Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition have agreed to not oppose the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. It is a simple and straightforward position. The government appear confused, but it is simple: we have decided not to oppose this bill. This position may disappoint those who sit opposite who may have wanted to get their Your Rights at Work posters out of their garage, dust them off and get them up on those poles again at the next election. The posters got on those poles with the assistance of the ETU and all the energy companies—which, I note, particularly in my electorate, were more than happy to see their staff go up the poles to put them up there. In fact, if you drive around some parts of the Sutherland shire, you will still find these signs. They are still out there on our poles, traffic signals and various things. It is about time they came down; the election is over. The decision has been made and we are now dealing with the outcomes of that decision in this place.

The coalition have abolished Work Choices as our policy and will present a fresh policy to the Australian people at the next election. Those opposite will try every trick in the book to seek a rerun of the Work Choices election, but they will find no comfort here. Next time, they will actually have to develop a policy agenda that goes beyond slogans, t-shirts and big orange signs. They will be the government at the next election and the Australian people will hold them to account for the expectations they have created. Those expectations include putting a lid on petrol prices, reducing interest rates, keeping unemployment at record lows and controlling the price at the checkout. These are the expectations created at the last election by those who sit opposite. They were going to manage these things and keep them under control. At the next election, they will be held to account for these expectations. At the checkout, they will be held to account not only for the prices of mainstream items—of groceries, cereal and all of these sorts of things—but also for other items that are out there, from Chupa Chups to Tim Tams. These are all things that they said that they would keep a lid on in terms of prices and that is what the next election will be about.

That said, there can be no mistake: workplace relations was a key theme at the 2007 general election. In my own electorate of Cook, in Sydney’s Sutherland shire, it was the only issue my opponents raised. They offered no vision for our local community. They made no claims about their candidate’s ability or experience to deal with local issues. They were, in absolute truth, a one-trick pony. In addition to their candidate, there are other good reasons for not highlighting these matters. The Labor campaign was completely funded by the Electrical Trades Union. The ETU had no interest or stake in the future of local issues in the shire and they were certainly not about to invest their tax-free union funds in any campaign other than one that addressed their goals and purposes, so it was wall-to-wall Your Rights at Work from start to finish. While the ETU may have failed in Cook, the broader union campaign, backed by $30 million of tax-free union donations, certainly hit its mark. The campaign sought to exploit the fears of Australian families and it worked.

It is a common saying that history is written by the victors. Implicit in this saying is that such history is never the full truth and is written to reinforce the victor’s own ongoing purposes, regardless of its relevance to the result. If we blindly accept the victor’s version of history, as those opposite are seeking to achieve, then we run the risk of failing to learn the true lessons of that history and, therefore, of repeating it. I am happy for those opposite to be so caught up in their own importance as to miss this point. There will come a day when they will wish they had curbed their exuberance and listened more carefully to what the Australian people actually said on 24 November rather than what they wanted them to say.

Those who lose elections are the ones who are sent a message. It is for those who have been defeated to understand the message that has been sent. So what did we learn? What message did we receive? In 1996, the Howard government introduced for the first time individual statutory agreements. It did so after winning an historic election, which followed Bill Kelty promising the full symphony of union opposition. The election was won. The reforms were introduced and opposed by those who sit opposite—so much for their respect for mandates in this place. Subsequent reforms—including the opportunity for non-unionised collective agreements, the abolition of compulsory unionism, restrictions on the right of entry and sanctions against secondary boycotts—all formed part of a workplace revolution opposed by Labor, which fuelled the growth of our economy and, more significantly, increased the real wages of Australian employees by 21.5 per cent over the term of our government. That was the dividend to Australian families, two million of which became working families under the policies of the coalition while in government: a 21.5 per cent increase in real wages.

What does that compare to? How did the election of the Howard government change the lives of ordinary Australians? That increase is in comparison to a 1.8 per cent decline in real wages under the previous Labor government, despite commencing the process to unshackle the Australian labour market. Commendation must be given to those who sat opposite and are no longer in this place for trying to start that process. They could never implement the reforms that were necessary to create the more than two million extra jobs and to see the unemployment rate drop from more than eight per cent to 4.1 per cent. Of greater significance were the reforms to our waterfront, also opposed by those who sit opposite. These reforms have resulted in a 60 per cent improvement in the productivity performance of our ports, with average crane rates increasing from 16.9 per hour in 1996 to 26.8 in December 2006. Under the coalition government, no longer did you have sit and watch the absolute travesty of product for offshore markets rotting on the docks.

The combination of these reforms served to set up our prosperity. Most significantly, we have been able to harness the benefits of the resources boom. The resources boom is something those opposite like to talk a lot about. They seem to think that a resources boom is something that falls from heaven—that it just happens to your economy and there is nothing you have to do to make sure that you can harness that boom. They seem to think that there is nothing you have to do as a government when there is a resources boom to ensure that the benefits of that actually translate to the Australian economy and are captured.

Without the reforms introduced by the Howard government to industrial relations in 1996 the resources boom would have passed us by. Had those who sit opposite continued in government at that time, they would not have been able to guarantee supply. The business would have moved elsewhere. Our reforms reduced industrial disputation to the lowest levels on record. As union membership declined to just 15 per cent of the private sector workforce, Australians learnt that the way to prosperity and better living conditions in this country was not through Labor’s tired old union model of conflict and disputation; rather it was by constructive engagement, profit sharing and working for the success of their enterprises that saw real wages rise by 21.5 per cent.

In fact, one of the challenges faced by the coalition at the last election was that the relevance of unions in the Australian workplace had become such a distant memory that many were completely unaware of the risks faced by their return. Well, they will now be reminded. And for many it will be a new experience. Those who have started businesses in an environment of the lowest level of industrial disputation on record will be reminded of what it is like to have unions come and interfere in the operations of their businesses, particularly when they are employing between about five and 20 people in their workplaces.

The reforms of 1996 were reinforced by victories in the 1998, 2001 and 2004 federal elections. That is what I call a mandate for industrial relations reform. I say to those opposite: one swallow does not make a summer. In 1996 we won an election on the basis of serious reforms of our industrial relations system that was backed up by the Australian people on three further occasions. In 2006 the new reforms that were introduced awoke the union beast and changed the nature of the debate. But what was the offending nature of these reforms?

In her second reading speech the minister would have you believe that the problem was all to do with individual agreements—agreements that had been available to Australian employees since 1996 and had been endorsed at the ballot box on three separate subsequent occasions. Such an argument may suit her agenda in rewriting history to confect her mandate, but it does not make it true. In her speech she said she believed that there is ‘no need for any individual statutory employment agreements’. This is the main game of the Labor Party: the abolition of individual agreements and the re-unionisation of collective agreements. That is the agenda. This is the mandate they are now seeking to confect as a result of the 2007 general election. But this is not what I believe the Australian people said on 24 November. The flaw in the coalition policy was to provide insufficient protections as part of the new package, more specifically the removal of the no disadvantage test. This was the poison pill of Work Choices, not individual agreements. If such agreements had continued to be the subject of a no disadvantage test then we may well not have had this debate we are having now. It will be ever to the shame of those businesses who sought to abuse the new provisions provided by the government that the ground will be forever spoiled to entertain such levels of flexibility in our workplaces. I commend the member for North Sydney for his attempt to restore faith in the package through the introduction of the fairness test. There was no other alternative, but sadly the damage had already been done.

The minister has sought to cleverly demonise individual agreements by asserting in her speech introducing this bill that the ‘essence of such agreements is that they override the safety net’. This is a fallacy. An individual agreement can be as equally subject to a safety net as a collective agreement. These statements are proved by the government’s own willingness to preserve such agreements in this bill and make them subject to these conditions. It is also true that a non-union collective agreement can be as equally subject to these protections as a union collective agreement. Yet the government is seeking to effectively mandate the involvement of unions in such agreements in every workplace by setting the bar so low that, for those of you who read children’s stories—and there used to be someone in this place who liked to read children’s stories—Flat Stanley could not get below this standard. This standard is so low that unions will be in every single workplace in this country again.

Heaven forbid that Australians may actually wish to individually or collectively continue to negotiate their terms and conditions directly with their employers in their own enterprises! This is particularly true for those who work in small business. The problem with those opposite is that they are hopelessly out of touch with small business in this country—small business does not feature on their agenda. Small business families are not part of the government’s definition of working families. But, as those on this side of the House well know, there are no more harder working families in this country than families who are working in small business. These businesses typically employ less than 20 people. They are the heart and soul of Australia’s entrepreneurial culture and they have been marginalised and demonised by this government.

In my own electorate of Cook, 91 per cent of the almost 6,000 businesses that employ people employ 20 people or less. They are spread over many different industries, from construction and manufacturing to retail, trade and financial services. They employ tradies, professionals, administrative staff, sales assistants and labourers—it is a broad cross-section. You will find no pretension or confected class barriers in the shire. People take you as you are. You are expected to be honest and up-front, to work hard and take responsibility. This is how business thrives in the shire. Our businesses, especially small businesses, work as teams. They work together. They do not need the unwelcome intrusion of those who wish to bring division and dissent to their workplace to justify their own existence. As a former CEO I know that the most important objective is to build the trust in your workplace. It cannot be a battlefield; it must seek to share the rewards of effort. Such an approach is accommodated by individual and non-union collective agreements and must continue to be an option in Australian workplaces if we are to continue to enjoy a prosperous future.

The government have made much of inflation since coming to office. They have drawn much attention to the issue. They have a five-point plan for inflation. However, of greatest interest is that this plan—a five-point plan, with a five-star blind spot—is totally silent on the issue of workplace relations, which totally undermines its credibility.

On 19 January this year, the Governor of the Reserve Bank—a constituent of mine—gave an address to the Australian businesses in London. In that address, he stated:

The rapid pace of global growth in recent years has seen a pick-up in some key prices. Prices for foodstuffs, energy and raw materials for industrial processes are quite high. The synchronised nature of the increases has been quite marked as well, in a fashion eerily reminiscent of the early 1970s.

What is different on this occasion is the way that labour costs have behaved. In the early 1970s, labour costs exploded in many countries as inflation expectations began to rise … and labour unions reached the peak of their power.

That is what the Governor of the Reserve Bank had to say about inflation in January this year. The multiheaded policy approach of the Howard government, with workplace reform and fiscal discipline, evidenced by 10 successive budget surpluses, including the last three at 1½ per cent plus of GDP, has enabled us to grow our economy to more than $1,000 billion and keep inflation at an average of just 2½ per cent, compared to over five per cent when Labor was last in office.

A plan to curb inflation, which fails to address the issue of wages, is no plan at all; it is just a list of five things. In fact, it is a wish list, because only by a wishin’, a hopin’ and a prayin’ will it have any impact. It is not a five-point plan. It has a five-star hole in it and this hole needs to be fixed. The dogs are out and they are barking. They are off the leash following this election.

In a state wage case currently underway in New South Wales, Unions New South Wales have made a submission, affecting 220,000 workers, for a 4.8 per cent wage increase. That is what I call a genie out of the bottle. What would possess them to make such a claim of 4.8 per cent? I refer to the speech of the Governor of the Reserve Bank in London, in January, where he said:

The fact that inflation expectations have been low and pretty stable has also helped.

‘Keeping a lid on inflationary expectations,’ the Governor said, ‘has helped.’ Since the Governor made these statements, things have changed. In February the Reserve Bank reported on how inflationary expectations had now risen from 3.8 per cent to 4.3 per cent. That was what it reported in the February edition of the Reserve Bank Bulletin. That is the first figure on inflationary expectations that has come out after this government was elected. And I wonder why inflationary expectations are up. This is what happens when you have a reckless Treasurer—the missing and weakest link of this government—stumbling around our financial system, talking about genies and bottles, and a Prime Minister so hell-bent on undermining the economic credibility of the opposition that he is prepared to do anything, including talking up inflation and putting pressure on wages and, ultimately, interest rates. That is why we have a 4.8 per cent wage claim from Unions New South Wales, because they are trying to keep up with inflationary expectations—inflationary expectations that are rising on a daily basis by the reckless actions of this government.

The five-point plan needs a renovation. It needs a renovation rescue. It needs to include a clear plan on workplace reform that contains wage pressures, not one that unleashes wage pressures. It also needs a plan to keep the Treasurer away from the microphone. We as a country cannot afford this Treasurer to be bumbling about our financial markets, talking up inflation, which leads to an increase in interest rates and impacts on those whom we in this place should protect most. Everything that is coming from the Treasurer is hot air and it is giving lift to inflationary expectations.

The opposition has proposed some sensible amendments to this bill. They should be supported by the government. We want to see the work done in the Senate that lets the Australian people know what they are in for when Labor dismantles the industrial reforms first introduced by the Howard government in 1996 and endorsed at subsequent elections by the Australian people.

Let me stress that this bill is not content with reversing the changes introduced in Work Choices. Labor have gone a lot further than that. Work Choices no longer represents coalition policy. Labor go much further and, before they introduce this system, we should first get an estimate of what it will cost so that working families—and in our definition of ‘working families’ we include families which work in small business—(Time expired)

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me much pleasure to speak in support of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. The bill begins the important process of unravelling the unfair Work Choices legislation of the previous Howard government. I personally spent much of my time over the past few years campaigning against the Work Choices legislation because of the harmful effect that it had on working families.

In my experience, Work Choices was one of the most divisive public policy measures for many years. It is worth recalling some of its key features so as to place in context some of the work which is to be done by the bill which is before the House. Work Choices involved the abolition of protection against unfair dismissal for millions of people. That meant that people could be sacked, the financial security of their family undermined, without remedy or attention to fair process. It also meant the emasculation of the powers of the independent Australian Industrial Relations Commission, an institution which had historically ensured a fair balance between employers and employees in the workplace. Work Choices also involved the abolition of the national wage case, which had for more than a century provided for an open and transparent process for the determination of minimum wages.

Work Choices also included the undermining of the award safety net, putting basic conditions such as penalty rates for shift work, weekend work, public holiday work, annual leave loading, meal and rest breaks, public holidays and a host of other employment conditions up for grabs in workplace bargaining. If an employee did not have the bargaining power to retain these employment conditions, they could be lost. And if an employer wanted to employ people on condition that they did not receive such entitlements such as penalty rates and other conditions, the law under Work Choices sanctioned that approach.

Work Choices also restricted the right of employees to join and be represented by a union. It also placed restrictions on the right of employees to collectively bargain. Under the Howard government’s regime, even if every single employee in a workplace freely wished to collectively negotiate with their employer, the employer had no obligation under the law to even speak to them. The implementation of Australian workplace agreements was, of course, a key feature of Work Choices. These, as we know, are statutory individual contracts and they were made under Work Choices the legally dominant form of workplace agreement making. AWAs could be imposed by an employer by making them a condition of employment and by refusing to negotiate any other form of agreement, and I had the experience of representing employees on many occasions where employers used them in that manner. Work Choices also overrode the state industrial relations systems without any attention to the potentially harsh impact and loss of employment conditions for employees affected.

The impact of these changes on employees has been devastating. I saw this at first hand in my former role as ACTU Secretary. People were sacked, for example, in the most unfair of circumstances. With no remedy available to them, the termination of their employment not only undermined their financial security but instilled in them a tremendous sense of injustice. I met many people who had never before paid attention to politics and who had never felt previously motivated to be active in their workplace over their industrial rights but whose experience of Work Choices was the catalyst for significant personal change on their part. The loss of unfair dismissal protection alone awakened within many people a sense of injustice and caused them to campaign on behalf of others as well as themselves. Some of these people participated in the Your Rights at Work campaign coordinated by the ACTU against the former Howard government’s workplace laws. There were people like Annette Virgen, a grandmother from Banyo in Queensland, who was sacked for no reason after nine years of loyal service. Andrew Cruikshank, another person I met, was dismissed from his job for operational reasons under the Liberals’ industrial relations laws. Two weeks later the company readvertised his position at a discount of $25,000 on his previous salary. Arthur Ledwidge was another man that I met. His employment was terminated and he was replaced by contractors on inferior terms of employment. Robert Kirkwood’s employment, along with that of other colleagues of his, was terminated by Cowra abattoir, and they were told to reapply with a 30 per cent pay cut. Emily Connor, a woman I met again yesterday at the National Press Club, was a childcare worker in Canberra. She was sacked without warning and without being allowed to even farewell the children who were in her care. She was given 10 minutes to leave the workplace. Jennifer Gillian, a woman in Queensland, was sacked via text message. Lyn Barnes, a woman in Sydney, was sacked after 25 years without a complaint being made against her, and the list could go on and on and on.

The promotion of Australian workplace agreements also had a devastating impact on the take-home pay of many working families. We need to look no further than the statistics cited in the House by the Deputy Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago. From a sample of over 1,700 AWAs lodged between April and October 2006, we know the following: 89 per cent of them excluded one or more protected award conditions; 83 per cent of them excluded two or more; 78 per cent excluded three or more protected award conditions. The most commonly removed protected award conditions included shiftwork loadings. For example, 70 per cent of the AWAs surveyed excluded shiftwork loadings, 68 per cent excluded annual leave loading and 65 per cent excluded penalty rates generally. These are not just statistics. I know from my direct experience of working with people affected by the use of AWAs what they really meant for working families. There was no obligation on an employer under Work Choices to compensate people for the loss of those employment conditions, and it therefore meant that there were direct cuts in people’s take-home pay. That meant that people had even less influence over their working hours and therefore less capacity to manage their family responsibilities. It meant the loss of people’s dignity as well as their standard of living, and all at a time when the pressure of work was increasing and the costs of living were rising.

The key feature of AWAs is that they can remove award conditions, as I said, without any compensation at all. They can undercut the safety net—and it is crystal clear that that was the intent of the Work Choices legislation.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no fabrication at all. Person after person after person experienced that outcome under Work Choices. The claim by the former workplace relations minister, the member for North Sydney, that members of the former Howard government cabinet did not understand this reality is simply not credible. There is certainly no doubt in my experience that the Prime Minister, at the time of the formulation of the Work Choices legislation, understood perfectly well what it was going to involve, as I had the opportunity to discuss it with him in my former role. There is no doubt that there was plenty of evidence of the disadvantage too, once the Work Choices legislation was introduced, from which members of the former Howard government could have learnt. There was evidence such as the experience of 17-year-old Renee Pitman, from Carseldine in Queensland, who was given an AWA individual contract that took away her penalty rates and overtime. She worked Anzac Day, Boxing Day and the Easter break at a flat rate. A woman from Coffs Harbour named Annette Harris, who worked at the time for Spotlight, lost penalty rates approximating earnings in the order of $90 a week in return for a 2c an hour increase. It is important to note, too, that following a lot of representation on behalf of the employees of Spotlight, Spotlight has now negotiated a collective agreement with the union on behalf of employees to remedy the shortfalls and the approach that they had previously taken using AWAs.

Although the impact of AWAs was felt by many groups across the workforce, the harshest impact—as usual with these things—was on the lowest paid, who are always the most vulnerable to such pressure in the workplace. Despite the perception that AWAs are most prevalent in the mining industry, in fact the majority of AWAs have been made within the areas of low-paid employment. Such people include many women, young people and workers of a non-English-speaking background, and this is the reason that AWAs have also had a negative impact on equal pay for women.

