Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer the minister to the John Holland Aviation Services agreement 2007, a collective agreement negotiated and agreed on behalf of workers by the unions. I draw her attention to the fact that this union collective agreement trades away more than 30 award conditions, such as penalty rates, overtime loading, leave loading and public holiday loading. Does the minister support such union agreements?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that the agreement that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has in her hand would have been negotiated under the previous government. But, putting that to one side, I will explain Labor’s industrial relations policies, which can be read by any of the members of the Work Choices political party in this parliament. If they read those policies, they will find that you can make a collective agreement which has in it flexibilities but the underlying benchmark is a no disadvantage test against the full award. The underlying benchmark under Work Choices in its initial phase was against five protected conditions—only five—which means that everything else could have been signed away, and routinely was. Indeed, the then Howard-Costello government advocated the trading away of conditions for nothing in the example of Billy.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. I referred to this specific agreement and asked whether the minister supported such union agreements.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am explaining, or endeavouring to explain, to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that I am for collective agreement making when parties choose to do it. Whether parties choose to use a union or choose not to use a union is a matter for them; that is a question of freedom of association.

What is the job of government? The job of government is to set the appropriate benchmark to make sure people are protected. What is the appropriate benchmark? It is the full award. What was the benchmark under the Work Choices party? It was five minimum conditions. That meant leave loading—about which she claims to be concerned—could be traded away for nothing, penalty rates could be traded away for nothing, overtime could be traded away for nothing and so on and so forth. They sat there and knew it was happening and did nothing about it.

I understand that, as the Four Corners show will reveal, they are deeply divided about a number of things, but the one thing they all seem to believe—

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order on relevance. This is not about the program on television this evening. The question was: does the minister support such union agreements? It is a very simple question. If she is unable to answer the question, she should say so.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister knows that the promo is out of order and she will continue her response to the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not contend that the Four Corners show is relevant but it is going to be interesting to watch; there is no doubt about that. Irrelevant or not, I suspect a lot of people in this parliament will be watching it.

The benchmark the government has set is a full no disadvantage test against an award. That means that you always get better than the award. Under the Work Choices party, you could always get worse than the award. Using their Senate numbers to keep Work Choices going is what they are guaranteeing today—more rip-offs of working families.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to tender the agreement that is signed by the AMWU, the ASU, the AWU and the National Union of Workers. The 34 award conditions that are traded off are in annexure 3.

Leave not granted.