial disputation since records began in 1913. There have been 3.1 working days lost per 1,000 employees compared with over 100 working days lost per 1,000 employees in the December 1992 quarter under Labor. We are seeing strong productivity growth, lower strike rates, higher pay and more jobs with Work Choices. Labor argued against this policy in 1996; its predictions have not come about. Instead, we have seen higher pay. Mr Beazley has been found wrong on every single count in relation to Work Choices. Statistics point to more jobs, higher pay and lower strike rates. The Labor approach is to apply more protection. This is the way to higher unemployment and lower pay.

All the protection in the world under Labor did not stop one million Australians from being out of work. This motion is embarrassing. It is not surprising that the member for Adelaide has raised it. She is, after all, the delegate of the SDA in this parliament. (Time expired).

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate the member for Adelaide for putting this motion on the Notice Paper and giving us this opportunity to talk about the impact that the government’s unfair laws are having on young people and in particular young workers in Australia.

In the last few weeks, I have had the privilege of attending many awards nights at schools within my electorate. As I joined with families and teachers to congratulate the students on their achievements, I could not help but wonder how these young people will fare as they enter the labour market in the coming months. As the member for Adelaide points out in her motion, the class of 2006 will be the first to face working life under John Howard’s Work Choices regime.

There is no doubt that Work Choices is an attack on the rights of all workers. Workers have lost any protection from being unfairly sacked, and they are being forced onto AWAs that strip away conditions and reduce take-home pay. But, of course, young people are the most vulnerable under the Work Choices legislation. In many cases they lack the experience and knowledge to be able to bargain effectively with their employers over wages and conditions. They do not know what rights they have and are more likely to just accept what is offered without querying it. That was certainly the experience of Shane Denning when he started his first job after leaving school. We heard about Shane’s experience when it was raised in question time a couple of months ago. Shane found himself forced into being an independent contractor and as a result was being paid a much lower rate of pay, without any of the protections of leave entitlements or superannuation. Shane said that he signed the contract he was offered, even though it was for such low wages and conditions, because he thought he had no choice. He said;

When you are only 18 and you are trying to get a job you don’t ask a lot of questions, you just take what you get and you assume the law will be there to make sure you are not exploited.

Well, not anymore. One of the points the government consistently raises in defence of its unfair laws is the state of the economy and what it says is a strong labour market. According to the government, it doesn’t matter how badly you get treated or how poorly you are paid—you can just go out and get another job. That is supposed to reassure working families struggling under the burden of record household debt and rising inflation and interest rates. Even if that were true for the general workforce, it is certainly out of touch with the reality facing many young people.

The facts about youth unemployment paint a very different picture from the one that the government would have us believe. According to figures that I read today in the Mission Australia report, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 19 years is almost four times that of people aged over 25 years. In 2005 the unemployment rate for young people between the ages of 15 and 19 was 14.3 per cent. The other important statistic is the drop in full-time jobs. The Mission Australia figures indicate that we are moving to a situation where every second youth job will be part-time, even though we know that a significant proportion of part-time and casual workers want full-time employment.

So it is not the picnic for young people out there in the labour market that the government makes out. The level of youth unemployment and the lack of full-time jobs on offer place young people in a vulnerable position where they are forced to accept work on low wages and with poor conditions. This leaves them open to exploitation by employers, and the take-it-or-leave-it attitude encouraged by Work Choices provides no protection against such behaviour.

We are finding examples of these sorts of situations more and more. Just last week, on The 7.30 Report, we saw the story of Saima Tobin, who is a 17-year-old worker down in Melbourne. She was offered an AWA which reduced her rates of pay from $15 an hour on Sundays and $21 an hour on public holidays to a flat rate of $9.54 an hour for every day. Of course, she was told that if she did not sign the AWA she would not have a job. Similarly, there is Bill Schultze, a young man in Adelaide whose case the member for Adelaide has raised a number of times in question time, with very unsatisfactory answers from the Prime Minister. He was the young man who was also offered rates of pay in the AWA much lower than those he had been entitled to under the award. And Lorissa Stevens, a young woman in the Hunter Valley, was offered a dreadful AWA in the mining industry and again told: ‘Take it or leave it.’