This bill is important in addressing the patent unfairness of the industrial relations system of the former Howard government. The bill amends the Workplace Relations Act 1996 to make a number of changes to the framework for workplace agreements and to enable the process of award modernisation to commence. The amendments will give effect to key government election commitments and begin the transition to a new workplace relations system. Some of the features of the bill include the prevention of the making of new AWAs from the date of commencement of the bill—AWAs made and lodged before the commencement date will continue to operate until terminated or replaced. The bill also will establish a new individual statutory agreement, called the individual transitional employment agreement, for limited use during the transition period only. The bill also implements a genuine no disadvantage test against the safety net for all workplace agreement making, preventing the rip-offs which were a feature of the Work Choices legislation. Importantly, rather than having only five minimum conditions as provided by Work Choices, the bill also provides that, if an existing AWA is terminated, an employee can be covered by a collective agreement at the workplace, if there is one, or alternatively by the relevant safety net award. Where a collective agreement is terminated the employees will be entitled to the award safety net. The bill also allows pre-Work Choices certified agreements to be varied and extended by agreement so the parties to those agreements can avoid any uncertainty created by a double transition to the new system that Labor will introduce. Importantly, the bill also establishes the award modernisation process to create new modern awards as a safety net by 31 December 2009.

The award modernisation process is extremely important and will get underway once the passage of this bill takes place. It will also take into account the responsibility that will have to be discharged by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and will have to take into account, in modernising awards, the new National Employment standards, because on and from 1 January 2010 Labor’s new National Employment Standards and modern, simple awards will be in operation and there will be not be, from that point in time, any need for individual statutory employment agreements.

The new National Employment Standards include hours of work and reasonable overtime; parental leave, with 12 months unpaid; flexible work for parents; annual leave of four weeks; personal, carers and compassionate leave totalling 10 days; community service leave; public holidays; information in the workplace with the fair work information statement; notice of termination and redundancy; and long service leave. And nothing will deter us from bringing this about. Lastly, the bill will amend the Skilling Australia’s Workforce Act to remove provisions which made funding to TAFE institutions conditional on offering AWAs—and that is a very important measure in the bill.

The changes to the industrial relations system that I have adverted to will not harm the economy. They will simply begin the process of ensuring that there is a fairer set of rights and responsibilities for employees and employers in the workplace. Indeed, there are two important economic reforms inherent in Labor’s policy. Firstly, there is the movement towards a national industrial relations system, which has become possible due to the judgement of the High Court in the Work Choices case. This judgement has extensively redefined the power of this parliament to directly legislate in relation to employment matters by enabling the parliament to rely upon the corporations head of power of the Constitution. Historically, of course, it had been believed that the parliament could only legislate in relation to industrial relations by relying upon the conciliation and arbitration power. This constitutional footing was the basis for a century of somewhat arcane procedures surrounding the making of awards and agreements in the federal system, such as the necessity to create paper based interstate industrial disputes with wide ambit, considerations about the genuineness of paper disputes and that matters contained in awards and agreements related to a strictly narrow definition of the employment relationship. As a former industrial advocate and practitioner, I am pleased that these artificial constraints have been jettisoned by the High Court.

The award modernisation process established by this bill means that awards will be able to operate in a manner akin to legislated minimum standards but will be able to be varied in a flexible way by the responsible authorities and they will bind constitutional employers and their employees. It is to be hoped, to achieve truly comprehensive reform, that the state governments which have not already done so will cooperate as closely as possible with the Rudd government to ensure that all private sector employment is regulated in a national system, because this would be a genuinely significant economic reform, vastly simplifying the multijurisdictional industrial relations environment we have had for the past 100 years.

The second key economic reform represented by this bill is its emphasis upon decentralised workplace collective bargaining. The experience from the decentralisation of the industrial relations system in 1993-94 enacted by the Keating government is that decentralised workplace bargaining, where it is collectively conducted at the workplace, is a key driver of productivity growth—and this country has experienced a decline in productivity growth, with virtually negligible growth in the last quarter of 2007. Continuing to focus the industrial relations system on decentralised workplace bargaining which is collectively conducted, which respects the legitimate rights of employees to sit at the table with their employer and which respects the legitimate commercial interests of employers in that bargaining process is fundamental to productivity growth in the future for this country.

The economic arguments which the coalition has attempted to mount against Labor’s industrial relations changes are nonsense. In a decentralised collective workplace bargaining system, one which respects the interests of employers and employees, we will see improved productivity. The changes will not lead to inflationary wage pressures, and in fact the arguments that have been mounted are somewhat nonsensical. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Curtin, has argued that the reforms will drive up inflation by increasing union power—and we heard more about that a moment ago—making it easier for workers to secure big pay increases. That is drivel and nonsense, and that line of argument demonstrates a lack of understanding of the basic economic conditions in which the industrial relations system operates and the nature of workplace-level bargaining.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So they won’t get a pay increase?

Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People will get a pay increase and they will negotiate with their employer about productivity related matters at a workplace level, where employee rights are properly respected and where the legitimate interests of employers and their commercial interests are also properly respected. That is the basis of a decent system.

The real economic problems are those that have been bequeathed to this country by the former Howard government: the skills shortage, the deficit of investment in infrastructure, the lack of fiscal discipline, the failure to encourage innovation and research and development, the failure to prepare for an ageing population and ensure sufficient retirement savings and the poor international trading performance, despite a 60 per cent improvement in Australia’s terms of trade. This is what the former Howard government should have been focusing on rather than exacting punishment on ordinary working people through its workplace relations legislation.

By contrast, the government is focusing on the future and is already well advanced in laying out our framework for a modern economy. At the end of the day, that is very important—looking to the future and laying out the basis for future economic prosperity and fairness and justice in the workplace and the wider society. As a new member it gives me immense pleasure to support this bill, as I know that it will lead to important protections for employees in the workplace and a balanced industrial relations system which also respects the rights of business. I commend it to the House.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am certainly pleased to rise to put the coalition’s point of view with respect to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. It is an important bill because in a number of respects it goes to the very core of the last election. I am pleased to follow the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement—a man who in so many respects epitomised the dishonest scaremongering campaign that the union movement put forward in the last election and, indeed, for a good 12 months prior to that. It is interesting to debate this bill because it deals with the fundamental industrial relations issue in Australia and, in many respects, we have two opposing points of view.

The coalition took to the last election its policy named ‘Work Choices’. The coalition understands that the majority of public opinion was to reject Work Choices, and we have made it very clear that Work Choices is no longer our policy. We have also made it clear that we will not be opposing Labor’s Forward with Fairness bill that we are discussing here in the House today. But what we have seen from the Australian Labor Party is an attempt to rewrite history and to imply in some way that every aspect of the Work Choices reforms was a negative. Even worse that that, they attempt to couple Work Choices with AWAs.

The coalition have taken into account the results of the last election and the feedback we have received and have moved away from Australian workplace agreements. But in both of these respects it is worth putting on the record that a large amount of the economic benefit, the social benefit and the benefits that flow to the small businesses of Australia—and, interested as I am in small business, this is particularly important to me—is a result of key reforms that were instituted by the coalition. But my concern, as I mentioned, is that we are seeing an attempt by the Australian Labor Party to rewrite history. I find it reprehensible that the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement stands in this chamber and explicitly says that the purpose of Work Choices was to exact punishment on ordinary working people. It is consistent with the attitude of this new government, which is intent on using whatever misrepresentation it can to bend and twist people’s recollection of key reforms that have had a very profound impact.

There were aspects of Work Choices that were wrong, and no-one on this side of the chamber pretends otherwise. There were aspects that were wrong, and we have now moved to correct and recognise that. But there were also a number of very good aspects. In this respect, I must say that the Australian people cannot forget the fact that Work Choices and, indeed, a whole series of key economic reforms that were introduced by the previous Howard government paid very large dividends to the Australian population. The fact that our unemployment rate is at a 30-year low is a consequence of the key economic reforms of the Howard government. The fact that small businesses had confidence that they could take a chance with new employees is a direct result of the key economic reforms of the Howard government.

I have heard ministers opposite talk about having a mandate. Let us make one thing very clear: the former Howard government had a mandate on many occasions to ensure that there was an exemption on unfair dismissal for small businesses. But you never heard anything from the Australian Labor Party then. You never heard any great respect or regard for the small business sector to make sure that our mandate was recognised. The then coalition government sought to have an unfair dismissal exemption introduced more than 40 times, and more than 40 times the Australian Labor Party said: ‘We’re going to completely ignore that mandate. We don’t believe it has application. We are going to oppose it.’ And they did oppose it, more than 40 times. The consequence of that opposition was that small businesses did not have confidence that they could take the chance to employ someone and not have to pay ‘go-away money’.

I would have thought that it would be a matter of priority for the Labor Party to have a clear, definitive statement on unfair dismissal and its impact on the small business sector. It is often said that small businesses are in fact the backbone or the engine room of the Australian economy. Before speaking today, I looked to find a contribution by the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy but I found he has not even spoken on this bill yet, and I am not sure if he is listed to speak. I find it extraordinary that the small business minister in the Rudd Labor government—or perhaps I should say I do not really find it that extraordinary—has not even spoken on this bill and has not put forward any clear statement at all from the Australian Labor Party about what their position on unfair dismissal will be. How amazing that we should have a ‘transition to Forward with Fairness’ bill that provides no clarity and basically does not even mention unfair dismissal and the impact that will have on Australia’s 2.4 million small businesses, which employ millions and millions of Australians.

The coalition has said, as I mentioned earlier, that we will not be opposing the government’s legislation. However, we will seek to incorporate an amendment. We would encourage the government to incorporate that amendment into the legislation. That amendment is key. It is to extend the operation of the individual transitional employment agreement beyond the global expiry date of 31 December 2009 by a period of five years. We know that the Australian government acknowledges there is a place for individual workplace agreements. This is despite the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister went around for 18 months demonising the operation of individual agreements and the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, who epitomises the union scare campaign in this regard, went around demonising individual workplace agreements. So, lo and behold, what happens? The new Australian government says: ‘Oh, we should actually have them. They should be in place.’ Apparently they do provide some flexibility, some certainty and fairness, but that is only for two years, according to the Australian Labor Party. So after two years and one day they no longer provide fairness! It is a non sequitur; it does not make sense; it is a ridiculous proposal.

The Australian economy has been a very big beneficiary of individual employment agreements and they need to remain a part of the Australian workplace relations system. For small businesses it is even more essential that they remain a part of that system, because small business operators do not have the luxury of having an HR department; they do not have the luxury of having a human resources manager; they do not have the luxury of employing the kind of specialist skill base and knowledge that is required to often navigate one’s way through industrial relations in this country. In that respect individual employment agreements play a very important role in small business operators reaching an understanding and an agreement. They ensure that there is equity and fairness as to both the employer’s needs on the one hand and the employee’s needs on the other.

What I find most concerning is the fact that the Australian Labor Party holds out that, essentially, employers are there to try to wrangle and put employees under pressure. What a remarkable experience those in government must have had, because that stands in stark contrast to my understanding and to my experiences when I get out and about in my electorate. When I talk to people I speak to them knowing that my seat has the highest concentration of small businesses in the country. What I understand from employer after employer after employer is that they recognise that their employees are their best asset. They know that you cannot replace a good employee. Employers, especially those in small business, recognise that the worst thing they could do would be to try to take advantage of their employees, and that is especially the case when we have a record low unemployment rate.

The proposition that the Australian Labor Party puts forward concerns employers who at the moment are actively competing to try to secure additional employees with the nation having a record low unemployment rate, and that has been referred to by members opposite time and time again when they acknowledge that there is a labour force shortage. But the government says: ‘Well, you know what: we think in that circumstance employers are going to try to pin down employees. Employers are going to try to rip away the terms and conditions and to rip away the working environment of employees.’ That is absolutely absurd and should be acknowledged for what it is.

Employers know that the key to having a successful relationship with an employee is to make sure that it is exactly that: a successful relationship built on discussion, built on equity, built on an acknowledgement that each has individual needs that need to be catered for and need to be incorporated. That is what individual employment agreements do. The Labor Party know that, and that is why they are a feature of this bill. But for some reason after two years they are no longer fair! So I would say to the Australian government: please listen to employers, please listen to what employees are saying and acknowledge that there will be significant economic and social benefits that will flow from extending these agreements beyond the global cut-off date of 31 December 2009.

This is especially the case with Labor’s much heralded no disadvantage test. If there is going to be a no disadvantage test, why is it not fair to have that continue to apply to individual agreements? Why is it not fair to allow an employer and an employee to have discussions one on one if they both desire, subject to the operation of a no disadvantage test so that we can maintain workforce flexibility? It is not only the coalition that is saying this. The fact is that the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor has made it explicitly clear that industrial relations flexibility is absolutely warranted to ensure that the Australian economy can deal with the challenges that lie ahead. When he was asked to what extent he felt that the flexibility that exists has been a significant part of containing wages growth, he replied, ‘It has been very important.’ He said that to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, Finance and Public Administration on Friday, 17 August 2007. As a former member of that committee, I recall that. I recall the Reserve Bank of Australia Governor making it exceptionally clear that flexibility was a very necessary part of a modern Australian economy.

The government likes to talk about Reserve Bank warnings. I say to the Australian government: recognise this Reserve Bank warning. The worst thing that you could possibly do is to remove workplace flexibility. The consequence of removing it will be a deterioration of economic conditions in this country and, as a result, we will see an increase in unemployment. That will all be laid at the feet of the Australian Labor Party for not having the wherewithal to acknowledge what is a very sound and reasonable amendment that the opposition is putting forward. Their obstinacy in this regard will cause a deterioration of economic conditions and an increase in unemployment. I am happy to be on the record as stating that. That will be the price that Australia pays for this blanket approach by the Australian Labor Party—that they will not even incorporate the amendment that the opposition has put forward. We are seeing it already.

Three indexes have come out: the Sensis business index, the Olivier index and Westpac’s confidence survey. The most concerning part is that we have seen the biggest deterioration of conditions in the recorded history of each of these indexes. How does the Australian government explain to the Australian people that business confidence has absolutely collapsed? How does the Australian Labor Party explain to the Australian people that confidence in the economy has collapsed, constituting the biggest fall in the recorded history of the surveys? I ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, who is at the table: how does the Australian Labor Party explain that we are seeing the biggest collapse in employment advertisements in the Olivier index? It is no coincidence. Index after index after index has recorded the biggest fall in the history of the surveys. Let that be a very clear warning to the new Australian Labor government—that when they start to meddle with these matters beyond what is reasonable and beyond what is called for in their dogged pursuit of an ideological bent, driven by people like the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, the result will be a further continued erosion of business confidence and an increase in unemployment.

I warn the Australian Labor Party to take stock, to start to listen and to recognise that it is not appropriate to just pursue unions’ demands. Unions may have paid for the Australian Labor Party to get elected and they may be demanding their pound of flesh now, but I would encourage the Australian Labor Party, now that it has the responsibility of government, to recognise that you cannot just capitulate to the union movement; you have to make sure that you balance their demands with the very legitimate demands of the Australian working public and employers. The fact that the Australian Labor Party is not doing it yet is the reason we are seeing business confidence plummet. The fact that it is not getting that balance and that it does not recognise the legitimate need that the Reserve Bank has spoken about to retain flexibility as part of a modern Australian workforce is proof that such erosion of conditions will carry forward, and the consequence of that will be an increase in unemployment. I say to the minister for small business, who has not even spoken to this bill, that it is time he started being heard around the table when it comes to the Australian Labor Party. The member for Rankin needs to speak up and be an advocate for the 2.4 million Australian small businesses, because if he does not do it they will simply stop employing people in the numbers that they were employing them before.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is not on the speakers list.

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business, the Service Economy and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have just found out that he is not even on the speakers list. I say to the small business minister: put yourself on the speakers list; stand up for the 2.4 million small businesses in Australia that you are paid to represent; be an advocate for them; please provide clarity to them on what will happen with unfair dismissal. I predict that if he does put his name down, he will stand up in this chamber and wax lyrical about how the Australian Labor Party is talking to small businesses and has set up the Small Business Advisory Group. My concern is that it is only being done for show. Will the Small Business Advisory Group that the Australian Labor Party has established really be listened to by the Australian Labor Party or will it just be seen to be consulting? The small business minister has said, when he has spoken at a number of events, including a doorstop at the front of the House of Representatives, that he does not believe that there should be a uniform unfair dismissal code in operation in Australia. The small business minister has previously made it clear that he does not believe that there is any benefit from seeing a uniform small business unfair dismissal exemption.

That is concerning to me and I know it is concerning to Australia’s small business sector. That is the engine room of the Australian economy and the Australian Labor government ignore it at their peril. By all means, those on this side of the House understand that the Labor Party must serve their union masters, but understand this too: they must also serve the needs of the Australian people, both employers and employees. I urge the government to incorporate the coalition’s amendment to this bill, to maintain workforce flexibility, which is a fundamental part of a modern Australian workforce, and to please balance—not capitulate to—union demands that have been put upon them by a union movement that bought the last election.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is just a little bit painful and embarrassing to watch and listen to members opposite sitting on the fence, twisting, as they agonise over whether to support Labor’s legislation or not. We are yet to hear a clear statement from members opposite as to whether they support Labor’s changes to the Work Choices legislation, whether they support our transition to Forward with Fairness or whether they do not. Clearly they are in the position of someone playing one of those pacman games where you get into a corridor and, whichever way you go, there is a monster waiting to eat you. If they decide to support our legislation, they will be seen by many as insincere, particularly given the tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money they were prepared to spend during the last parliament, engaging in their scare campaigns and opposing Labor’s position. On the other hand, if they refuse to support our legislation they will be seen by many Australians as continuing to be out of touch with the Australian people. So they are all over the place. They do not know which way to turn, and we are yet to hear a clear statement from them as to whether they will support our legislation or not.

There was, indeed, no more important issue during the last election campaign than this issue, and I want to pay tribute to the Australian trade union movement and to acknowledge the role of the Your Rights at Work campaign in determining the election outcome. There were plenty of members of the Liberal Party who described the trade union movement as passe, out-of-date and going the way of the dinosaurs. Well, they turned out to have a few teeth. In fact, what the Liberal Party needs to do is to recognise that there is an ongoing role for the trade union movement, that it is the case that workplaces are inherently unequal, that we do need a place for trade unions and that we need a place for a centralised umpire in order to ensure that there is fairness in the workplace. Over many years that has been a fundamental difference between the Liberal and Labor parties.

Those opposite believe in the unfettered freedom of contract. They have this naive or perhaps self-serving idea that employers and employees should be free to contract without any fetters whatsoever. Now the fact of that is that workplaces are an inherently unequal situation and freedom of contract means that employers say to employees: if you want the job, you will sign here. We saw it with the former government’s legislation. Without any mandate at all, the former government introduced the Work Choices legislation, and the consequences of that legislation were that employees lost their right to pursue actions for unfair dismissal and, therefore, employers could sack employees without giving any reason whatsoever. So the prospect of unfair dismissal was hanging over employees each time they entered the workplace.

