Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure all members would want to note the contribution just made by the member for Mackellar in this grievance debate. I rise on quite a different matter. I rise to speak on the position that this parliament is now in: dealing with the government’s proposed changes to the Work Choices legislation. I rise today to grieve for the loss of fairness in our workplaces and the loss of standards displayed by this government when it comes to government advertising and parliamentary process.

In the past month we have seen some breathtaking arrogance in the actions of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and their government. Today has come pretty close to taking the cake in what has been a month of arrogance. We have seen Australian newspapers, having been briefed by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, report on what will be in the bill that finally comes to this parliament today. Perhaps most arrogantly of all, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations wrote an opinion piece in the Melbourne Age calling on people to fairly assess his legislation. Frankly, if we are to fairly assess his legislation, do you think we might be able to see it at some point? Do you think the minister might reflect on whether it is proper to brief the media about matters that are coming to parliament before the bill is tabled in parliament itself?

More than anything else, the past month has not been about a proper parliamentary process and it has not been about changes in the law; it has been about an excuse for an advertising campaign. The Howard government has always been very keen on advertising, particularly around election time. No-one should forget the extraordinary $55 million campaign in 2005, when the Howard government made two very important points on our TV screens: firstly, that they had new laws called Work Choices which were being introduced and, secondly, that there were award conditions supposedly under threat that were to be protected by law.

I have retrieved one of the Work Choices advertisements, showing the sorts of branding and features that we used to see at that time from the Howard government. The interesting thing when you look at this pamphlet is that today not one word of it is true. It has the label ‘Work Choices’ on it. That was the title of the government’s bill, but we know the government’s pollsters have said to it that it should no longer say the words ‘Work Choices’. Workers in the call centre who take information calls have been told to no longer say ‘Work Choices’. Last week we saw the farce in parliament where the Prime Minister, minute after minute, talked about his industrial relations laws but would no longer say the words ‘Work Choices’.

We see that this advertisement claims that it is going to be ‘a simpler, fairer, national workplace relations system for Australia’. It is not simpler. It is more complex than anything that has gone before. It is not fairer, because it has hurt Australian working families. It is not national, because the Howard government has been unable to come to any arrangements with state Labor governments to make it truly national. The biggest untruth of all is the suggestion that there are award conditions that would be protected by law. We know that, after giving Australians that $55 million pledge that there would be award conditions protected by law, leaked information showed that, for example, 76 per cent of workers on Australian workplace agreements lost shiftwork loadings, 70 per cent lost incentive payments and bonuses and, most startlingly of all, 45 per cent lost every condition that Mr Howard told them would be protected by law.

Let us look at the chronology of the past month and at what has brought the bill that we will see later today to the parliament. The chronology shows very clearly that this whole effort has been based on politics and PR first and policy and parliamentary process last. Let us go through the dates. On 3 April the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications approved Open Mind Research Group, a pollster and market research company, to undertake workplace relations research. On 24 April the draft report was received from Open Mind Research Group. We presume it said, ‘Don’t say Work Choices.’ We presume it said, ‘Pretend you’re changing the laws.’

On 4 May the government announced changes to the Work Choices laws. The Prime Minister’s office contacted the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to tell them to place what they refer to as ‘non-campaign’ full-page ads in national newspapers on the following Saturday and Sunday, at a cost of $472,195. These advertisements were actioned following contact from the Prime Minister’s office to the Government Communications Unit and were formally authorised by DEWR. So the government made an announcement and immediately the advertising campaign was in train. But it was not until they were confident that the advertising campaign was in place that they bothered to do anything proper like issue drafting instructions to try to get the bill put in place.

It was on 4 May, the day of the announcement, that the first set of instructions was issued. Subsequent instructions obviously occurred some time between 4 May and 13 May. So all of the priority was on the advertising campaign and there was very little priority given to getting the bill to parliament. We saw the ads on 5 May and 6 May and we were told that the changes were to come into operation and become the law on 7 May. At that time, they were not even written down into a bill. On 9 May Whybin TBWA was formally approved by the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications as an advertising agency for an industrial relations campaign. On 16 and 17 May that committee, on which the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff sits, considered the first tranche of IR advertising. On 20 to 21 May we saw $4.1 million of advertising, and it is today, 28 May, that we will finally see the bill in this place. It is politics first, policy last, every step of the way.

I asked the Prime Minister in question time today about what his laws will do and, most particularly, what they will not do. He was unable to answer. Let me describe this, because it is important. I asked the Prime Minister whether it was fair for a mother who needs to arrange child care to be subject to sudden roster changes. The Prime Minister would not say. Under clause 23.6 of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association - Victorian Shops Interim Award 2000, known as the Victorian Shops Award, a mother working in a shop in Victoria would have to be given 14 days notice of a change to her roster—14 days to get appropriate childcare arrangements in place and to reorganise the family.

Under what we know about the government’s changes to Work Choices today, there will be no protection for that. That mother working in that shop could be told by the boss, ‘If you want a promotion, take the Australian workplace agreement.’ She might move to a new shop and be told, ‘If you want the job, take the Australian workplace agreement.’ Or she might just be told by the boss, ‘Sign the Australian workplace agreement,’ and she might be fearful not to. She could sign an Australian workplace agreement that strips away the notice of roster changes. So after that she could be given one hour’s notice that her roster had changed, one hour’s notice to reorganise of all of her family arrangements. Is that fair? No, of course it is not. It is extreme, it is unfair and it will hurt Australian working families. And Mr Howard is not even pretending to fix that unfairness.

We know as well that Mr Howard’s laws seem to be a moving feast, even though employers are supposed to have been complying with them since 7 May. But the nature of the exemption for struggling businesses seems to have changed and been narrowed, if today’s newspaper reports are to be believed. How can small businesses cope when the Prime Minister announces one thing—saying that the laws apply to them—and then legislates another? We all know the Prime Minister is a clever politician. He is interested in employment and workplaces; unfortunately for working families, the only— (Time expired)