Young people are standing up in increasing numbers to make their views known about this legislation. I want to congratulate the thousands of people who came out for the Work Choices rally in my electorate of Capricornia last Thursday to tell the government that the time to vote against these laws is coming. (Time expired)

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You need look no further than the Herald Sun of 21 June 1992 to expose the hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party and the hypocrisy of this motion. The editorial of that day was titled ‘A National Disgrace’ and recounts the economic climate that existed at that time:

Welcome to the lucky country. University graduates are begging for unpaid jobs just to get experience in the workplace ... Sacked apprentices are offering their services for nothing for a chance to finish their trade training ...Welcome to the lucky country. Youth unemployment is an open sore on the face of Australian society, its odour touching everyone. Yet Paul Keating and Joan Kirner are distracted in a nit-picking exercise over the nature of statistics ...Welcome to the lucky country. A desperate father is offering to pay an employer $100 a week for three years to give his son an apprenticeship. Yet still there is no taker as youth unemployment hits 46% in Victoria ... welcome to nothing.

That was life under Labor for our youth. And this is an undergraduate-standard motion that ignores the reality of 21st century Australia.

This motion refers to the impact on young Australian workers, but that is the point: they are in fact young Australian workers. Under Labor, they were the young unemployed. This motion feigns concern for young people, for ‘teenagers who find themselves employed’, and that is the irony: they are finding themselves employed. Under Labor, they were finding themselves unemployed. The motion calls for ‘action to restore employment protections for 2006 graduates’. I say to you: the best protection for year 2006 graduates is a coalition government.

Under this government, the opportunities for youth have been dramatically expanded. Youth unemployment has virtually halved, and over the last 10 years some two million young Australians have started apprenticeships and traineeships, compared to a virtual trickle under the Australian Labor Party.

We have heard the never-ending stream of lies from Labor and the union movement. We heard that the sky would fall in, and it did not. We heard that there would be mass sackings, and there were not. In fact, unemployment is at 30-year lows. We heard from Labor that wages would fall, yet they continue to rise. We heard that the Fair Pay Commission would cut wages, yet they delivered a $27 a week wage rise for Australia’s lowest paid workers. We heard that there would be mass industrial unrest, but industrial disputes are now at record lows.

I refer again to the same Herald Sun editorial of 1992, which goes on to state that luck has well and truly run out for the Lucky Country. It says of Labor politicians:

They should look at Australia’s lost generation and weep, for their hypocrisy is to blame for much of what has gone wrong and why so little has been done. Above all else they should stop talking and act, for the hot air they expel is blinding them to the need for meaningful strategies ...

And what did Labor do? Labor did nothing. All the dogma, all the rhetoric—and Labor did nothing. It took a coalition government to act and put in place the policies that have given our young Australians opportunities.

The member for Adelaide was probably in primary school in 1992 when this editorial was written, when young people in my electorate and around the nation had little chance of a job, let alone a career or an apprenticeship. The member for Adelaide did not experience the despair and the dole queues that were part of life for youth under Labor in the early and mid nineties. Perhaps if she had been a job seeker back in 1992 this motion might have never appeared on the Notice Paper.

This government has given our youth hope. This government has given our youth opportunity. This government has given our youth self-esteem. The ALP wants to preside over the roll-back of policies that have delivered prosperity. The ALP wants to roll back prosperity to meet the demands of its union masters. The Australian people do not want a return to the policies of the last century. The Australian people believe it is not for all Australians to pay the union dues of the parliamentary Labor Party. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in 1997: ‘Fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job.’ The member for Adelaide would be well placed to heed the wisdom of his advice. This government believes in opportunities. This government is creating opportunities. The Australian Labor Party is merely protecting its union masters.

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

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.