Secondly, Work Choices was used as a battering ram for an attack on overtime and penalty rates. It is essentially the view of those opposite that workers ought to be available to show up for work any time and anywhere at the discretion of the employer, without any penalty to the employer attaching and without any recognition of, or compensation for, the hardship that that might entail. So if you are told to show up at 2 am on Saturday morning, according to many of those opposite, you should be paid the same rate of pay as someone working an ordinary nine-to-five week. That reflects no understanding of the impact of those kinds of arrangements on families, no understanding that workers are more than simply a cog in the workplace machine and no understanding of the role of parents in taking children to school or to sporting events on weekends and the like. That is what we saw with Work Choices.

In the process, the coalition ditched enterprise bargaining which was introduced under the Keating government. It was a Labor government that did away with centralised wage fixation. Enterprise bargaining proved to be highly successful. It was the springboard for much of Australia’s economic recovery through the 1990s and it was the springboard for much of our productivity growth and improvement. It recognised that workers and employers are engaged in a common enterprise and that it is in the best interests of a company to have negotiation at the enterprise level. But, instead, the coalition did away with that and said, ‘What we want is individual contracts.’

In so doing, they managed to apply a double standard. When we talk about executive pay, we always hear from those opposite of the need for us to pay top dollar in order to be internationally competitive and to provide proper reward for the best and brightest. You hear expressions such as ‘If you pay peanuts you’ll get monkeys’ et cetera. But when it comes to others in the workplace, when it comes to truck drivers, teachers, cleaners or shop assistants, they turn out to be only a labour cost, and we are at risk of inflation. So we have this double standard from those opposite, instead of an understanding that each enterprise is engaged in a common endeavour and that employers and employees should work together to secure the best possible outcomes for both of them.

The Australian people voted for change on 24 November—change which included the restoration of fairness in the workplace. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 begins that process by delivering on our promise to abolish Australian workplace agreements. Those AWAs cut protected award conditions. They created an imbalance in the workplace and undermined Australia’s sense of a fair go. It was the ideological invention of a party that had secured no mandate for this workplace reform but arrogantly imposed it on the Australian people. Just how out of touch the former government had become over the years was amply demonstrated by the member for North Sydney on Four Corners recently when he said that cabinet colleagues were unaware that workers could be worse off under Work Choices—if true, truly remarkable.

This bill represents a fulfilment of a promise which Labor made to the Australian people to deliver fairness and consultation back into the workforce. It is a bill whose contents were clearly outlined prior to the last election and which committed to rid Australia of all statutory agreements. Labor believe that we can have a fairer, simpler and more balanced workplace relations system in which there is no need for AWAs or statutory employment agreements. The essence of those agreements is that they override the safety net. We believe that we need a safety net. A modernised safety net means there is no need for individual instruments which can override it. Common law contracts represent a fairer alternative, and employees should always have a safety net which they can rely on. We believe that this system will be better for productivity and, therefore, better at negating and curbing inflation. We campaigned on this proposal, and we are now delivering on it.

I will give just one example of the kind of thing that went on under Work Choices. This example was provided to me by the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union, which said:

After many years of meeting employees in the lunch rooms, the union was ... directed to meet employees in a room adjacent to management, in clear view of numerous managers. Employees felt intimidated and many did not meet with the union. The room also did not have adequate facilities for employees to eat their lunch, and the union was directed only to meet with employees at lunch. This meant that those employees that did meet with the union did so for only a short amount of time, so that they still had time to eat their lunch. The TCFUA complained to the company about the situation concerning the room offered for meetings. The company rejected the union’s claims and has continued to refuse the union access to the lunch rooms. The last union meeting was held in the car park of the factory.

That is that kind of thing that Work Choices promoted. It is the kind of thing that we believe needs to disappear so that there can be a proper role for unions in the workplace. We think there is a proper role for a central umpire in the workplace. The vulnerability of textile workers and outworkers is well documented—it was acknowledged even by the Howard government—and I believe that steps need to be put in place to properly protect those workers.

I commend this legislation to the House. There was no more important issue than this during the course of the last campaign. This is Labor delivering on the mandate it has been given—unlike the previous government, which introduced Work Choices without any mandate or prior explanation whatsoever.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting that the ALP has chanted Work Choices like a mantra and yet the principal element of Work Choices was a national industrial relations system. I have not seen any evidence that the new government intends to dismantle the national industrial relations system and go back to a situation where each individual jurisdiction in this country has its own industrial relations laws. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 has caused a substantial amount of debate in the coalition parties. As the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has said, the coalition does not intend to oppose the passage of this bill through the parliament. That does not mean that we support the bill; it means that we are not going to oppose it.

Right across the country, on 24 November, millions of people voted for the former Howard government supporting flexibility in the national workplace—supporting our industrial relations system—but, as we saw, more people voted in the other direction, with the result that, as in any democracy, there was a change of government. In my own area, Work Choices did not seem to be a major issue, but there is no doubt that the new government went to the people, prior to 24 November, and said that, if a Rudd Labor government were elected, Work Choices—in particular, the elements contained in this bill—would be abolished.

So we in the coalition find ourselves somewhat on the horns of a dilemma with respect to this bill. On the one hand, one ought to respect the mandate that the government received on 24 November, which does, as the Deputy Prime Minister said in her second reading speech, give the government the right—indeed, you might even say, the obligation—to bring in the changes supported by this particular bill. On the other hand, members of the coalition parties went to the people—as did the former government—on 24 November last year supporting the policy, and those of us who were returned to this place were returned on the basis of the policies that we espoused prior to the election. Therefore, that presents to us somewhat of a problem of a politically moral nature. On the one hand, do we stand up in the parliament and support the principles on which we went to the election, the principles on which we were returned to the parliament, or do we roll over and say, ‘Well, even though our constituents voted for Work Choices, the government, because it has more members, has the right to put its legislation through the parliament’?

I have a little difficulty with the position of the coalition. While the government does have an obligation to bring in this bill, on the other hand I would like to have been able to vote in the parliament on the basis of the principles on which I stood for re-election on 24 November: to vote for the policy which we introduced that sought to bring about flexibility, higher wages, higher productivity and an ability for people to be rewarded for initiative, enterprise and hard work—a situation that gave people the ability, in effect, to reap the benefit from being able to come to arrangements with their employers that suited their individual circumstances. One size does not fit all, and I hope that the government in the future recognises that individual employers and individual employees all have individual and separate needs and that a flexible system is very much the best way to go. However, we have decided that we are not going to oppose the passage of this bill. Consequently, when the bill passes both houses of the parliament, as it ultimately will, the government will be able to deliver on its election promise.

I would also like to say how unfortunate it is that the new government is seeking to demonise the very sound economic record of the former Howard government. The new government has tried to suggest that, in some way, shape or form, we were irresponsible in our spending and that is why we have seen this proposed attack on carers and the threat of closure or chopping of many of the very sensible projects that the former government sought to fund as a dividend for responsible economic management over 11 years. We have seen the Queensland Rugby Union, for instance, suffer a withdrawal of promised funding with respect to improvements to that code in Queensland—and I think that is eminently undesirable.

We as a former government did a lot. We repaid $90 billion of Labor debt. We enabled our nation to hold its head proudly right throughout the world. We were able to make sure that Australia was respected and listened to in the economic fora around the globe. We were a government which sought to return money to individuals through reductions in income tax, because we believe that individuals have a right to spend their money, even though governments will often spend it more quickly. We sought to return individual opportunity to individual people.

I believe that the current government stands condemned for the way in which it has sought to suggest that we were as economically irresponsible as our Labor predecessors. I do not believe that is washing with the Australian community. Even though they voted for a change of government on 24 November, which sees this bill introduced, the Australian community does recognise that our government was probably the best government Australia has ever had. Having said that, this bill is a bittersweet proposal for the opposition. On the one hand, it seeks to overturn what was a key element of our industrial relations reforms, a key element which saw many of us on this side of the House returned because our constituents supported it. But, on the other hand, it is an opportunity for the government to implement an election promise, and any implementation of any election promise ought to be commended.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the government’s Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, and I speak to it with some great glee. In speaking to Forward with Fairness, I need also to speak about Work Choices to give it context. You will be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews, that the people of Australia—and that means the people of Page, whom I represent in this place—had one of the most unfair, unjust, venal and ideological pieces of legislation thrust upon them, and it was called Work Choices. There was, I submit, no choice—no choice for workers, no choice for working families—when it came to the law’s application. It removed so many of the rights and safeguards that we need to have to make our workplaces fair. I doorknocked a lot of Page, and many people talked about Work Choices. They had many stories of woe and weal that need retelling here in this place. I told them that I would do it when I got here, and that is what I am doing today.

Work Choices was an assault against young people. It was an assault against working families, who seek some security to be able to look after their families, feed their families, pay their mortgages and have some enjoyment in life. Young people were in no position to bargain, and many young people would simply sign an agreement, an AWA, or pressure their parents to sign, just so that they could have that job. I had one family approach me telling me that their young son—he was 17, and he was present—had a regular working week of 39 hours by his agreement yet was working over 50 hours with no recompense or recognition of what he was contributing to that workplace.

I had another man contact me expressing concern about his wife, who worked in a local supermarket, about how she felt pressured to sign an AWA and about how it changed the nature of her working days. It meant that she had to go in for a few hours, have a few hours off and then go back for a few hours, come back home and then go back for a few hours. Her days were completely taken up with her work, even though she was not working every hour, and it was telling on her family life, her home life and her health. Another person approached me. He worked in a local franchise business, and he told me how they were being pressured to sign an agreement that would bring them a few extra dollars—and I mean a few lousy extra dollars—but meant a lessening of conditions, increasing casualisation and more.

Parents and grandparents were deeply concerned, particularly grandparents. They were actually incensed, and many told me outright that they had previously voted for the coalition—in this case, where I live, the National Party—but would not do it this time, because of Work Choices. They told me that they felt bad that they were going to have their grandkids spend their working lives in a system that was less fair than what they had or what they fought for and that they felt that it was just very un-Australian.

My local university, Southern Cross University—and, I note here, the only university in Australia to be designated in law as a regional one—produced a report undertaken by researchers with Dr Sandy Darab, revealing findings that showed the combined effect of Work Choices and the last Welfare to Work changes introduced by the Howard-Costello government had a harsh impact on workers in the Northern Rivers region, leading to lower wages and reduced working conditions and entitlements. They cited the case of one young local man who was working 13-hour days without a break, without overtime or penalty rates and who, when he left that job, after being abused, could not get Centrelink payments for six weeks. That was inhuman, and it is not fair in anyone’s books. Another study showed that Work Choices led to less take-home pay for many—and, for women, up to over $100 a week. I ask: how could that make any workers or working families better off? It just doesn’t.

I cannot believe that John Howard is still trumpeting its value and virtue to our friends overseas. No-one here would give him a hearing on it, and he must know, unless he is completely out of touch, that no-one likes it. He refers to it as a piece of economic reform, which is bunkum. It was ideological reform and seemingly motivated by an intense dislike of trade unions, whereby workers and working families were the victims.

As some of the stories show, it was a major issue of concern during the election campaign. In fact, it was one of the major issues in Page, along with health, education, transport and climate change. It was up there—up the top. The previous National Party member there told us that it was good for us, as did the new National Party candidate. I was gobsmacked. It was one of those issues that put them on a hiding to nothing. We, the people of Page, are not stupid and to have your representative and the one aspiring to be your representative tell you that something is good for you, when you know it is clearly not, is galling. How could a law like Work Choices, which removed penalty rates, created more staggered working days, lessened conditions and, yes, lessened take-home pay—and this impacted more on women—be good for us? Our election commitment was to get rid of Work Choices—and this was applauded by the community—and importantly to introduce a system of workplace laws that are fair and cognisant of our modern economy. I have to commend the Deputy Prime Minister for the good work she has done to come up with the right policy mix so that Australia can have an industrial relations system that we can be proud of. I note that we wasted no time in getting this bill before the House, doing so at the outset of the first sitting of this place. This bill is the first step in abolishing the former government’s Work Choices laws, which the people of Page and, indeed, the people of Australia voted to get rid of in the November 2007 election. This bill prevents any new AWAs being made.

In accordance with the Rudd government’s pre-election promises, sensible and necessary transitional arrangements have been implemented to allow those employers and employees who have been using AWAs to prepare for the full implementation of the government’s new system in January 2010. Employers using AWAs as at 1 December 2007 will be able to offer individual transitional employment agreements to existing employees on AWAs and to new employees. Individual transitional employment agreements may not be used to strip existing employees of their collective agreements. This bill will ensure that all agreements approved by the Workplace Authority pass a true no disadvantage test against the full applicable award or for the ITEAs the full applicable collective agreement in the workplace if there is one. This bill allows for the commencement of the award modernisation process. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission will be requested to create modern awards that are simple and easy to understand and apply. One of the major concerns of local small business was that it was too complicated for them and that it created more of a burden for them. Together with the National Employment Standards, modern awards will form a part of the safety net for working Australians under the government’s new workplace relations system.

Finally, this bill abolishes the Howard government’s so-called fairness test, which I submit was anything but fair. The fairness test failed to protect working Australians because it did not protect all award conditions and did not require employees to receive full compensation for the loss of the limited number of so-called protected award conditions. It gives me delight to commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation and Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. Right now the Australian economy may be at a turning point. Under the previous government we saw an economy where unemployment fell from 8.2 per cent in March 1996 to the point where in January this year it was 4.1 per cent, the lowest unemployment rate since November 1974. Without changing anything, because the budget settings and the labour market settings are all still intact, we now have the lowest unemployment rate since November 1974. The Treasurer himself has said that we have a tight labour market. When asked what that meant he said, ‘It’s tight—very tight.’ We also have a participation rate at 65.2 per cent, which is the highest on record. Shortly, in about half an hour, we will see what the unemployment figures were for February 2008. But what we see from the government is an unstated policy of slowing the Australian economy. There will be a cost to that. The cost will be a rise in unemployment, a rise in the number of people who are out of work, and we may see today the first rise in unemployment for a long time. We may be at a turning point. That makes it very important to make sure that the labour market settings we have are going to contribute to increases in productivity, are going to allow for strong jobs growth, are going to keep downward pressure on inflation and are going to be able to provide for wages to rise without damaging the economy.

It is surprising that there has been no modelling—or no modelling that we are aware of—of the economic impact of this legislation. Only on Tuesday this week in a hearing of the Senate inquiry into this bill, the department stated that in terms of wages, productivity, inflation and employment they had done no modelling on the impact of this bill. This is a very serious thing. Last year Econtech did an analysis for the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and they found that the industrial relations reforms since 1993 in toto had contributed to a decrease in the structural unemployment rate of at least 1.77 percentage points. It had also, over that time, increased labour productivity by 1.4 per cent. It is very important that, with any changes to the labour market, we do not go back to the bad old days when we had a centralised wage-fixing system, because that contributed to no real rises in wages and very poor productivity outcomes.

As a result of the low unemployment rate and the strong economy, it is absolutely critical that we provide flexible employment conditions for employees. Flexibility in employment arrangements was recognised by the former coalition government and is critical to the continued growth of the Australian economy. It is critical to Australia remaining competitive within the global marketplace. Australia faces a number of challenges in the future. These challenges include skill shortages, the ageing of our population, much slower workforce growth in the future, uncertainty in global financial markets and the rising price of things like petrol.

After almost 16 years of the economy expanding, there are a number of capacity constraints which may place additional pressures on inflation. This is not a surprise to anyone. The former government was well aware of this. We faced the challenge of how to grow the economy fast. We were in a position where we were able to have unemployment below five per cent, to have the economy growing strongly and to have inflation within the two to three per cent band. The Assistant Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Malcolm Edey, indicated in his talk to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, CEDA, on 19 February, that evidence has arisen regarding very high recent wages growth. Mr Edey believes this played a role in the recent rise in inflation. The Australian Bureau of Statistics wage price index for the December quarter, published on 20 February 2008, clearly indicates higher wages growth. Bureau figures show a rise of 1.1 per cent in the last three months of 2007, contributing to an annual increase in the index of 4.2 per cent. Whilst that level is still below the 4½ per cent viewed by the Reserve Bank as the danger level, Labor must ensure that undue upward pressure is not placed on wages. In a context where inflation is running high, it is very important that we do not do anything which is going to lead to a wages breakout, because that would be very damaging to the economy.

There is also evidence that union pressure may further exacerbate this wage pressure. The unions are campaigning for additional wage rises above CPI in order to counter increases in the cost of living. Sharan Burrow, for example, spoke on ABC radio to lobby on behalf of the ACTU for wage increases equal to 3.8 per cent, which is above the current CPI level. This gives a clear indication already that the unions have not heeded the government’s call for the restraint needed to reduce inflationary pressure and that they will continue to place pressure on the Labor government for these wage rises. That is why it is very important for us to know what advice the government has received about the economic impacts of these changes to workplace relations. What are the impacts on inflation? What are the impacts on productivity? What are the impacts on jobs growth? What are the impacts on unemployment?

Without flexible employment provisions, we will see an exacerbation of inflationary pressures, which will lead to increased interest rates, higher rent and higher grocery prices. Any increase in wages will be absorbed by higher prices as a result, leading to the situation that we had under the previous Labor government where there was no real rise in wages. The coalition is committed to the Senate inquiry, as this will ensure the appropriate scrutiny of this bill. It will also outline any likely consequences that may arise as a result of these changes. Changes of this magnitude cannot be rushed in without due consideration being given to their impact on employees, employers and the broader Australian economy as a whole. Whilst Work Choices is no longer opposition policy, the opposition are firmly committed to ensuring flexible employment conditions are available for Australians. This is absolutely critical to our future competitiveness and to providing jobs for people who want them.

As such, the opposition support the introduction of the new individual statutory agreements proposed by Labor in this bill and strongly encourage Labor to support our proposed amendment. This amendment proposes an extension to the usage of individual statutory agreements, removing the global expiry date of 31 December 2009, thereby creating a more flexible situation for employers by granting them additional time to prepare for these changes. By extending the duration of ITEAs to five years from the date of approval, business has more time to prepare for the changes. As the no disadvantage test applies to these agreements, workers are provided with a safety net, whilst employers will benefit from having more time to prepare for the changes. The provision of the no disadvantage test provides an assurance to Australian employees that they are employed under fair conditions. This is a very reasonable amendment. We believe that there is a need for choice in agreements. Some people will have a common-law agreement; for some people, a collective agreement will be more appropriate. But it is absolutely critical that we do not go back to the bad old days when we had labour market arrangements which contributed to unemployment being much higher than it needed to be and productivity being much lower than it needed to be.

I think it is also critical that we know what advice the government has received as to what will be the impact of this legislation on inflation, on productivity, on economic growth, on workforce growth and on unemployment. My concern is that any winding back of the clock on industrial relations to where we were in 1993 will have a detrimental economic impact on this country. As I said before, the Econtech report that was commissioned by ACCI last year is the definitive work on economic modelling of labour market flexibility. What it showed was that the increased flexibility of the labour market saw rises in labour productivity and a reduction in the structural unemployment rate.

