Belinda Neal (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. What is the current status of the assessment of AWAs by the Workplace Authority? What impact is this having on small businesses and Australian businesses at large?

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

I thank the member for Robertson for that question. I know she has a deep concern about the impact of Work Choices on working families in her electorate. During the last few sitting weeks, we have revealed a number of statistics that, to coin a phrase, members of parliament need to ‘really understand’. One of the statistics that members of parliament need to really understand is the dimension of waste of taxpayers’ money that was engaged in by the former government on Work Choices propaganda: $121 million, which we know, and as has been revealed in this parliament, caused a plague of mousepads, leftover pens, fridge magnets, pamphlets and all sorts of other paraphernalia. The members over there might think that that is moderately humorous, but let us remember that money was ripped out of the purses and wallets of hardworking Australians in order to pay for the propaganda that the former government, the Liberal Party, engaged in in the run-up to the election. A second statistic that members of the House need to really understand relates to the dimension of rip-off of working Australians by Work Choices. I have had the opportunity in this parliament over the last few weeks to confirm that 89 per cent of AWAs sampled removed at least one protected award condition, 83 per cent excluded two or more and 52 per cent excluded six or more. On the question of rip-off—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I see that they are interjecting about salary. Listen to these statistics about salary. On the question of the dimension of the rip-off of Australian working families engaged in by the Liberal Party, by the members who sit opposite, I referred in the parliament last week to a sample of Australian workplace agreements that showed approximately 45 per cent of the AWAs provided between $1 and $49 per week below the required rate of pay for protected award conditions, 50 per cent provided from $50 to $199 per week less, approximately five per cent provided $200 to $499 per week less and approximately half of one per cent provided for more than $500 per week less than the required rate of pay—statistics that members opposite might need to really understand. Maybe when they come into this place pretending that they care about the future of Australian working families they should start by actually explaining how it is that in government they supported extreme laws like Work Choices and they continue to do so.

Today I can reveal new problems that are confronting the Australian community because of Work Choices. These are problems particularly confronting Australian businesses. I can reveal that there are new statistics from the Workplace Authority about the backlog of Australian workplace agreement processing. There was, of course, an initial backlog of 54,000 agreements that was created because of the shambolic way in which the former government introduced the so-called fairness test into law. It announced a test it had not formulated, it legislated retrospectively for the test and there were weeks when agreements were backlogging up and no-one knew how to process them. The initial backlog was 54,000 agreements. I can indicate that, to the end of February 2008, approximately 298,524 agreements have been lodged for assessment. Approximately 160,154 of them have been finalised, which means there are approximately 138,000 backlogged agreements waiting to be finalised. At the average rate of processing countenanced by the Howard government, processing this backlog would take 8½ months—8½ months when employers and working Australians would have no idea whether or not the agreement that they were working under was lawful.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were happy enough to sign it.

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

The party of Work Choices, right on cue! They have never met a rip-off they are not prepared to defend, even when the people they are ripping off are businesses who are caught in this processing nightmare. Now, at the average rate of processing countenanced by the Howard government, these agreements would take 8½ months to process. Let me tell you who needs to be apologising to Australian businesses. It is conceivable that, after five, six, seven or eight months of delay in processing, a small business in this country could be told that its agreement had failed. If you were told that your agreement had failed a fortnight after it was made, you would pay up the back pay. It might be a bit inconvenient, but you would deal with that. If you were told it had failed eight months after it had been made then that quantum of back pay could break a small business. That is the shambles that was Work Choices, brought to this country by the Liberal Party of Australia.

They sit there and pretend that they care about Australian business when they are responsible for this red-tape nightmare. Like other messes left by the Howard government, we will clear this up. We are accelerating the rate of processing so at least employers and employees know what is going on. Of course, today we have passed the legislation which ends the making of Australian workplace agreements—the first step in getting rid of Work Choices, which failed working families and failed businesses.