Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Will the Acting Prime Minister detail the government’s commitment to providing fairness for working Australians by the abolition of individual statutory agreements? Are there any barriers to providing this fairness?

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

I thank the member for Deakin for his question and for his assistance with the development of the Fair Work Bill, introduced into the parliament today. Labor acted at the start of this year to end the making of Australian workplace agreements. Our new Fair Work Bill has no place for Australian workplace agreements or individual statutory employment agreements of any kind. In fact, when you look at the objects of the act, you will see one of the objects is to have a system without individual statutory employment agreements, and the object indicates that such agreements are not consistent with having a fair and decent workplace relations system.

We know that, under Work Choices, Australian workplace agreements were the heart of the rip-offs—the heart of the rip-offs of penalty rates; the heart of the rip-offs of overtime—and the statistics clearly showed it and were available to members of the Liberal Party who now sit on the opposition benches, including the opposition front bench, and the Leader of the Opposition sitting in the leader’s chair. He would have known, as he supported Work Choices as a member of the Howard government, that 64 per cent of Australian workplace agreements cut annual leave loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 52 per cent cut shift loadings, 51 per cent cut overtime and 46 per cent cut public holiday pay—statistics known to him but, despite that, he supported Work Choices.

Now decision day is coming for the Liberal Party. One of the most startling things yesterday about the address to the National Press Club by the Leader of the Opposition is that he declared boldly that if he were Prime Minister of this country he would answer questions—only to find that in the office of Leader of the Opposition he was unable to do so. A very significant question was put to him three times by three different journalists, and that was: what is his position on individual statutory employment agreements? He did not answer it—three times, questions without answers. Well, decision day is coming for the Leader of the Opposition. He will have to decide what he believes on individual statutory employment agreements. Of course, we know if we judge him—as one should—on what he has done that he has come into this parliament day after day as a member of the Howard government and voted for the rip-offs—voted for the individual statutory employment agreements. And we know that across the Liberal Party support for this kind of extremism is strong. On 8 February this year a senior frontbench member of the Liberal Party was quoted in the West Australian newspaper as saying:

We are prepared to die in the ditch over individual statutory workplace agreements.

And not many weeks ago the deputy Liberal leader said statutory individual contracts ‘must form part of a modern workplace relations system’.

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

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

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

‘Of course,’ she is saying. She is verifying that individual statutory employment agreements are still Liberal policy. Well, that may be the policy of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but the person we want to answer the question is the Leader of the Opposition. Will he verify that statutory employment agreements are still part of the Liberal Party’s policy or will he keep ducking the question? I have got news for him: when it comes to voting on this bill, which we will do in this House of Representatives before parliament rises at the end of the year, he has got a decision to make. And that decision will include making a policy decision on individual statutory employment agreements, because the objects of this act state that such agreements are not compatible with a fair and decent workplace relations system. For a man who says that he wants to answer questions, so far we have heard deafening silence. We are waiting for the answer. But, of course, we know, if he is truthful to what he believes in and what he has voted for before, he will say that he endorses industrial relations extremism—he endorses rip-offs—because in this parliament he already has.