So the opposition has some concerns about this, principally from the point of view of what the economic impact of these changes will be. We will see what they are. As I said, we may be at a turning point now, because the government has an unstated policy of reducing growth. As a consequence we will see an increase in unemployment—we will see an increase in the numbers of people out of work. That will have an enormous human impact for those people who will be affected by this government’s policy. Having made my remarks and indicated my support for the proposed amendment, I thank the House.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very glad to support the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, because it goes to the heart of something that I and many of my fellow Labor colleagues in this House—I particularly note the minister at the table, the member for Sydney; and my colleague in the chamber, the member for Ballarat—campaigned on well before the election last year: a fair go. It is another example of the Rudd government delivering on its election commitments. This is one of the major promises made to this nation ahead of last year’s election. As others have already said, this amendment is all about a transition to Forward with Fairness—or, again, quite simply, a fair go.

This amendment bill is all about restoring the balance which was thrown completely out the door by the former government with its unfair and regressive Work Choices laws. Unlike the doublespeak used by the former government, where, you may remember, colleagues, the nature and intention of a bill was given the opposite description in the bill’s title—such as Work Choices, where there was in fact no choice—this amendment bill does exactly what it says it will: allows for a transition to introducing Labor’s Forward with Fairness workplace relations system.

John Howard’s Work Choices system, for which he had no mandate, sought to create a second class of worker, one he and those opposite thought should just be grateful for having a job and should put up with whatever they were offered. But that is not what this country is all about, and Australians voted convincingly in November for a fair go at a future for themselves and generations to come. They were convinced that Labor had the best interests of the people of Australia at heart and would do what it said rather than just doing what it wanted with an arrogant born-to-rule style, which the previous government adopted so quickly and the rump of relics in this place still manifest in their demeanour, body language and catcalls from the bleachers.

This amendment bill will put working families back on a fair and level playing field and allow them to undertake a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, without the fear of losing even the most basic conditions of work that Australians have enjoyed for decades and which have helped this country to thrive and grow. I speak in particular on behalf of the young people of my electorate of Braddon, who deserve a fair go when they look to join the workforce, and to join it knowing that they have someone looking out for their interests, someone to give them a fair start. Under Work Choices they were left out in the cold, despite all the reassurances of Mr Howard and his minions—left to take whatever they could get if only to get a leg-up into some sort of work. They had to hope that one day they would develop the experience, the tenacity and the skills that would give them a chance to have some sort of decent pay and conditions. But this new fair go in the workplace will help them become enthusiastic and innovative young job seekers, willing to get in and have a go and work under the ideals this great country was built upon. They should be able to make their mark in the workforce without having the shadow of Work Choices hanging over their heads, knowing that they are not burdened by an unfair and unjust set of rules which gave them little or no protection, which left them with less than even basic conditions to reward them for their efforts. The former government argued that the workplace needed to be reformed to allow business to move ahead, but I would contend that a workplace is a much more effective and efficient place when its most vital component, its people, are happy and feel secure. We hear almost daily about the lack of skills, which is looming as a greater threat to many businesses and industry, but without even the most basic of conditions, what incentive was there for young people, and even those more advanced in their working lives, to have a go and improve their skills?

This bill will also help to restore the balance for people like Allison Adkins and Ellen Speed, two hardworking people from my electorate, who became a graphic example of just how callous and uncaring the Howard government’s unmandated Work Choices legislation could be. Both these women were dedicated and long-serving employees of a video rental company, Allison working in Devonport and Ellen in Burnie. They were sacked last year, on 14 March, without any real explanation. They were later told in a lawyer’s letter that the sacking was for so-called ‘operational reasons’, despite never having anything like a performance issue with their employer.

Their problem, under the Work Choices system, was that they chose their union to represent them and refused to sign an Australian workplace agreement. These are not highly paid employees or people looking for some huge advantage over their fellow workers. All they wanted was to stay on the conditions they had worked under for a long time and keep working at a job which they enjoyed and which suited their own lifestyle. Allison and Ellen were protected by Tasmanian legislation but, as soon as Work Choices came into force, they were effectively shown the door.

Work Choices gave the green light for employers who wanted to exploit workers the chance to do so. But Allison and Ellen refused to go quietly, and the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union are currently fighting on their behalf, having lodged a complaint with the Federal Court. We hope that this example—just one of many, I am sure—will resolve in their favour and they will be able to put it behind them and continue on with their lives. Allison and Ellen certainly were not protected by Work Choices and its so-called fairness test, examples of which we saw yesterday unravelling in this House.

This bill abolishes the Howard government’s fairness test, which did little or nothing to protect working Australians. The test did not protect all award conditions and did not require employees to receive full compensation for the loss of a limited number of so-called protected award conditions. And do not let the opposition tell you that this is about belting employers, many of whom are doing everything possible to create employment and reward innovation and effort.

For those who, in good faith, have set up an agreement with their workers, there is protection and time for a change to the new system, a time to again join with their employees and together find a solution for all parties. Some major employer bodies have already said they are content with the transitional agreements as they exist, and some have gone even further. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry commented that the government is entitled to stick to its position, while the Australian Mines and Metals Association said its negotiations with Deputy Prime Minister Gillard marked a ‘new high point in consultation in IR terms’. That was certainly something that was missing with the introduction of Work Choices and the non-mandated legislation that affected so many workers in this country. Chris Platt, General Manager Workplace Policy, of the Australian Mines and Metals Association, said:

From our perspective, the Government has done what it said it was going to do; no more, no less ... We accept that they’ve got a mandate to remove AWAs and they’ve done so.

Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group says that the transition bill is balanced and workable, which should come as further encouragement for employers to work with the government. This transition will not be rushed, with plenty of time between now and 2010 to see the new system come into operation. I understand this change has not come without concern to employers, some of whom have already contacted my office to pass on their feelings and issues. They feel their businesses may be threatened or their growth impacted by these changes. We must do something to return us to an even playing field, not the minefield created by the Howard government. The new system allows for flexibility to take into account the many and varied businesses that exist out there. It recognises that work is not just from Monday to Friday and from 9 am to 5 pm. It also gives people the certainty that they will be able to have a life outside work. This bill has not been dreamt up overnight.

In April last year the Labor Party published their workplace relations policy, something the entire electorate had many months to digest and take on board before last November’s election. By August, the implementation plan was released. It repeated the plan to abolish AWAs and set out our plan to go forward together. Right across the campaign, everyone on this side of the House was available to explain the policy in every corner of Australia. Ultimately and decisively, the people of Australia cast their vote on the future of the nation’s industrial relations.

The Rudd government are committed to working with both employers and employees, who will both play an important role in the new workplace relations system. Our aim is to avoid the uncertainty and complexity which came through the previous government’s change to Work Choices, with many people on both sides still unsure of where they stand and stood. The new bill will see an end to Australian workplace agreements, but employers will be able to make transitional agreements while awards are modernised. These transitional agreements will come with a no disadvantage test, which will also apply to any new collective agreements. This will end the compliance nightmare that was created by the backlog of agreements that has piled up under the fairness test changes which were, again, alluded to yesterday. Workers and employers will be able to make an individual agreement, but this will only be able to be built on and will not override the safety net which is offered under the new system. This will look at maintaining the basic provisions, including hours of work, parental leave, flexible work for parents, annual leave, personal leave, carers leave and compassionate leave, community service leave, public holidays, information in the workplace, notice of termination and redundancy, and long service leave.

Individual transitional employment agreements will be available to employers who had AWAs in place as at 1 December 2007. These employers may use these agreements to employ new employees or for existing employees who were employed on AWAs. It will give them time to transition to the government’s new system.

In conclusion, the new laws will not allow employers to pull the rug out, unlike Work Choices’ one-sided provisions that enabled employers to unilaterally terminate a collective workplace agreement which had passed its nominal expiry date and return their staff to limited minimum standards. These provisions will be repealed.

Under the bill, a collective agreement will only be able to be terminated where the parties agree. No longer will employees like Allison Adkins and Ellen Speed, and thousands of others, be left out in the cold. It will also give employers the protection from unfair action from workers and the chance to work with them to gain efficiency and productivity. They will not be forced to follow other workplaces down a track which does not suit their individual systems or circumstances. An employer and an employee can work together to see each other prosper. This bill is about bringing fairness and balance to the workplace. It is about a fair go for everyone.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. I welcome the member for Braddon back into the House. When the member for Braddon was last in the parliament in opposition you could always rely on him to be keen to put as much negative spin on things as he possibly could. I see that his form has not failed him whilst he has been out of the parliament. So welcome back.

Although we are supporting the bill before the House today, an amendment will be moved by the opposition that I believe deserves consideration. The government is looking to make a number of changes to the framework for workplace agreements to enable the commencement of a process of what it believes to be award modernisation. Some of us might think modernisation may have happened in the last parliament. The bill sets out Labor’s proposed new system, which is built on a strong safety net of 10 National Employment Standards for all employees. I certainly agree with and applaud the government for that. The bill also has within it a simple, modern award system that appropriately protects award-covered employees while allowing greater flexibility, we are told, for higher income employees.

The Labor government has decided that Australian workplace agreements will not be made after the commencement date of the bill. Most people would now know, because AWAs have been in place for so long—in fact, they were introduced in 1996—that an AWA is an individual written agreement between an employee and an employer that sets out negotiated terms and conditions of employment. An AWA is sometimes undertaken with an advocate, sometimes with a union delegate or sometimes with a husband, wife, mother, father or whatever. An AWA sets out the agreement made between an employer and an employee and, in the main, it benefits both parties. In this bill there will be transitional arrangements providing for AWAs and collective agreements made before the commencement date of the bill to continue in operation under the most current rules. I am thankful that that is to be put in place. Individual transitional employment arrangements, ITEAs, will be put in place to cover off this period. They will have a nominal expiry date of no later than 31 December 2009. From 1 January 2010, Labor’s new National Employment Standards and its modern, simple awards will be in operation and there will be a need for an individual statutory employment agreement. I support the ITEAs because they provide security for workers and businesses and those people who in good faith embrace, support and enjoy being on an AWA. In my experience, the majority of people who have embraced AWAs have enjoyed the conditions that they negotiated. I support the ITEAs for giving the workers on AWAs the certainty of their transition. The opposition amendment, however, goes further by extending the nominal expiry date of an ITEA from 31 December 2009 to five years from the date of approval and it most certainly deserves support.

It is assumed by the new government that all workers on AWAs are unhappy. That is simply not a correct assumption. It is simply unfair to force something on people who are entirely happy with the negotiations that they undertook in good faith and that they waited for so long to be put in place. If they live in a place that has a lack of childcare services and support, an AWA gives the worker an opportunity to negotiate flexible working hours so that their children can be with their partner, husband, wife or a childminder. The flexibility of that workplace agreement gives them the opportunity to be able to structure their workplace environment and working hours around myriad issues. They may want to do another degree. They may want to undertake further tertiary education. An AWA gives them the flexibility to be able to encompass that degree within their general working capacity. The employer is getting out of the employee what they require and the employee is being responsible to the employer, and this most certainly has worked in many instances across my electorate.

I have stood firm on AWAs since their introduction, because so many young people in particular have approached me about getting greater flexibility and opportunities in the workplace. Gone are the days when we made laws because we were a Christian type of nation and we made laws that allowed for Christian worship and family activity on Sundays. We used to make a workplace shut down on Saturday afternoon and not open again until Monday morning. These were the last bases of power, awards and issues in an antiquated system that simply was not reflecting the changes in the workplace that had taken place over many, many years.

During the last election I did not step back from the industrial relations change that the government had undertaken. It was part of the government’s policy, and I saw an enormous amount of support for it coming from my electorate. Yes, there was voter concern, primarily because it was very hard to explain the awards in a nutshell. I honestly believe that I am correct in stating that, prior to the changes to industrial relations that the former government made, there would have been very few people in the workplace who understood what their pay was made up of. They would have had no idea what discussions had taken place to constitute the award that they were working under, how their award was made up or how employers had reached decisions about the remuneration that they were receiving. And yet, when the new industrial relations system was put in place, it was determined that everything was on the table and that everything was transparent—as it was. Yet it was so confusing. I put a challenge out to the Australian people and the current government to provide me with evidence that the average person under a retail award knows how that award was made up. You go for a job, you get pay put in front of you and you either accept the pay or you do not. There is no breakdown of how that pay was determined or what sorts of discussions led to the pay in front of you. Of course, we are going back into that system where the employee is totally in the dark.

During the election last year a 39-year-old father of two children specifically said to me: ‘Since I entered the workforce I have been involved in EBAs with banks, financial institutions and major multinational institutions, including a Woolworths supermarket, and I have never once understood what constituted my award rate. I was merely given notification of my pay by a union, and I was given no opportunity to negotiate or enter into any discussion on that. It was simply provided to me. I had no knowledge of how the figure was determined.’ There is the view that, before industrial changes were made by the last government, everybody understood what made up their pay packet each week, and that simply is not the case. Again, in the future very few people will understand how their pays are made up.

Whilst the Australian people told the former government last year at the election that they did not support Work Choices—and the now opposition has heard that message and agreed that Work Choices is no longer a part of the policy of the coalition in opposition and will not be the policy in the future, for debate or discussion—I do want to concentrate on AWAs. It was construed all the way through the process that AWAs were an integral part of Work Choices, which is simply not the case, and they have been blamed for far too many things, I believe. There were employees in the Riverina who supported and embraced AWAs, as I have indicated, and individual agreements. In the Riverina electorate in May 2007 there were over 1,500 people on AWAs, and right up until the election that figure was growing; people were entering into them every day.

I remember one business operator in the wine industry who told me that all of their employees were now on AWAs. When AWAs came into being, the owner of this very large wine business approached me and asked: ‘Will we be forced to put people on AWAs? We don’t really want to do this.’ I said, ‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’ But, in fact, they ended up being forced into it by default because their employees went to them en masse seeking AWAs. They recognised that harvesting in vineyards required a variance of times and that during vintage it was extraordinarily difficult to meet the hours. Yet they could do those hours in busy periods and negotiate in their AWAs to do other things in slower times. Before, they were not able to do that. They had to meet vintage times and their general working hours strictly. In fact, the only person that stood out was the union organiser on those premises; he did not go on an AWA. But by the time of the election he had seen how people on AWAs were earning much more money, had much more flexible workplace arrangements and could do the things that they wanted to do. He approached the owner of the winery and sought to be put on an AWA. He could see the benefits. AWAs have been criticised and have been very rarely understood. Nobody is prepared to get up and tell it like it was. I went to the last election strongly supporting Work Choices and AWAs—and let me say that not all of the people in my electorate opposed AWAs. In fact, from March 2006 to May 2007 there were 465 new AWAs signed, and prior to that the total stood at about 1,100 AWAs.

The Labor government has stated that AWAs have been used to undermine the award safety net, another one of the least used industrial instruments in Australian workplaces. Fewer than 10 per cent of Australian employees had AWAs, yet AWAs have been blamed for undermining a system right across the nation. People take a lot of poetic licence in their allegations in this House. It is absolutely the truth that, in the main, workers on AWAs earn, on average, twice as much as those on awards.

I heard the electorates right across Australia saying they were not happy with Work Choices, they were not happy with disruption in their workplace and they were concerned with and confused by what was happening. I was never happy with the government’s advertising prior to the last election. It was not effective. The unions had a fairly big television ad campaign as well. There was a big advertising spend during the election on confusion and misinformation. The Liberal Party spent $14.3 million and the Labor Party spent $13.9 million. But there were added benefits for the Labor Party. The ACTU spent over $10 million on supporting the new policies of the then opposition and on opposing the policy of the then government. That included more than $8 million spent on television and radio advertising. Collectively, 41 other unions spent over $10.8 million on the campaign to prop up Labor’s propaganda exercise and strategy and on decrying the former government’s policies. The Nationals spent a meagre $1.3 million and, along with that, there was the major spend on the advertising that the government commissioned.

So you can understand why people were so confused. Their heads were spinning. They did not know which way to turn, what to do or who to believe. In fact, the situation we have is the result of enormous confusion. I honestly do not blame the Australian public for not knowing what to do and moving in the decisive way they did. It is one of those issues that we could have handled much better. But I want to support those people on AWAs through a transition period. I support an extension of the ITEAs to genuinely enable people to get flexible working arrangements. This will assist families, parents, carers, mature-age workers, people with disabilities and others to engage in the paid workforce and maintain their attachment to the labour market whilst being able to attend to their general duties and other influencing factors in their lives. Indeed, I also support the employers, who, in the main, have done a sensational job of keeping employment high, moving forward with the times, embracing change and ensuring that, in most cases, families were looked after.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to be here today to support the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. After my time in opposition, there would not be many in the House who would be unaware of my absolute objection to the extreme industrial relations laws brought in by the former government. This bill is about bringing back fairness and decency. It is going to replace the regime that pitted worker against worker and mate against mate. It is going to move us to a balance of fairness for employees and opportunity for employers. This bill is the first step in abolishing the former Howard government’s unfair, unjust and unpopular Work Choices laws. I support the member for Riverina’s comment that the people of Australia got it right when they threw out the government on the basis of these laws.

People suffered grievously under the laws that the Howard government brought in. Let us look at the statistics from the Workplace Authority, a federal government authority that forcibly employed their own staff on AWAs. In the AWAs they surveyed they found that 100 per cent removed at least one protected award condition, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 64 per cent cut annual leave loading, 40 per cent cut rest breaks, 51 per cent cut overtime loading and 36 per cent cut declared public holidays. That is not bad from a government agency—although that survey result had to be prised out of them. After that, the former Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations never again required the Workplace Authority to produce any further material on AWA surveys. The government did not want that result out in public. The fact that it got leaked to the newspapers was an embarrassment, and the fact that it was compiled and published by the government’s own department was fairly ridiculed by the Australian public.

The fact is that under the previous government’s extreme industrial relations laws workers were not better off. There was an overall reduction in their rights in the workplace. I will put this into the context of Werriwa and how it affected my electorate. There are the voices of people such as Reinaldo Martinez, who was sacked while on sick leave. He was sacked over the mobile phone in his car, by the way, in front of his family. There is Mr Reynaldo Cortez. He was offered a take-it-or-leave-it AWA that cut his take-home pay by up to $200 a week. He was employed by Lipa Pharmaceuticals, a rather large organisation in my electorate. What I discovered, after looking closely into this, was that it was true that he was offered a take-it-or-leave-it contract. He was told that if he did not sign the contract there were plenty of other people that would. For this man, who had a wife and five kids to support and a mortgage, it was a cut of about $200 a week. Do you know why they did it? Because they could. The company maintained they were not breaking the law. They did it because they could; it was legal.

Similarly, take the Esselte workers. These very low paid workers were on a 12-week strike at the plant at Minto. Do you know what their crime was? They asked for a collective agreement. Their employer said: ‘We’re fine to have AWAs; it is what the government wants us to have. That’s what the regime is.’ No doubt this company was also looking at government supply contracts. Don’t forget that the former government made it a procurement and tendering requirement that people comply with the government’s industrial relations regime—so that company needed to offer AWAs. It was much the same as when the former government tried to leverage education. They made it mandatory in education. They said, ‘If your university doesn’t offer AWAs, don’t put your hand out for federal funding.’ That happened in my electorate with the University of Western Sydney. I know precisely their position when it came down to it. They had their hands tied. Being a university that required federal funding, they were forced by the former government to advance the Howard government’s industrial relations line.

These laws were so unpopular—and those on the other side know that. They have just had a lot of their friends and colleagues cut because they stood fast on John Howard’s industrial relations laws. When I was at community morning teas, passing people in the shops or at railway stations in the morning, people would often come up to me and talk about these laws. They were not always talking about what they meant for them personally. One of the things that constantly came up when people came up to me in my electorate was concern about what the laws meant for their kids. For the older generation it was concern for their grandkids. I would hate to let you guys opposite into a little secret: so many people actually came up to me and said, ‘We’ve never voted Labor before but because of what this Howard government has done in terms of industrial relations, we are fearful.’ They were fearful of what this meant for industrial relations and the workplace environment that their kids and grandkids were going to move into.

I have cited a couple of instances from the backblocks of Werriwa for which I know the facts. As a matter of fact, I actually raised them in parliament. I asked the then Prime Minister on numerous occasions about those very examples. He was always going to get back to me but never did. The trouble for those opposite is that the Australian people got back to the government and let them know clearly what they thought about the industrial relations laws.

During a survey that I conducted in my electorate it was discovered—and this finding was actually published by each of the newspapers in my electorate—that three out of four households indicated concerns about the impact of Work Choices. There might have been a variety and a degree of concern, but three out of four households in Werriwa indicated concern. By the way, invariably—this goes to what I said about what people would come up to me and talk about—one of the things that came up in that survey was concern for the rights of kids and grandkids as they moved into the workplace. Does anyone in this place seriously think that young people are simply going to take jobs and have the ability to go to an employer, whether it be a multinational or not, and dictate their own terms and bargain as equals?

Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I knew that was never going to happen. But that was the rhetoric that the then minister for industrial relations and the former minister for industrial relations tried to put out. We all knew that was never ever what it was about. It was about giving the employer the right to be able to pay, for the first time in this country’s history, below-award rates of pay and do it legally. That is precisely what occurred.

Take the statistics that I referred to earlier, the ones that were produced by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. They show why the former government is so embarrassed about all of this. Its own department produced those statistics. In other words, its department was saying: ‘Government, with what you did in introducing Work Choices you actually achieved your results. This is what happened in all of the AWAs that we looked at.’

The Forward with Fairness legislation will actually bring fairness back to Australian industrial relations and the workplace. It will provide a positive balance. It will not restrict employers’ ability in employing labour. It will re-enshrine in Australian workplaces that employees do need to be treated with fairness and decency. It will establish a new no disadvantage test, which will be applied to existing AWAs and individual transitional employment agreements—ITEAs—so that employees will be no worse off than under collective agreements or, alternatively, the relative award or Australian fair pay standards. This is a real no disadvantage test, not like the fairness test imposed by the former government. On numerous occasions we saw people being paid below award and agreement levels under the so-called fairness test of the former government, a test which they brought in very late in the day. They brought it in simply to try to gain some form of electoral success.

I would like to speak a lot longer on this subject. It is one that is very much near and dear to my heart because I have kids in the workplace. I know that a number of colleagues want to say their two bob’s worth on this, so I will cut my speech short. I fully support this bill. This bill reflects what the Australian population sought, and this government is committed to delivering on its undertaking to it. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an unexpected pleasure to be able to talk on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 today. I do not have a lot of prepared remarks and I do not doubt that there will be somebody outside the chamber scrambling to find our next speaker. The issues in respect of the bill were certainly raised with me by my electorate during the election campaign. I take the member for Werriwa’s point. The coalition parties are aware that the Australian people passed judgement on the Work Choices legislation in the 2007 campaign, but I will place it on the record that in Western Australia the climate was quite different. I listened very closely to the member for Riverina, and I would say that the idea that everybody is against having flexibility in our workplace is completely false. The reality is that we have an extraordinarily tight labour market at the moment, and the complaints that I get from employers in my electorate are about their inability to find labour. We talk about a skills crisis in Australia, but what we really have is a labour shortage as a result of record low unemployment.

Employers are very keen to work with and keep their employees; in fact, it is a business requirement to keep your employees happy and to do what you can to keep them. On the opposite side, we often have a view of industrial relations that harks back to an earlier era. I do not think that we now have a situation where the bosses are out to screw their workers; what we have is a workplace that is a far more collaborative place than it would have been in decades gone by. Employers and employees work together to get the best out of a business because, if a business is working well, both the employers and the employees benefit.

I come from a family that has always relied on a small business to maintain an income. When I was growing up, there were certainly times when that family business paid its employees but there was not a lot of money to bring home for the business owners themselves. We prided ourselves on working extensively with our employees. Good employees were prized, of course, and that family business took very good care of the people who worked for it. This is the nature of industrial relations in Australia now. It is not some sort of system where the bosses are out to screw their workers; the situation has largely changed.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I note that our next speaker has entered the chamber, but I am not sure by which mechanism I might pass the call to him. If I may, I will defer to the member for Menzies so he can continue his remarks on the bill.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Stirling. The calling of the next speaker is a matter for the chair. If the minister at the table has no objection, I will call the honourable member for Menzies.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have no objection.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On that basis, I call the honourable member for Menzies. I thank the minister.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, which is before the parliament. Can I say at the outset that the government’s rhetoric in regard to workplace relations is entirely misleading. What they say is that this is about the abolition of Work Choices. That is not right. The first measure contained in Work Choices was to establish in Australia so far as possible a national system of industrial relations. It was a recognition that having separate state, federal and territory jurisdictions—something that may have been appropriate at the time of the creation of the Commonwealth of Australia and the Federation—was no longer appropriate as we moved into a new century. The days in which trade between the colonies was something that occurred by horse and buggy and subsequently by steam train and the car are a far-flung distance from the Australia of today. Trade is not only between states and territories; increasingly we are part of a global environment, and Australia’s future rests largely with the place that we take in that international system of trade.

The central precept of Work Choices, therefore, was to have a national system of industrial relations—something which the labour movement resisted all the way to the High Court of Australia, saying that the basis upon which a national system was being established by the then government was unconstitutional. They lost that case in the High Court, but today we see a reversal of that position. The Labor Party, the Labor government, is now proposing to maintain a national system of industrial relations in Australia. So the rhetoric that is being used in this regard about the abolition of Work Choices is simply not correct. The central precept of the legislation will remain so far as the ALP is concerned.

We have also heard a lot about a mandate theory of politics since the federal election. Indeed Mr Rudd was claiming a mandate on this and even threatening a double dissolution if the legislation was not passed. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Gillard, was saying it is a yes or no question without any shades of grey. Yet I seem to recall a different approach to the parliamentary process when the Labor Party was in opposition. Year after year after year, the Australian Labor Party rejected changes to the job-destroying unfair dismissal laws that the coalition had election after election repeatedly promised to change. Indeed the ALP voted against changes on more than 40 occasions over a number of parliamentary terms. In my belief the so-called mandate theory is just a device to avoid discussion about the proposed changes. At worst, it demonstrates a bullying tactic for which the Labor movement is renowned. This is not just the repeal of certain sections of Work Choices but indeed the beginning of a radical re-regulation of the workplace.

This bill has four major elements: firstly, it introduces a new safety net; secondly, it seeks to abolish individual statutory agreements, Australian workplace agreements; thirdly, it creates a new transitional statutory individual agreement, the ITEA; and, fourthly, it seeks to modernise awards. In relation to that fourth element, the modernisation of awards, I say to the government: good luck. Processes have been underway for some period of time through the Industrial Relations Commission to seek to rationalise and modernise awards. As one of the Labor senators indicated just in this last week, as I recall, how do you modernise and streamline awards without either reducing wages in some categories or increasing them in others? That will be a task for any serious project in terms of modernising awards that does not add to further wage inflation within the country.

The first element of this bill is to introduce a new safety net. The history of this is that we used to have what was called the no disadvantage test, in which there were 20 matters against which an agreement, whether individual or collective, would be judged. If those 20 matters were not found to be met in the agreement in question then there was the ability to reject that agreement. The Work Choices legislation changed that and replaced the 20 allowable matters of the no disadvantage test with a new Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard, which had five essential matters. The Labor Party say that five is not adequate and in fact in this legislation what they are proposing is a new safety net, not reverting to the 20 original allowable matters but reverting to 10 new matters. So what they have said is: ‘We’re not going back to the 20. We don’t like the five as being adequate, which the former government put in place, and so we’re going to have a new no disadvantage test—a new safety net, in other words—of 10 matters.’

Secondly, they say that this new safety net will apply to all agreements in the future. It will apply to a collective agreement, whether that agreement is negotiated by a union or it is a collective agreement negotiated, without the union, simply by a group of workers in a particular workplace. It will apply to the individual agreements, the AWAs, while they continue to exist and it will apply also to the new transitional individual agreements. That is a matter, I suppose, of debate as to what the adequacy of a safety net is.

I have said before that I believe that we did make a mistake in relation to Work Choices and that is that we should have included in the safety net penalty rates and overtime. I think there was concern in the Australian electorate about penalty rates and overtime not being included in the Australian fair pay and conditions standard, and it is quite open for the government to say, ‘We should therefore make some changes to the safety net.’ But when one goes to the next element of what is in this bill—namely, the abolition of Australian workplace agreements—this is where there is a con involved in this process on the part of the government. Australian workplace agreements existed long before the Work Choices legislation was introduced. They have existed for something like a decade in Australia. What this bill proposes to do is to effectively remove the ability in the future of an employer and an employee to enter into a new statutory agreement. They allow two years for the transitional agreement, which of course is subject to the safety net.

Why do I say that this is a radical re-regulation of the workplace under the guise and under the rhetoric of abolishing Work Choices? It is for this reason: if the concern is about the safety net; that is, if what the Labor Party is saying is a reflection of what the Australian people want in terms of a safety net—and I am not questioning that; I am simply putting it as the hypothesis—and that safety net applies to all agreements henceforth, then what is wrong with having the ability of a person to enter into an individual statutory agreement? The Labor Party says that it is all right, if you have got an AWA, for that to continue for the life of that agreement, which could be up to five years. It even allows, after the nominal expiry date of an AWA after five years, for that agreement to continue to operate between the parties and it puts in place an interim transitional agreement, which can operate until the end of December 2009. So the Labor Party is prepared to say, ‘We accept some individual statutory agreements.’ Otherwise it could have brought legislation to this House which said: ‘On a certain date there will be no more individual statutory agreements; they will end, and that is it. If the nominal expiry date arrives, then you cannot continue the agreement after that.’ The Labor Party is not doing that. It is saying that you can have, if you have entered into an AWA, a new individual arrangement.

This indicates that the real plan of the ALP is to re-regulate the workplace. I see the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services at the table, a man who is well steeped in the affairs of unions in Australia and well versed in industrial relations. I say to him that, if the aim of this is to put back in place a more generous safety net—namely, the new conditions which the Labor Party is putting forward—and that safety net applies to every agreement henceforth, then why can a person not have an individual arrangement because that individual arrangement would be subject to the safety net? The Labor Party is, in part, allowing that to occur for a period of time for some workers in Australia. When any statement is made about this by the Labor Party, no logical, intellectual position is put. This is what the minister said in her second reading speech:

... there is no need for AWAs or any statutory individual employment agreement. The essence of such agreements is that they override the safety net. In Labor’s view, a modernised safety net means there is no need for individual instruments which can override it.

What gobbledygook. This legislation actually ensures that the safety net applies to all agreements and those agreements cannot override it. So this explanation is simply meaningless. What we have in reality is a Labor Party which is opposed to individual arrangements and wants to see the collective as the norm, using the guise of the abolition of Work Choices to bring about these changes. We in opposition have said that we accept the Labor Party wants to expand the safety net. But we believe that individual freedom, including individual economic freedom, is a principle which has been for the benefit of individuals and Australians and their families overall, and that is why the shadow spokesperson will be moving an amendment to extend the life of the individual transitional agreements.

I would like to hear an argument from the honourable gentleman whom I believe is following me as to why what I am putting to the parliament is wrong—that is, if the safety net applies to all agreements in the future then what is wrong with having an individual agreement? You can have a common-law contract which is an individual agreement, except it is not protected by statute; you can have, as I said, an AWA, if you already have one, which can continue to have a life beyond its nominal expiry date; and you can have an individual transitional agreement. There is simply no logic, as has been argued by the minister, for this position being taken by the government. There is simply, in my view, no answer to it other than an ideological commitment on the part of the Labor Party to make the collective agreement the only form, in reality, of agreement. People can raise the question of common-law contracts, but we all know that a common-law contract is subject to the relevant award and the award, of course, is something which is determined in part by the collective, namely, the union in question.

I have no doubt that the government will vote against the amendment that the opposition will be moving. I also have no doubt that this is just the first of a package of measures which will come later in the year to re-regulate the labour market in Australia. Will, for example, so-called good faith bargaining be part of that package which the Labor Party brings forward later in the year—something which the union movement, the ACTU and Ms Burrow, as its president, has been advocating for some time—further regulating the labour market in Australia? Ultimately, however, the test will be: what is the outcome of this legislation?

We saw this morning an Econtech report which indicated that, since 1993, one of the reasons for the huge fall in unemployment in Australia over the last decade or so has been the changes to workplace relations laws and that one of the reasons for the productivity growth that has occurred has been the flexibility in the labour market in Australia. The test for the Labor Party will be the impact of these changes in terms of the things that matter to Australians. If this leads to, not over the next week or the next few months but over the next few years, or is part of the cause of higher unemployment in Australia, then the Labor Party will be responsible. If this is part of the cause of an outbreak of further inflation in Australia, given that one of the precursors of general inflation in this country historically has been wage inflation—if there is higher inflation over the next few years partly as a result of re-regulating the workplace—then the Labor Party will be responsible for that as well. If this leads to more Australians being out of work, then that will fall at the feet of the Labor Party as well, because it is the sad fate, whether we like it or not, of people who make public policy to be judged by the outcome of that policy rather than by their intentions at the time. It is a practical reality and it happens to all of us, may I say to the parliamentary secretary. I have been here a bit longer than he has and I have seen it over a period of time both in government and in opposition. That will be the test in relation to this matter.

I came into this place at a time when there was very high unemployment, when over a million Australians were jobless, and I have a fundamental belief—and it has been part of what has driven me in this place—that we should have the lowest unemployment rate possible in this country; that no rate is too low for unemployment in this country. The Labor Party uses the rhetoric of working families. Of course, to be a working family you have got to have work. If unemployment goes up, it is not just a nice statistic or a cute statistic which is released once a month by the Australian Bureau of Statistics; it is something which affects the real lives of ordinary Australians.

There was a great blight upon this country at the beginning of the 1990s, when I first came here, in that we had a million Australians unemployed. They were real people with real families who were having real difficulties and experiencing real hurt as a result of that. Surely a primary role of government in terms of domestic policy is to ensure that we have the lowest unemployment rate possible. We have an unemployment rate today, I think, of four per cent. The question over the coming months and years will be what the unemployment rate is. As I said, if, in part because of re-regulation of the labour market in Australia, unemployment goes up and inflation goes up then that will fall quite clearly and quite squarely at the foot of the Labor Party. That is what our concern ought to be in relation to this legislation. There is no economic modelling of the impact of these changes. We are simply being told that this is good for the country. Whether it is or not is going to be the test. The outcome of this legislation is something that the opposition will hold the government to in the future.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this important bill, Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. This bill starts to right the wrongs of the last few years. I have listened with interest to some of the speakers from the opposition and I cannot help but be reminded of the apocryphal scenes of, I think, 1957 when the last Japanese soldier surrendered in the highlands of the Philippines. Yet here I am watching the metaphorical political equivalent of Japanese soldiers still fighting the war 20 years later when I listen to coalition members splutter and declaim, ‘We were right and the people got it wrong.’ On the contrary, this bill recognises that the people got it right at the last election and the coalition got it wrong.

There is no sin in politics to be repenting of the mistakes that you have made. The previous laws which we are correcting were mistakes. I am reminded of what they say about the Bourbon regime of France. I think it goes like this: the Bourbons learned nothing and remembered everything. I have listened to the speeches of the coalition. How people vote on this bill and what these changes represent really is a question of the following: if they like the thought of people losing income, job security, minimum safety nets, they will oppose the legislation in front of them and they will support the old laws; but, if they hate the idea of people losing income, losing job security, losing minimum safety net award matters, they will support the new laws. I believe that these fair industrial relations laws reflect the Australian spirit: the idea that a fair go should command respect in the workplace. This should be sufficient alone to support these new laws.

No government deserves to exist where insecurity, uncertainty and fear in the workplace are treated as incurable diseases. I thank the electorate with gratitude and with appreciation of the responsibility that they adopted at the last election by removing the government that introduced these unfair laws. All that these new laws seek to do is to recognise that the welfare of the weakest in the workplace and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. We understand in the government that industry cannot flourish if labour languishes. We understand that good workplace laws need to be justified by something more than the previous government’s case and that fair workplace laws should rest on the foundation of fairness and decency. Modern Labor understand that all the actors in the economy deserve a fair go all round. By demolishing the extreme Work Choices laws, which we are trying to fix up, we want to actually ensure that Australian workers enjoy more job security, better pay, fairer hours and the capacity to take leave to look after sick children or relatives. When you look at the previous government’s laws in the context of the need to sustain productivity across much longer working lifetimes, you see that the old laws make very little sense from any long-term perspective.

We require more innovative ways to balance our work and family and recreational lives. For the last number of years, unlike the cabinet ministers of the coalition, I existed in the real economy, where every morning I would be involved in negotiating agreements which would see greater productivity and greater outcomes for both employer and employee. I refer, for instance, to the Eastlink project in Melbourne—the largest and most expensive project in Australian road construction history. That was negotiated under the pre-Work Choices laws. Now what we will see, despite the concerns of the member for Menzies that we will all be ruined by these new laws, is a climate where the sorts of agreements negotiated before Work Choices can again become the norm and we will see greater pay and higher productivity for the people involved in such projects.

Seven hundred days before the 2007 election, even before Work Choices became law—when it was still a bill, still a bad cloud on the horizon—I actually said that, once the legislation was passed, the immediate focus would recede. I believed, even before the Work Choices laws came in, that the Liberals actually had all their toes and fingers crossed in the hope that everyone would forget about the laws and that they would sail through. The reality is that most Australians earn $50,000 or less and one of their key staples is a minimum safety net. One thing which makes the entry of young people into the workforce easier is that there were minimum matters in the agreements, and they have now been reduced to five under Work Choices. What I predicted—and it is interesting that the member for Menzies is no longer here to hear the answers to his questions—700 days before the election which the electorate got right, is that the jury would be out and they would see what happened over the two years of Work Choices. The jury did come in over the next two years. The jury saw unfair laws and we saw this absurd situation where there was policy on the run. Let us not forget that once the government discovered how deeply unpopular the Work Choices laws were they introduced the fairness test. What a red-tape nightmare for business that was.

Let us not forget Spotlight. They tried to introduce AWAs and then they tried to adhere to the fairness test. The previous government created Soviet style red tape and then they employed Dutch backpackers—whose familiarity with the Australian retail industry could only have come from evaluating the Neighbours TV show—to evaluate how Spotlight should run their business. In the end Spotlight said: ‘It’s too hard. Let’s go back to dealing with workers in a collective fashion and then we can get on and run a proper business and look after the workers.’

The previous government was on the run in 2007. They were trying to pretend that black was white and that the Work Choices laws were no good. In fact, on 15 April the government and the then Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey—and I have to warn the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that being the coalition spokesperson on industrial relations does not seem to advance one’s career terribly well—told Laurie Oakes ‘we’re not for turning on the fundamentals of these laws’. The next day the former Prime Minister told Brisbane radio that he always listens and that if he got it wrong and it was in the interest of Australia then he was willing to change. Yet now we see the opposition struggling, playing in the metaphorical political traffic, not sure if it supports the old laws and not sure if it supports the new laws. The opposition needs to clarify with the Australian electorate where it stands on the fair go all round at work.

In my first speech to the House I said that I have experienced the abundant goodwill of Australian workplaces from both employers and employees. I know firsthand the many examples of cooperation, compromise and pragmatism which bring dividends to all involved. I said:

But in the real economy, as union organisers know, building a business, running a farm or constructing a road is a really tough thing to do. There are no shortcuts—trust, openness, fairness, partnership, a bit of flexibility and compromise all round. Where you find these qualities, in my experience, you will spot a successful growing business and business leaders who understand that people are the most important feature of their business.

This bill proposes to restore fairness in the workplace. What we need to drive the future of Australia is not the low road of cutting costs but the high road of investing in people and treating people as a premium. Ours is a small nation at the edge of Asia. A nation of 21 million people can only have a future if it is constantly investing in people, not trying to compete with low-wage economies by lowering and removing the safety net. Australians understood this. The coalition, however, unfortunately still struggles with the notion of what to do about industrial relations.

The previous Prime Minister had a long service in public life. Unfortunately, one of the legacies he has left to the coalition is that he was the prime minister who tried to remove the fair go and in turn lost his seat to the new member for Bennelong. This has not happened in 80 years. It last happened in 1929, when Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce lost his seat. He had taken on the idea of the fair go and 80 years later history has repeated itself. I believe that Australians have always rejected extremes. For me this place, the parliament, is the keeper of the middle way—labour and capital working together, metropolitan centres and strong regions in balance and prosperity cross-subsidising growth and need across our large and diverse continent. I do believe that our nation and parliament operate best when they promote tolerance and diversity. But when political parties drift to extremes of either the right or the left the patient electorate make it clear through the ballot box that they expect the parliament to reflect the native Australian gradualism and pragmatism. I believe that this place is a very important institution in helping Australia adapt to the big issues of the future. The new laws that are being proposed will ensure that the balance is restored in the workplace. For as long as the opposition are unclear about what their position is, if they want to hark back to the glory years of Work Choices under the former Prime Minister, or if they are interested in ever trying to form a majority in this place, then I suggest that their best path forward—for all parties—is to support this bill and restore the fair go all round.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not necessarily diametrically opposed to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, but I want to make some comments on the public record from my casual observations, having been around this place for some time now. When we come to this place on certain things our political perspectives and ideologies, or the kaleidoscope in which we see the world, are already fixed. There is one particular issue that distinguishes members of the Australian Labor Party and members of the coalition parties, and that is industrial relations. The Labor Party claims that it has a mandate as a result of the last election. That may or may not be true. I spent a lot of time on, and worked very hard during, the last election campaign and I have to say that from my perspective, and from my electorate’s point of view, and despite the bombardment of television advertising from the union movement, not one single person raised this issue with me as something that was top of mind in their daily world. From the north Victorian perspective it was all about water—water first, water second, water third—and the lack of recognition in a national election campaign of their needs.

The constituency of Mallee consists of hardworking, small business, mum-and-dad family operators providing 75 per cent, dare I say even 80 per cent, of the employment. These are business people who, when they find a good employee who is delivering for them, will do everything in their power to keep that employee satisfied—with the ultimate outcome a win-win situation for both the employee and the employer business. That usually means one family and another family—that is the nature of employment in my constituency. So I am speaking on this legislation before us today from that perspective. The other thing I have objected to while listening to this debate, and to others that occur in this place, is the offensive way in which the Labor Party, from its ideological position, wants to rewrite history and paint the former government as a pariah because of all the terrible things that it did. That is not the truth. I want my constituents who are listening today to be aware of the real truth.

It is true there is no such thing as a perfect government. Despite all the hubris we hear from members of the new government, they will learn there is no such thing as a perfect government. There can be a good government, but not a perfect government. Mistakes get made—that is true. It has already been acknowledged by the member for Menzies that attention to the safety net could have been better addressed. But I have not had one of my constituents come up to me and say that they have had an adverse outcome. They want to sit with their employer and suggest productivity gains. It is the nature of the employment that it is not nine to five. It is not: catch a train into the city, start work at nine, knock off at five and go home. It needs incredible flexibility, because it is reliant on the climate, the temperature and the production of sensitive crops—food and fibre. Flexibility is the name of the game. Australian workplace agreements gave that opportunity for a tremendous influx, a productivity focus and a win-win for employers and employees. It is true that there are some larger corporate employers across the north-west of Victoria, but the bulk of the employment is one or two people working in a small business.

I am immensely pleased with the outcomes for the Australian economy from the government that I was part of. They speak for themselves. After we inherited government in March 1996, more than 2.2 million jobs were created—over 1.2 million jobs which were full time and 950,000 which were part time. In a constituency like mine, despite the worst drought in living memory, that outcome was evident, particularly in the provincial centres of Mildura, Swan Hill and Horsham. You could not get a sparky, a plumber or a builder to do any extra renovation that was needed to develop and expand a business and to make way for more and more employees.

The greatest fillip we gave to those small businesses as a government then was the removal of those unfair dismissal laws. They were the single biggest restriction of confidence for a small business owner to put somebody on: with the vagaries of economies, particularly those that are climate dependent, knowing the difficulty of coming to the tough decision to put a person off and endure an enormous financial pain for it. That unleashed employment opportunity across the north-west of Victoria, and that is what most of the people in my electorate were talking about during the last election campaign. They saw the benefit of a tally of, at the end of 2006 at least, 1.88 million small businesses across Australia—the engine room of the economy—some of them providing two or three jobs and some of them providing up to 100 jobs. It is small business that drives the constituency I come from. Therefore that affects the ideological perspective from which I come to a discussion on legislation like this.

Let us look at unemployment. Like the member for Menzies, I remember coming into this place when the nation had a horrendous unemployment record. But, as a result of reforms that the former government made to the way our taxation system works, a stimulus to business and a more flexible and creative workplace formula, we saw unemployment come down to its lowest level in 33 years—down to 4.2 per cent. It was slightly higher in Mallee, but again the changes were dramatic. You could see it in the small towns. This is the record that I want my constituents out there listening to this broadcast today to be aware of. I do not want them to be sucked into the rhetoric we are hearing from the Labor Party about how terrible things are.

I am concerned that the new government does not really understand the nexus between the way the economy operates, the way growth operates and the way flexibility in the workplace operates, and the subsequent impacts on the total economy, including inflation. I can remember the days of being in small business myself before coming to this place, in the terrible days of a former Labor government, wondering what on earth the people in that rarefied atmosphere in Canberra were thinking about, when I had to contend with the impacts of an economy out of control, one day realising that I had an overdraft interest rate of 25¼ per cent on money I was borrowing to pay the people that worked for me. I worry with great concern that this new government is so fixed by its ideological position that it wants centralised workplace regulation in place. I fear that the outcome I saw before coming to this place will be the outcome again. Today’s Australian has published some work by Econtech which predicts that scenario.

This bill today is just the start from the Labor government. In fact its reference is to ‘Transition to Forward with Fairness’. We all support fairness, but there is nothing fairer, I believe, for a family than to provide them with gainful employment, in employment where they have opportunity to develop their own potential and to assist the business that they work for in the best interests of the nation’s economy. That is what I see out in my constituency. I hope that the scenario in the member for Menzies’ contribution is not the outcome we have to wait a few years to find. This government, which is not going to be perfect, is making another mistake.

David Bradbury (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. I must say that it is with a real sense of honour that I come to this place to speak in support of this bill which begins the process of dismantling the Work Choices legislation. Forward with Fairness is the policy that the Labor Party released back in April 2007. Following on from Forward with Fairness was the Forward with Fairness policy implementation plan, which was released in August 2007. It is a matter of record that we had an election on 24 November 2007. In my electorate, the consensus amongst the people that I spent my time speaking to was that that election was a referendum on Work Choices.

I must say that I find it curious to hear those on the other side suggest that the government does not have a mandate to begin the process of dismantling and killing off Work Choices, and in particular AWAs. If ever there was an example of a mandate then this is clearly it. If the government does not have a mandate in these circumstances then the doctrine of electoral mandate has no existence in democratic theory. I do subscribe to the belief that there is such a thing as a mandate, and that is why I am very pleased to be here in support of this bill.

In beginning the process of killing off AWAs, throughout the last election campaign I doorknocked many thousands—in fact, over 23,000—households. I engaged with many people at street meetings, through mobile offices and throughout the community in the course of that campaign. Overwhelmingly in the electorate of Lindsay the view held by people was that Work Choices had gone too far, that the former government—having gone to the 2004 election without having put to the Australian people their plans for changes to workplace laws in this country, having not only been elected in 2004 but having received a majority in the upper house and having then taking advantage of the power that had been entrusted to them by the Australian people—rammed through these changes without the consent of, or consultation with, the Australian people. Whilst in my experience people were very upset about the impact of these changes, there was also a real degree of anger at the lack of process, the fact that the government had won office and then gone on to introduce laws that it had not put before the people. In sharp contradistinction to that, having laid out our program before the last election and having now been elected, we are bringing forward those proposals chapter and verse, as they were put to the Australian people before the 2007 election.

AWAs were a policy issue that people in my electorate expressed particular concern about. Many people had been offered AWAs or knew family members who had been offered AWAs and felt that they were not given adequate protections in order to stand up against those that had provided those AWAs. We all know that there is an inherent inequality of power in the workplace context between employer and employee. It is against that backdrop of inequality that many employees found themselves having a document presented to them on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. There was a lot of anecdotal evidence of that in my travels in talking to people in the community, but before the last election members of the opposition, as the Labor Party then was, sought on many occasions to find some objective evidence of the impact of AWAs. The then government went to great lengths to try and conceal the facts—the facts that told the story that many people in my community already knew. The anecdotal evidence that was provided to me throughout the Lindsay electorate was justified and supported by the facts. It is just that the previous government went to great lengths to conceal those facts.

Now that those facts have been released—the current Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has released many of those details—we see a range of injustices. If we take the figures released in April 2007 by the Workplace Authority in relation to AWAs entered into, for example, 75 per cent of agreements cut shift loadings, 68 per cent cut penalty rates, 57 per cent cut monetary allowances, 52 per cent cut public holiday pay, 89 per cent removed at least one protected award condition, 83 per cent removed two or more protected conditions, and it goes on. This was a particularly big issue in my electorate. Many working families throughout my electorate rely upon their penalty rates in order to make ends meet. To threaten those penalty rates in the way in which Work Choices has done has been to threaten the very living standards of working families in my electorate. It is on their behalf that I stand here today in the House of Representatives to support this bill that unwinds the legislation that allowed that threat and that attack on their living standards to be carried out.

It is interesting that, even though the electorate was aware of the damage that this legislation was doing, we see now—and I refer in particular to the member for North Sydney’s comments on the Four Corners program—that those sitting around the cabinet table seemed to have had no idea. The people in the community that I spoke to were telling me they felt the government had no idea, but now we have the member for North Sydney confirming this. He said:

Quite frankly, when I took over the job, I don’t think many Ministers in Cabinet were aware that you could be worse off under WorkChoices. And that you could actually have certain conditions taken away without compensation.

If those sitting around the cabinet table did not know that, the lights were on but nobody was home. Working families, individuals in their workplaces across this country, became aware of that the hard way, and that is why we are taking action. Perhaps the most insightful comments coming out of that program were the comments of Andrew Robb, the member for Goldstein, who said:

I think it was the most powerful symbol of the fact that we’d stopped listening and that we’d run our race and that we’d been there so long, that we were no longer alert to the views of the Howard battlers, the people who put us there in the first place.

The member for Goldstein hit the nail on the head.

What has the opposition now chosen to do? Rather than move forward and recognise that Work Choices was a mistake, they have now moved into this ludicrous position where they neither support nor oppose this bill that begins the process of ripping away Work Choices. The opposition find themselves in some sort of twilight zone of policy conviction—not supporting and not opposing the legislation. I will be returning to my electorate and letting each and every person there know that those on the other side have refused to support this bill. Australians around the country have indicated that they feel that Work Choices went too far. They have expressed their anger at the fact that the previous government introduced this legislation without their consent. They have given us a mandate to dismantle those laws and to put in place a new, fairer system of workplace relations in this country. I am very proud to be speaking in support of the bill that initiates that process.

One of the essential elements of the last election was the extraordinary community campaign of those working people around this country who came forward, stood up to be counted and mounted the single biggest community campaign that this country has ever seen. Those working men and women, and many retirees and those who were not working, who supported that campaign should be acknowledged for their role in making the contribution that they did.

In conclusion, I also acknowledge the fact that, when I gave my first speech, I thanked many people for their contribution but I failed to mention one individual, and I wish to put his name on the record today. Mark Bell is another of those hardworking people who was involved in the community campaign that led to a change of government and, as a result of that change, the new government is now introducing legislation to repeal the Work Choices legislation which was such a threat to the living standards of working Australians.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Ageing and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. However, I wish to put on record my support for the second reading amendment to the bill to be moved by my colleague the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. This bill will make changes to the current workplace arrangements: AWAs will be abolished and new individual agreements, ITEAs, will be introduced.

I note the comments made by the member for Lindsay prior to my speech about the mandate of the current Labor government to bring in these workplace reforms. I would like to inform the honourable member for Lindsay that, in my electorate, 76 per cent of the people were not gullible about the union-led campaign and rejected the incoming Labor government. So, as a result, I am under no obligation to believe that there is such a mandate from the people of my electorate.

I believe that flexibility in the workplace is of utmost importance, especially in rural and regional areas like my electorate of Parkes. This is particularly important in the case of small business. Small businesses are the largest employers in the electorate of Parkes, and small businesses are frightened of unfair dismissal laws. They need a system in place that will accommodate them and give them some confidence in employing people. The key word in all of this is ‘confidence’. It is having confidence that when people take on a job they are going to be treated fairly—and no-one believes in a fair go more than I do—but also confidence that a business can put on an employee and, if it does not work out, they will not be severely punished for terminating that arrangement.

When I cast my mind back to the eighties, I can remember when parents were offering to pay employers the wages of their children, just to give them a job because the employment restrictions were so great at the time that no-one was game to employ anyone. We had people well into their 20s with no practical experience of employment. There was much made in the campaign last year about exploitation of young people and the conditions that they were working under, but my point of view is that the greatest gift you can give a young person is experience. Quite often people do not stay in a job, as they did in previous years when they might stay in the one career forever. Once a person gets that first job and first experience, they can move on. That needs to happen at a reasonably young age, because I can remember back 25 or 30 years ago when many people did not do that. Those people who missed out on getting an early start are now in their forties and fifties and, regrettably, are still unemployed. They are the forgotten group in Australia. The people who were victims of the Hawke-Keating era of the eighties are still unemployed because they missed out on getting those skills at a very early age.

Training is also a vital ingredient for the employment of young people. You need flexibility in a workplace to enable that training to take place. In my electorate, one of the greatest problems we have is not unemployment but the shortage of skilled workers. The ability for employers to put on employees and offer them training and flexibility to undertake that training is vital if we are going to grow our economy and employment, particularly in regional areas. As an example of that, in my electorate, west of Dubbo there is a dairy that is offering a job, with excellent conditions, for a skilled manager but is unable to find anyone. So we still have a long way to go in filling the skills gap.

One model that I have been actively involved with in relation to employment and training is that of the Gwydir Learning Region. Prior to coming to this place, I was the mayor of the Gwydir Shire Council and, as little as five or six years ago, we had a very high unemployment rate. We had a large number of students dropping out of school and into unemployment, and we had a large section of middle-aged people who had never experienced employment. We have no university, no technical colleges and very few facilities in our local area, but in a partnership that was formed by the Gwydir Shire Council, the local schools in the area, employers, adult learning associations and the University of New England, we were able to form a community based learning organisation that has reversed the situation. Indeed, in the last five years no children have left Warialda High School that have not gone into further training or permanent employment.

One of the reasons that that system was able to work was that employers could take on young people on a casual or part-time basis as trainees and offer them experience without large wages being involved. This would not have been possible under previous regimes. However, we found that, by the time these young people had left school and finished their period of traineeship, they not only had experience of working in a workplace but also had gained self-respect from being treated as adults and working in the wider community, and they went on to become productive citizens. Obviously, not all of these students stayed in the trades or the employment they undertook as trainees; many of them went off to university. But that hands-on experience they gained at an early age enabled them quite often to get part-time employment to help supplement their living expenses at university. Also, when future employers looked at them as prospective employees, quite often it was that experience they were able to gain at a young age that got them the job. Back in the eighties, when we had much more restrictive workplace practices, that was not possible. I urge the government, as they go about their task of restructuring the workplace, to try to keep that balance—that they do not price young people out of the workplace and deprive them of that wonderful opportunity to get that experience and a start in life.

I will conclude by speaking about an incident that happened in my home town. I have lived all my life in the town of Warialda, which is in north-west New South Wales. I went to school there, played sport there and have been very involved in community activities there. I have a deep respect and love for that town and the people in it and I never intend to live anywhere else. In my 50 years of being a resident of Warialda, there has only been one period of time where the harmony of that community was shattered. Warialda is the sort of place where, on a Sunday on the golf course, you can find a schoolboy, the wealthiest person in town, a professional—the doctor—and a plant operator on the council all in the same golf team. It is the closest I think you could get to having a harmonious society.

However, back in the 1980s, we had what was called the ‘wide combs dispute’—and I am sorry that the member for Maribyrnong is not in the chamber at the moment, because his former union, the AWU, lost massive ground through that dispute. I might say that, since then, the AWU has modified its approach and is actually doing some good work in regional Australia. But, for the benefit of those who might not know about it, the wide combs dispute back in the 1980s was over the width of a shearing comb that was used to shear sheep. It was not a case of reducing the conditions of the shearers that were doing the work; it was not a case of making them work long hours. Indeed, there was ample proof to show that wide combs improved the capacity of the members of the union to earn more income per day.

But the union decided that it was a matter of principle and they were going to use this issue to, once again, place their stamp on and establish their dominance in the shearing and pastoral industry. I guess under less compelling circumstances they may have had their way; but, because the benefit to be gained from introducing wide combs was seen by the industry and its membership to be of such an advantage, a dispute broke out. In that 12-month to two-year period, we saw our harmonious little town split in half in a way that I had not seen before and, thankfully, have not seen since. It took place a long time ago, but we had friends and neighbours not speaking; we had bashings at social functions on a Saturday night; and we had AWU representatives breaking into shearing sheds at night and vandalising private property. It was a very unpleasant time.

I just remind the House and caution members opposite of what can happen when the balance is upset and the pendulum swings too far back the other way. I, too, agree with fairness in the workplace, but we need to keep it in balance. We need to keep that balance so that not only are employees guaranteed a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work but also employers are guaranteed not to be exploited.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great privilege to rise today to add my support to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. On 13 February 2008, the Rudd Labor government kept its promise to the backbone of this country—the workers. On 13 February 2008, this government rewrote the wrongs of an out-of-touch former government, which has resulted in the introduction of this bill. This is the beginning of the end of Work Choices, one of the most unfair initiatives of any Australian government. Unfortunately, we cannot undo the damage that was done by the previous legislation. We cannot undo those dismissals for which there was no recourse. We cannot undo the Australian workplace agreements that were forced onto vulnerable employees and which cut many conditions of employment. The previous government’s Work Choices was a regime that truly deserved the adjective ‘un-Australian’, because Australia has always had a strong tradition of conciliation and arbitration in the workplace.

I have the honour to represent the seat named after the great Charles Cameron Kingston. He was a strong advocate for the arbitration power to be built into the Australian Constitution, following the success of South Australia’s industrial arbitration legislation. The previous government trashed that proud Australian heritage. Time and time again, when I was doorknocking during the campaign, working families would tell me that they were worried—worried about the future, worried about their kids’ future and worried about the continuing increasing cost of living. And they had good reason to be worried. The previous government went too far.

Workers’ rights were not protected by law as claimed by the former Howard government. The Workforce April 2007, Issue report found that, of 5,250 AWAs examined, 455 stripped away all award conditions, 33 per cent provided no real wage increases, 27.8 per cent may have broken the law, 76 per cent removed shift loading, 59 per cent removed annual leave loading, 70 per cent removed incentive pay and bonuses and 22.2 per cent removed declared public holidays.

Instead of that shameful record, the Rudd Labor government is doing what Labor has always done: protecting working families. It is protecting working families with a strong safety net, protecting working families with a system that promotes enterprise bargaining, and protecting working families with a true independent umpire. Just as in the past, Labor is committed to industrial relations that are relevant and contemporary, a system that encourages jobs growth and economic strength. Labor in government is never wedded to outdated systems or hankering after some past golden age. Neither does Labor seek to pull the rug out from under workers and their rights. Labor seeks a fair and balanced system, and that is what this bill is all about.

The minister has already provided the chamber with much detail on the features of this bill. However, I would like to highlight what I believe will be the key aspects of the success of the government’s legislation before us today. The bill will build a genuine safety net for our most vulnerable workers by establishing a new no disadvantage test that will apply for all individuals. The establishment of a new, genuine, no disadvantage test will apply to ITEAs and to collective agreements. The proposed no disadvantage test will ensure a workplace agreement cannot disadvantage any employee.

However, there is no point in having a no disadvantage test if you do not have an award or standard to compare it with. For many working people under the previous regime, Work Choices, their safety net was going to be abolished, with the NAPSAs expiring in March 2009, only to be replaced with five minimum conditions. This would have made the so-called fairness test redundant for many people because their relevant award would no longer exist.

Under Labor’s transition bill, the NAPSAs will continue until 31 December 2009. NAPSAs will then be replaced by Labor’s modern award system. Most importantly, the bill will ensure that there will be no new Australian workplace agreements from the time the legislation comes into effect. Any AWA that was agreed upon prior to the agreement to this bill will continue until the normal expiry date. This will give some certainty to both employers and employees.

The recent election was one in which workplace relations was front and centre. There can be no dispute that the Rudd Labor government has been endorsed by the nation to restore fairness and balance in the workplace. The Liberal members opposite have floundered with their response to the clearly expressed will of the Australian people. First they defended Work Choices, then they junked it, then they defended bits of it. The coalition members did not get it in two years, and they don’t get it now.

The conservatives are out of touch with ordinary working families. In the circles in which they mixed, people thought Work Choices was fine. But, in the lunchrooms and on the factory floors all around Australia, and over the back fences and in the pubs and the shops, people were talking. People knew they were being dudded. People knew that they were being betrayed by the supposed friend of the battlers. Even now, the Liberals have great trouble accepting that workers and families rejected Work Choices. The Australian people knew it was unfair. The Australian people said, ‘No way.’ With this bill, we take a step towards repair, towards a fairer, balanced system.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 is a historic bill, and I am very delighted to make a contribution in support of it. I am particularly delighted since I was denied the opportunity to speak on the bills under the previous government that introduced the schemes which we are now reforming. I note that there has been some grumbling on the opposition side about their capacity to be consulted and hold Senate inquiries and so forth. I will just point out to them that we have not gagged any of their side in this debate, unlike what happened to so many of us on this side of the House during the introductory bills under the previous government.

This bill begins the process of consigning to the dustbin the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation. This bill begins the process of restoring to Australia’s workplaces and industrial relations systems fairness and balance. I note that the member for Parkes previously called on those of us on this side to not swing the pendulum too far and to retain a sense of balance. I can assure him from my own experience in my area. I meet regularly not only with my local trades and labour council but with my local business chamber. The AiG have an office there, and I talk regularly to them, and we do have a Liberal Party senator in our area. However, the experience is that, while the business chamber and the AiG might get to talk to her, the unions cannot get within cooee of meeting with her to raise their concerns. So I would assure the member for Parkes that those of us on this side of the House regularly provide balance in our listening to the concerns of our constituencies, and perhaps his comments would be better directed to his own side.

This bill clearly rejects the completely partisan way the Howard government dealt with industrial relations and the introduction of Work Choices. This bill contains clear objectives and is the result of policy announced prior to the last election campaign, which obtained an overwhelming mandate from the Australian people. In drafting the bill, the government engaged in comprehensive consultations. As the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations noted in her speech, employer organisations and trade unions were involved, as were state and territory governments.

Two meetings of the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council took place, comprising employee and employer groups, across a diverse range of industries as well. The council’s specialist subcommittee, the committee on industrial legislation, discussed the government’s proposals in this bill, the award modernisation process and the proposed National Employment Standards. Each of the state and territory ministers for workplace relations were consulted on the bill’s provisions. This is in stark contrast to the process of introducing Work Choices by the Howard government throughout 2005. Work Choices was sprung on Australians with no notice and there was minimal consultation. In keeping with the partisan nature of the former government, only a range of employer organisations were given an opportunity to input into Work Choices. Only employer groups were given special previews of it. This government, instead, released Forward with Fairness in April 2007. The Forward with Fairness policy implementation plan was released in August 2007. Our policy was given a baptism of fire by a range of employer groups, the media and especially the Australian newspaper and, of course, the Howard government. We developed the policy framework around key principles, released the policy publicly for scrutiny and assessment and stood to argue the case for fairness and balance in Australia’s workplaces. We did not sneak in and drop a bombshell as did the Howard government with Work Choices. Every Australian voter at the federal election knew what Labor would do in industrial relations. Equally, every Australian had a fair idea what the Howard government would do with Work Choices. In fact, the former Prime Minister, John Howard, in the 2008 Irving Kristol lecture in the United States on 6 March this year still proclaims Work Choices. He said:

The new government in Australia is pledged to reverse those labour market changes. That will be a mistake. It will be the first time in twenty-five years that a major economic reform in Australia has been reversed.

The approaches to Australian industrial relations between this government and its predecessor are stark. I took the time to outline the way our government went about designing its industrial relations policy deliberately. We promised fairness and balance. This bill will achieve those twin objectives. These objectives are achieved because we are clear on the principles we advance and because we set about consulting and engaging both employer organisations and trade unions including other levels of government. The Workplace Policy Director of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Anderson, put it this way in an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald:

The fact that the government proposes a transition to its new system, rather than a big bang, will be important ... Its commitment to consult unions and employer bodies gives it a chance to get the detail right - something Work Choices did not do.

This opinion by ACCI is worth its weight in gold, particularly given its rather foolish solid endorsement of Work Choices previously. I am happy to note that the bill will upon commencement forever abolish Australian workplace agreements. AWAs, especially after the introduction of Work Choices, were used to cut workers’ pay and conditions, something we saw extensive evidence of during my participation as an opposition member in the IR task force inquiry that Labor instigated.

The Deputy Prime Minister issued a media release on 20 February indicating just how wages and conditions have been cut under AWAs. Analysis provided to the government by the Workplace Authority—analysis the previous government denied existed—reveals that, of the 1,748 samples of AWAs, 89 per cent removed at least one so-called protected award condition. The analysis reveals that 83 per cent excluded two or more protected conditions, 78 per cent excluded three or more, 71 per cent excluded four or more, 61 per cent excluded five or more and just over half—that is a majority—excluded six or more so-called (remember the stamp on the previous brochures) protected conditions. The analysis reveals in addition that 70 per cent of the sampled AWAs removed shift loading. Bear in mind that these AWAs remained in force for five years, yet incredibly 75 per cent of them did not provide for a guaranteed wage increase during the life of the AWA. That is five years with no guarantee of any sort of wage increase.

It really is no wonder that workers faced with no guaranteed wage increases could not cope with the increased costs of living that they were facing under the Howard government. So out of touch did the Howard government become that it did not care that workers were relying on the monetary value of overtime loading, shift loading, penalty rates and incentive bonus payments to help pay the house mortgage, pay their private health insurance, pay for their petrol that had been going up and pay their higher grocery bills. Just how out of touch the Howard government had become was made clear on the Four Corners program on 18 February this year. The former Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the member for North Sydney, told the program:

Quite frankly when I took over the job I don’t think many Ministers in Cabinet were aware that you could be worse off under Work Choices and that you could actually have certain conditions taken away without compensation.

He then said:

And once I started to raise those issues with colleagues and when they became more informed of the impact of Work Choices, we introduced the fairness test.

The honourable member for North Sydney was then asked by Four Corners to name his colleagues who were not aware that conditions could be stripped under Work Choices. Not surprisingly, he refused. I do not actually buy that explanation from the honourable member for North Sydney. The Howard government collectively was more than aware that Work Choices could strip workers of wages and conditions. It was revealed in the infamous biography of John Winston Howard by Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen, published last year, on page 370 for those who would like a direct reference:

The model for reforms was presented to Cabinet on no less than three occasions, with Andrews—

the then minister—

sent away each time to improve drafting. One cabinet minister specifically recalled Andrews explaining to Howard and the rest of Cabinet that there was no getting around some workers losing out under the proposed legislation. But timing took precedence.

The Howard Government had simply grown out of touch and did not care. I am delighted that, under this bill, Australian workplace agreements will be abolished from the date of its commencement. Never again in Australian industrial relations will an individual instrument override a national safety net. Individual agreements may exist, but these agreements will be common-law contracts, built upon—that is, over—the minimum national safety net.

The National Employment Standards, which will contain the key minimum entitlements for all Australian employees to apply from 1 January 2010, are currently the subject of discussion and consultation with interested parties and individuals. The expanded national safety net of entitlements will benefit employees. Employers will also benefit from having a simple, straightforward set of minimum conditions that are easy to follow and to comply with. Awards will be modernised, and this bill sets out the new allowable matters to be contained in awards. This bill will introduce a genuine no disadvantage test. The new instrument—the individual transitional employment agreement, ITEA—will be introduced for transitional use and subject to the bill’s no disadvantage test. The ITEA will be tested against an applicable collective agreement or, if there is no such agreement, an applicable award. Collective agreements will also be required to pass the no disadvantage test against the full applicable award. Employers will no longer have the power to unilaterally terminate a collective agreement that has passed its nominal expiry date.

Whilst this bill contains some historic reform provisions, the opposition still does not know whether to support or oppose this bill. We have seen in the contributions of opposition members today the great dilemma they are having in finding a consistent voice on this. Both the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition made this clear in weekend interviews. At the last election, Australians voted for the restoration of fairness and balance to industrial relations, wages and conditions. The government’s agenda, started by the introduction of this bill, intends to restore that balance and to restore fairness. The previous government went too far. I look forward to the introduction of the next phase of the government’s legislative agenda on industrial relations and to making additional contributions during this term of the federal parliament.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we are doing today is something that is rather unusual in the history of recent Australian governments in that we are essentially repealing a major piece of legislation which is central to the lives of a large number of Australians. It is not usual in Australian government, because over many decades the Australian people have chosen to provide a second voice, if you like, sometimes with one party in the state government, another in the House of Representatives and another with the balance of power in the Senate. While most of us on both sides of the House have at times found that structure very frustrating, one would have to say that it has served the Australian people well in that, over decades, each party when in government has been unable to move as fast as it would like and has been pulled back to the centre a little bit by the Senate.

As a result of that, and also of the respect that most of us have for the institution of democracy, there has been caution on revolutionary change in Australia. Most of our changes to legislation have been incremental rather than revolutionary. I was pleased that in the election campaign, when we talked about making this quite substantial change, we promised incremental arrangements through the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008, which would ease the transition to the new arrangements for business. This bill certainly does that. It recognises in essence that businesses that entered into arrangements for AWAs under the law need time to transition to the new arrangements.

That, of course, was not the approach of the Howard government when it won control of the Senate. It introduced Work Choices with no warning to the Australian people. People, both in my electorate and around the country, made perfectly reasonable decisions about their family life and the way they manage their family—which property to rent, whether to buy, how much they could afford, whether one or both parties worked, whether one or both did overtime, whether they put their children into private schools and whether they went on holidays this year—based on the perfectly reasonable assumption that our industrial relations system was stable. Suddenly, of course, it was not. Overnight, the assumptions that underpinned the choices that families had made were ripped away. Many families were suddenly worse off financially because of that. When we in Labor decided that Work Choices had to go, we put it clearly to the people of Australia. Over a 12-month period, the people of Australia were given the opportunity to consider exactly what we planned to do and, on 24 November last year, they voted overwhelmingly to get rid of Work Choices.

This new transition arrangement starts to move us towards a fair industrial relations system that recognises that both families and business must do well if our society and our economy are going to flourish. It recognises that there is a very real relationship between business, families and the success of both. In a local context, in my electorate, if businesses want to do well, they know quite well that their customers are employees of the business down the road. If the business down the road is able to reduce wages and conditions, then that affects the capacity of those people to spend money at the local hairdresser, the local restaurant, the local coffee shop and the drycleaners. Families also recognise that, if the local businesses do not do well, then jobs are in short supply as well. Any industrial relations system that elevates the needs of one above the other, as Work Choices did, and which allows one to flourish at the expense of the other, will eventually cause both to be damaged and, ultimately, to fail.

Make no mistake: while the government of the day seemed uninterested in the impact that Work Choices had on families, the failure of families is devastating. It is not just a family matter. When families fail in one of the many ways that they can, it introduces a cost both to society and to our economy. We talk a lot about business needs; the government of the day in introducing Work Choices talked ad nauseam about the needs of business. Of course businesses need flexibility to employ in a way that allows them to plan ahead and to flourish. But while we might not call a family a business, it is an economic and a social unit that must do well. Work Choices substantially damaged the capacity of families to do well in the many ways that we need them to do. There is a cost if families fail in their internal relationships. When Work Choices ripped away the ability of families to commit time to each other—whether through the increased use of split shifts; through, as in my electorate, the increased pattern of people losing their full-time job on one day and being employed as a casual the next; or through businesses being able to change rosters without notice and rip away penalty rates—families themselves started to lose the capacity to plan the way that they related to each other during the week. Who was going to pick up the children? Could they drop the children to the soccer match on Saturday morning consistently?

That capacity of families to plan the way they build those family ties is already probably under greater stress at the moment than it ever has been in the history of our country, because quite often both parents are, for whatever reasons, choosing to work. So even before Work Choices our families were struggling to find that balance between work and family that would allow them to be financially secure plus build the security of their family relationships. Again, make no mistake: divorce costs our community—it does not just cost the family; it costs us all. The breakdown between children and their parents does not just cost the family; it costs us all.

Similarly, Work Choices reduced a family’s capacity to financially plan for the long term. It undermined the decisions that families had already made. Perhaps one of the worst aspects of Work Choices was that it did not respect the decisions that families had made based on the perfectly reasonable assumption that we had a stable, incremental industrial relations system. The inability of families to know what their incomes would be over a period of time, as everyone would understand, dramatically impacts on the ability of families to do what we need them to do in the long term—to save for their retirement, to save for a rainy day, to insure themselves and to accumulate assets. Again, a family that failed in that way—a family that, had Work Choices continued for long enough, would have become unable to save for retirement—would not just have been a cost to the family and that family’s children; it would have been a cost to us all.

Also, the community and extended family relationships that families spend their time developing was perhaps one of the first elements that went when time became short or the ability to plan went out the window. Again, it is the time that families spend on developing their relationships in the community and with their extended families that holds our communities together. It is an extremely important glue that holds our communities together. Work Choices was a fundamental attack on the capacity of families to plan their future and their time in all three of those ways. And it happened at a time when, for whatever reason, the choices that parents are making to both work are already putting families under incredible stress.

This is a time to consider work and family balance—it is absolutely the time to consider work and family balance. Over the decades it has been the union movement that has led that argument. People quite often think that unions are about work but, when you look at what they have done, they have been very much about the separation of work and family life, ensuring that when people returned home from work they were in a fit state to spend quality time with their families, that they had two days off in a row, that they were able to plan, that they knew when their rosters were, that they were paid on a regular basis, that they had holiday time every year et cetera. The unions have been there, fighting for just those family issues, for 100 years in this country. And suddenly we found under Work Choices that not only was the family under attack but the organisations that fought those issues for the families were also under attack, reducing families’ ability to do what families today need to do—and also those families’ ability through the union to improve that capacity in the long term. There are very few advances when it comes to work and family balance that have not been fought for by the Australian trade union movement over the last 100 years.

So Work Choices is about to go—and thank goodness for that. But in its place will be a fairer system that does not swing the pendulum wildly backwards and forwards but incrementally begins to move the pendulum, in a way that is very sensitive and respectful to the choices that businesses have made, back to the centre. Over the next couple of years, that is what we are going to see. We are going to start seeing the fairness that allows both business and families to flourish reinstated in this nation. It has served us well. There are times when the pendulum has been a little too far one way or the other, but it has been, prior to Work Choices, fairly close to the centre—and, with the end of Work Choices, that is exactly where it will end up again. I commend this bill to the House.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to have the opportunity to speak in this place today to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. The bill prevents the making of new AWAs from the date of commencement of the bill—and I know that there are very many people in my community saying: thank goodness and good riddance to them. The bill establishes a new individual statutory agreement, the Individual Transitional Employment Agreement, or ITEA, for limited use during the transition period and introduces a genuine no disadvantage test, one which is very different to the last minute shambolic thing that was the former government’s fairness test—a ‘fairness’ test that was not fair at all.

Importantly, the bill establishes the award modernisation process for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to create new modern awards, awards will that protect workers’ pay and conditions. Under the bill the Fair Pay Commission’s role will be limited to conducting annual reviews to determine the increase to the minimum wage. The bill also removes the requirement for employers to hand out the former government’s workplace relations fact sheets. This obviously removes some administrative burden from businesses but also I think is a very sensible thing for us to stop.

Of course, this bill represents the first stage in the dismantling of Work Choices and begins the implementation of Labor’s Forward with Fairness. If ever there were an issue for which a government had a mandate, it is the area of industrial relations and this bill for the Rudd Labor government. There is absolutely no question about that. As we all know, industrial relations was at the centre of the last election campaign—indeed, it was at the centre of public debate for the duration of probably the whole of the last term of the parliament. And the voting public certainly made their choice very clear on 24 November last year. Meanwhile, the opposition continues to fascinate not only us but anyone else interested in this issue when it comes to this particular bill. To quote them, they ‘will not oppose this bill but will not support it either.’

Throughout the last three years, the former government were told about the extreme unfairness of the Work Choices legislation time and time again. I have given numerous speeches in this place about the impact that Work Choices was having on my own electorate of Canberra, and many other Labor members of this House did the same thing. The trade union movement told the former government, working Australians and their families told the former government, but did they listen? No, of course not. Worse still, in my opinion, they attacked and derided anyone with an opinion different from theirs on this issue.

Right up until election day, there was a championing of the former government’s extreme and unfair industrial relations policy. It was a policy that stripped away pay and conditions of hardworking Australians. If I remember correctly, of the sample of AWAs that were reviewed by the former government, 100 per cent of them stripped away at least one so-called protected award condition, 64 per cent of them cut annual leave loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 51 per cent cut overtime loadings, and 40 per cent cut rest breaks.

With this bill, Labor are bringing back the fair go. Fairness and flexibility will be at the core of our new industrial relations system. The new no disadvantage test will offer real protection to workers on either ITEAs or collective agreements. Under the test, the Workplace Authority director will have to be satisfied that a workplace agreement does not reduce employees’ overall terms and conditions, when compared with a reference instrument such as an otherwise applicable collective agreement or an award.

The process of award modernisation is crucial to working Australians. We have a great history in this country of having workers’ pay and conditions underpinned by the safety net of the award system, and I believe that many Australians truly value this safety net. In fact, I know that to be the case. In the last two or three years, you did not have to step far out of your office to hear people continually say to you—and they said it to me—‘Annette, we are now retired from the workforce. We cannot possibly imagine what our children and their children are going to have to go through to bring balance back into the workplace. We fought for it; we want you to fight to get it back.’ That was just a constant conversation around my electorate and around most electorates, at least where we were working.

The modern awards which Labor will create under this bill will contain 10 allowable award matters. Equally important are the National Employment Standards that are currently being developed, which will provide protection to all workers. The National Employment Standards will cover, amongst other things, hours of work; parental leave; annual leave; personal, carers and compassionate leave; notice of termination; and redundancy and long service leave.

This bill is very important to many people in my electorate of Canberra and to the country. As the former government rolled out AWAs in the Public Service on a take it or leave it basis, many public servants in my constituency had no choice but to enter into AWAs. During the election campaign, as I have said, so many people in my electorate, who were on AWAs but did not want to be on them, were telling me stories about their lack of choice. They were pleased that Labor would abolish AWAs—in fact, relieved—and that we had announced a detailed plan for the transition to Labor’s Forward with Fairness industrial relations system.

I want to absolutely reinforce the comments of the previous speaker, the member for Parramatta, and others on the effect that this whole Work Choices regime had and was going to continue to have on families and individuals in the community. Family life today is not easy. There are so many pressures, so many things to do. There are so many instances where a particular practice under the previous government’s industrial relations rules made it very difficult for families to lead a sensible life, a life where they could enjoy themselves. The pressures were enormous.

I remember very clearly one young woman in my electorate who was working in a food outlet. She was receiving so much money per hour. The owner came along, under these rules, and said, ‘You’re now going to be receiving this much instead.’ It was dramatically less. She had no choice. It was a case of take it or leave it. She left it. She was not going to allow herself to be abused under the industrial relations system that existed. When her father told me this story, I said to him, ‘There’s only one thing we can do about this and that is kick the system out.’ He said: ‘We have no choice; we must kick it out. It’s unfair, it’s undemocratic.’

As the previous speaker—the member for Parramatta—said, that thing called a pendulum had gone so far, to an extreme level, that I think many small businesses and many business people themselves were also feeling a bit of discomfort with the system. That is the point. The saddest thing for me about the whole debate over the last two or three years was the absolute denial by the government of the day of hearing any of these messages. As I said a few moments ago, not only was there a denial but they attacked and derided those who had a view different from theirs. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. This system has been rejected by the people of Australia in no uncertain terms. I am very pleased that we will now have an open and honest debate on industrial relations. We will have a system that is open and honest. It will contrast dramatically with where we were going and where we had been led in the last two or three years.

I am particularly proud to be part of a government that is bringing fairness, equity, accessibility and a fair go back into the most important piece of public policy that we could wish for—that is, the industrial relations area, where people’s lives depend entirely on how they can relate to each other, their employer and their fellow employees at their workplace. Nothing can be more basic than that. I am very proud to stand here and endorse this legislation, and I am proud to be part of a government that is attempting—and will succeed—to bring that fairness back to that basic level in Australian society.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the lead-up to last year’s federal election, federal Labor were unambiguous in our commitment to abolish the Howard government’s unfair and unpopular Work Choices laws. The promise that we made to the Australian public was that Labor would create a fairer and simpler workplace relations system in Australia, one that reflected the needs of modern Australia and one that struck the right balance between the needs of employees and employers. This is a commitment that I made to the people of my electorate of Calwell and one that federal Labor made to millions of workers across the country. A key part of that commitment was the abolition of the Australian workplace agreements, or AWAs. AWAs had rapidly become synonymous with the Howard government’s unfair Work Choices law. Under Work Choices, employers used AWAs to dictate terms and conditions to employees that often annulled the most basic rights and protections that Australian workers fought so hard to secure. Overtime, penalty rates, meal breaks, leave loadings and a host of other conditions all fell victim to the onslaught of Work Choices and the unfair AWAs. Hardworking Australians and their families, including workers who live in my electorate of Calwell, were left to pay the price. In concert with the pre-election commitments that federal Labor made to restore fairness and balance to Australian workplaces and to introduce sensible transitional arrangements to allow those employers and employees using AWAs to prepare for the full implementation of the government’s new workplace relations system in 2010, I am happy to speak to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 currently before the House.

In essence this bill begins the substantive work of overhauling Work Choices by introducing legislation that will see an end to Australian workplace agreements as well as the implementation of a new no disadvantage test to replace the previous government’s fairness test. This bill seeks to amend the Workplace Relations Act 1996 in order to prevent the making of new Australian workplace agreements from the bill’s commencement date; to provide for transitional arrangements through the creation of interim transitional employment agreements—or ITEAs—to run to 31 December 2009; to replace the existing fairness test with a genuine no disadvantage test that will apply to all workplace agreements; and to allow for the modernisation of federal and former state industrial awards by 31 December 2009. Each of these amendments is consistent with the policies and commitments contained in federal Labor’s 2007 Forward with Fairness policy and the Forward with Fairness policy implementation plan. They signify the first step in this government’s plans to implement a fairer workplace relations system that is intended to be fully operational by 1 January 2010.

Item 1 of the bill repeals and replaces section 326 of the 1996 act to prevent the making of new Australian workplace agreements from the date this bill comes into effect. It also maps out transitional arrangements for those employees currently on AWAs through the establishment of individual transitional employment agreements. ITEAs will only be available to employers who on 1 December 2007 employed a worker under an individual statutory agreement, including an AWA. This restriction is designed to prevent employers who currently do not employ staff under AWAs from signing new workers up to AWAs before the bill’s commencement date. Importantly, ITEAs cannot be used to strip existing employees of their collective agreements. As the bill sets out, ITEAs will be available until the completion of the award modernisation process and the implementation of the government’s Forward with Fairness reforms—all will have an expiry date of no later than 31 December 2009. The bill also provides that an ITEA must be made with an employee prior to their commencing employment or under specific circumstances no longer than 14 days after they are employed. Once an ITEA or an existing AWA expires, employees are empowered under the bill to enter into negotiations over, and approve, new collective agreements. The bill also guarantees the right of employees to take part in secret ballots for protected industrial action. Both ITEAs and collective agreements will be subjected to a new no disadvantage test, which is introduced under division 5A of the bill to replace the existing fairness test. In essence, an ITEA needs to be lodged with the Workplace Authority Director and will pass the no disadvantage test only if it is deemed not to disadvantage an employee against an applicable collective agreement or the Australian Fair Pay Commission standard and only if it does not lead to an overall reduction in an employee’s terms and conditions of employment. The same mechanisms will also apply to collective agreements, which again are only permissible if they do not disadvantage employees against the Australian Fair Pay Commission standard or an applicable or designated award.

Under the bill, the Workplace Authority Director is also charged with the power to designate an award or amend an existing award where appropriate. When it comes to collective union and non-union agreements and ITEAs for existing employees, they will only take effect after they have passed the no disadvantage test and are approved by the Workplace Authority Director. ITEAs for new employees would apply from the date of their lodgement with the Workplace Authority Director but would cease to exist where they had been found to fail the no disadvantage test. Under these provisions, this bill abolishes Australian workplace agreements in favour of new interim transitional employment agreements that will have an expiry date of no later than 31 December 2009. It also replaces the previous government’s fairness test with a new and genuine no disadvantage test that is designed to protect the basic rights of all working Australians. The new no disadvantage test will also apply to negotiated collective agreements.

Importantly, however, this bill will also make it impossible for an employer to unilaterally terminate a collective agreement once it has expired or to force employees to accept a new set of minimum standards and conditions that would make them worse off. Instead, the termination of a collective agreement will require approval from both parties and throughout employees will continue to be entitled to whatever award or workplace agreement would have applied to them but for the terminated agreement. For employees already on an AWA, the bill allows them to make and approve a collective agreement without having to terminate the AWA and to also take part in a secret ballot to seek protected industrial action. In the charged atmosphere surrounding the Work Choices debate, this bill seeks to balance the needs of both employees and employers and to put into place arrangements that facilitate a seamless transition to a simpler, fairer and more balanced workplace relations system in Australia.

There is one other aspect of the bill that I would like to address before concluding, namely the amendments it contains to begin the process of award modernisation for the establishment of a modern award system for Australia. Item 9, part 10A, sets out the parameters of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission’s powers to establish a modern awards system at the request of the minister. The bill stipulates that the Australian Industrial Relations Commission must give regard to an awards system that is simple and easy to understand and that reduces the regulatory burden on business; that provides a fair minimum safety net of enforceable terms and standards; that is economically sustainable and promotes flexible work practices; and that is in a form that promotes collective bargaining.

Establishing a modern award system that balances the need for flexibility with the protection of basic rights and conditions at work is absolutely crucial when it comes to developing a fairer industrial relations system, one that reflects the changed realities of today’s workplaces. The matters to be dealt with under modern awards include the following: the minimum wage, the type of employment that employees want to be involved in, arrangements for when work is performed, overtime rates, penalty rates, annualised wage and salary arrangements, allowances, leave, superannuation and consultation, representation and dispute settlement procedures. Each of these items will form the backbone of a new modern awards system, which will in turn furnish the basic building blocks for a fairer, simpler and more balanced workplace relations system in Australia. These awards and the protections they offer to working Australians are the very same as those targeted by the previous government’s unfair Work Choices laws, laws under which it became possible for employers to impose AWAs that wrote out many of the fundamental rights that have long protected Australian workers and their families.

This bill will speak to countless workers across Australia, including those who live in my electorate of Calwell. It begins to put in place transitional arrangements aimed at creating an industrial relations system built on fairness and balance, one that faithfully reflects the needs of modern Australia. It begins to dismantle the destructive legacy of Work Choices, a legacy that an overwhelming majority of Australians want to see an end to in the interests of decency and fairness. It is for this reason that I strongly commend the Workplace Relations Amendment Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 to the House.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having been at the coalface and having seen firsthand over a number of years now the unfair impacts that the Work Choices laws have had under the Howard government on so many working Australians, it is an utter joy to be standing here today speaking in support of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008. At the heart of the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation was the unfair legislated scheme of individual contracts, Australian workplace agreements, otherwise known as AWAs. At the heart of this bill is the removal of AWAs from the Australian industrial landscape. It is item 1 of the bill. In the midst of all the unfairness in the Work Choices legislation—the way in which it attacked the safety net of award terms and conditions, the way in which it provided an unbalanced set of laws for how employers and employees related to each other, the way in which it attacked trade unions and the way in which it abrogated our responsibility to have freedom of association and legislation in this country—at the end of the day the critical thing was that it sought to replace collective bargaining, in one form or another, as the cornerstone of our industrial relations system and replace it with a legislative scheme of individual contracts, Australian workplace agreements.

In the hierarchy of agreements, which is really the central piece of architecture in any industrial relations system, the Work Choices legislation placed AWAs right at the top. When a single worker tries to negotiate one on one with their employer, it is not rocket science to understand that they do so from a disadvantaged position of power. It is the employer who gets to say what the employee has to do, it is the employer who has the right to hire and fire, it is the employer who pays the wages of the employee—and for those reasons over the last 150 years employees have banded together, often through trade unions, to try and negotiate as a group and maximise their bargaining power. That simple idea is really at the heart of what is now understood internationally to be an international human right. It is at the heart of virtually every industrial relations system of every developed country in the world. It is at the heart of a range of ILO conventions to which Australia is a signatory and, in theory, we were obliged to uphold the terms of those conventions over the last 11 years. Of course, the ILO’s Committee of Experts said on a number of occasions that the industrial relations legislation of the Howard government in its various forms failed to meet the terms in those conventions. That meant that the legislation placed employers in an unprecedented position of power in relation to their workforce, an unprecedented position of power where they could ask their workers to do more work for less money.

It is important to understand the difference between that legislated scheme of individual contracts and a common-law scheme of individual contracts, because any notion that the reason that AWAs were put in place was to provide some incentive to employees to work harder, and that there would be reward for working harder, is absolute nonsense. Of course, throughout the entire history of industrial relations in this country employers have always had the right to reward extra effort on the part of an individual through common-law individual contracts. But the difference is this: throughout most of the life of our industrial relations system in this country, in every one of its terms a common-law individual contract must have been better than whatever the safety net, which has been the predominant industrial relations instrument in the workplace, was. Australian workplace agreements, on the other hand, were quite different to this. All they needed to do to become effective in law was to pass a fairness test measured against a handful of conditions, which often meant that in a workplace where there was a collective agreement in place and where there was an established set of collective conditions, measured against the fairness test an individual legislated AWA was able to provide a set of conditions which were in fact far worse than the collective standard in that workplace. As a result, even though it met the fairness test, it gave rise to a very unfair result. That needs to be seen as the reason why the Howard government put in place its system of AWAs. It was not about rewarding the effort of individuals; it was a legislated scheme, the purpose of which was absolutely about undermining collective standards of employment.

One has to say that, in that aim, this legislated scheme of AWAs was quite successful. That famous set of figures which was ascertained from the budget estimates process in May 2006 showed that, after the first month of operation, every AWA that had been registered cut at least one award condition and that 63 per cent of AWAs cut penalty rates, 64 per cent cut annual leave loadings, 52 per cent cut shift work provisions, 48 per cent cut at least one monetary allowance, 36 per cent cut declared public holidays—and the list goes on and on. Of course, having discovered how toxic that particular set of figures was, the Howard government made sure that the figures around AWAs were never released again.

To properly understand how unfair these Australian workplace agreements are, one can look at the ways in which laws govern the way we engage in contracts in other aspects of our lives. If you look at the commercial context—for example, the Trade Practices Act—you can point to the example of Victorian chicken farmers. They found themselves in a position of poor bargaining power in relation to a number of key chicken producers such as Steggles and Inghams. Because they felt they were unable to bargain fairly, one on one, with those chicken producers, they went to the ACCC and sought an authorisation to negotiate collectively with those chicken producers. In the ordinary course of events, that would be collusive conduct under the Trade Practices Act. But when the ACCC looked at that they said it was fair enough. The said that it is difficult to ask a single chicken farmer to negotiate, one on one, with a large chicken producer. So they authorised those chicken farmers to have the right to negotiate collectively with the chicken producers.

At the end of the day, under the Trade Practices Act, that represents a form of a collective bargaining right. Yet, under the legislated scheme of AWAs, under the John Howard legislation, you did not have any of that. The common law, which regulates the way in which we engage in normal contracts, contains notions of fairness and equality of bargaining power. Yet there is none of that in Australian workplace agreements. So you could have an employee who is earning $50,000 a year being asked to negotiate, one on one, with a multibillion-dollar employer. People might say that that happens indirectly throughout our lives—we buy a can of Coke from Coca-Cola and we engage in a mortgage with a large bank—and that is true. But in each of those situations there is the ability to shop around, and that happens in a competitive market. The most significant of those contracts, a mortgage, might consume 40 per cent or nowadays even 50 per cent of somebody’s income. But a contract of employment represents 100 per cent of somebody’s income. So we had a situation whereby the single most important contract that anybody will ever sign was regulated by a system of law which had no entrenched sense of fairness within it.

For that reason it is fair enough to make this claim: there was no other law in the land which placed one person so much at the mercy of another as John Howard’s system of Australian workplace agreements. AWAs were a stain on our law and they made this country an industrial pariah. That is why it is item 1 of this bill to get rid of AWAs. But we do not seek to do that overnight. There is a sensible transition process in which this will occur. The bill provides for the establishment of individual transitional employment agreements, which will be allowed to be entered into right up until the end of next year. This is not by any means shock treatment in ending AWAs overnight, in terms of their application—albeit new AWAs will not be able to be entered into once this bill becomes law. Rather, what we see with this bill is a gradual phasing out of Australian workplace agreements.

The bill provides for a number of other things. It provides for a fairness test—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought you got rid of it!

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It provides for a proper fairness test and getting rid of the so-called fairness test that the last government had in place. It provides for a comprehensive no disadvantage test which will be measured against the relative instrument in the workplace, which is how it should be. It provides for proper handling of agreements so that they will only commence when the Workplace Authority Director has approved them, and there will be no unilateral termination of collective agreements on the part of an employer. The bill removes the insidious workplace relations fact sheet—Howard government propaganda which was put in the hands of employers, who were then obliged to distribute it to their entire workforce. Imagine this: we had a conservative government which was trying to stand for the idea of small government not intervening in people’s lives, yet it came up with a piece of legislation that put a piece of propaganda in the hands of employers and directed that they distribute it to every one of their employees. It is hard to think of a more interventionist piece of legislation, yet it characterises the whole attitude of the Howard government to industrial relations throughout its entire 11 years. It was the most interventionist government this country has ever seen.

This bill will get rid of that insidious piece of propaganda. The bill will also seek to begin the process of improving the safety net. We will have an award modernisation process, unlike the one the previous government had in place, which will seek to retain all the good things that are embraced in awards which have come from 100 years of learning. But it will also acknowledge that awards in their current form are cumbersome and complex. Every player in the industrial scene understands that. It will be about trying to make a modernised system of awards for the 21st century. This bill is only a start in dismantling the unfair Work Choices laws, and there is of course much more to come. But it does address the immediate issue and the worst aspect of the Howard government industrial laws, and that is the legislated scheme of Australian workplace agreements. When this bill is passed, it will remove a blight from Australia’s industrial landscape and the law books of this country. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.