Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak this afternoon in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008, continuing on from last night when I was talking about where a company forced an agreement on workers which specifically excluded things like rest breaks, incentive based payments and bonuses, annual leave loadings, overtime payments, shiftwork allowances and penalty rates. This left already low-paid workers up to $190 a week worse off. Yet another such agreement negotiated in Tasmania saw evening and weekend penalty rates removed, meal breaks and leave loadings stripped away and a reduction of public holiday payments. Another agreement—and I use that term loosely, because it implies that these so-called agreements were arrived at by mutual consent rather than the reality, which is that they were forced upon workers—saw hourly rates reduced by an average of $1.47 and casuals under the AWA only receiving a 20 per cent loading in comparison with the 25 per cent under the award.

I could go on, as could all members of this House, about the range of conditions and fundamental rights which were systematically stripped away under Work Choices—well, no more. This government’s workplace relations system is underpinned by that notion of which I spoke earlier: a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. It has a strong safety net of 10 legislated National Employment Standards for all employees and it will see developed a modern award system which ensures decent wages and conditions for award-covered employees while allowing upward flexibility for high-income earners through common-law contracts. Importantly, these cannot override the award safety net; employees must be left better off.

The National Employment Standards, or NES, will cover things such as the maximum weekly hours of work, requests for flexible working arrangements, parental leave and related entitlements, annual leave, personal and carers leave, community service and long service leave, public holidays and issues surrounding termination. Another feature of the NES is that from 1 January 2010 employers will be required to give the Fair Work Information Statement to all new employees. We will have in place a framework of collective bargaining rights and responsibilities, and of freedom of association for all workers and their right to representation.

There will be an independent agency, Fair Work Australia, which will act as a one-stop shop for workplace relations services, advice and compliance. Fair Work Australia will be able to exercise a full suite of dispute resolution powers at the request of just one party. This is significantly different from Work Choices, which unfairly required both parties to agree before the Australian Industrial Relations Commission could even mediate. Fair Work Australia can conduct mediation and conciliation, make recommendations, conduct hearings, issue binding determinations and arbitrate on any matter by consent of parties involved.

The bottom line is that the Australian people know exactly what they are getting in this legislation; they know because they voted for it. Unlike those opposite, who made no mention of their radical workplace agenda before they were elected in 2004, Labor were open, upfront and honest with people. I am delivering for the people of Bass exactly what I promised as I campaigned last year—a fair, balanced, productive and progressive workplace relations system which protects the most vulnerable workers. We are delivering a system which has been developed through consultation and which returns to the workplace that fairness which has been so sorely lacking. This is the undertaking which we as the Labor Party took to the Australian people and which I took to the hard workers of Northern Tasmania. I took it also to the employers of Bass. We are not skewing the system so far the other way so as to fundamentally disadvantage employers. What we have done and what we are continuing to do is create a balance, one which strives for fairness on all sides and which works towards a simple system where there is trust and respect on both sides—and that trust and respect is absolutely vital.

One of the many abhorrent features of Work Choices was the adversarial nature of negotiations it created. There was a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude, and that is a situation which is fraught and, quite frankly, unnecessary. Where those opposite slashed the safety net, we are restoring it. Where Work Choices and those opposite gave no effective right to collectively bargain, Fair Work Australia says that an employer must collectively bargain when that is what the majority of employees want. Work Choices was about AWAs; Fair Work Australia’s focus is on collective bargaining. Work Choices left the independent industrial umpire powerless and marginalised unions. Fair Work Australia is about a balance.

Fair Work Australia will encourage collective, enterprise-level bargaining underpinned by good faith bargaining obligations. This system will ensure that across Northern Tasmania and across Australia everyone in the workplace is treated fairly, decently and with respect. There will be a simpler unfair dismissal system. This will balance the need for employers, including small business, to manage their workforce while safeguarding the right of employees to be protected from unfair dismissal.

I have spoken with many workers, employers and union officials and I am confident that this legislation goes about restoring fairness and justice to Australia’s industrial legislation. Secretary of Unions Tasmania, Mr Simon Cocker, has argued consistently for the need to re-establish an even-handedness and a confidence as we move forward with workplace reform. Mr Cocker has been a strong advocate for a safety net, minimum wages, collective bargaining, a strong unfair dismissal system, the abolition of AWAs, the recognition of the right of workers to withdraw their labour, the recognition also of the right of workers to be represented in the workplace and the recognition that independent contractors are often little different from employees and need protection from unfair contracts. It has been a long and passionate fight, and I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to his efforts and the efforts of people like Cindy O’Connor who worked tirelessly on two fronts throughout the tyranny of Work Choices. They not only waged a vital public awareness campaign but also fought consistently for the rights of individual workers who fell victim to Work Choices.

This is the fourth major rewrite of our industrial legislative landscape in 15 years. It is the legislation and the plan for the future which we took to the Australian people and which I took to the voters of Bass. I fear those opposite are yet to heed the will of the Australian people. I fear that at the first opportunity they will look to resurrect Work Choices. It is part of their psyche and it is an extreme industrial relations agenda in which they believe wholeheartedly. Despite what they say now, despite claiming that Work Choices has been scrapped as a policy, we know and the Australian people know that there is no reason to trust what those opposite say when it comes to industrial relations. They abused the trust of Australian workers before and they will do it again.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Bill 2008 and, in doing so, I am reminded of what the government often says to the opposition: don’t hear what they say but see what they do. When I reflect on those comments I am reminded that this government has a very difficult time taking yes for an answer. The comments that have been made by the opposition have been constructive, and those constructive comments will continue when this bill leaves this place and goes to the Senate, where I am sure there will be more constructive contributions. But this government has had a lot of difficulty in accepting when the coalition acts in a particular way. We saw it in debate about the various payments which will hit Australian families next week where the government, for some reason, was suggesting that the measures were not supported by the coalition when we stood in this very place and supported them. In speaking on this bill, we make more constructive contributions, but I fear that what the government does not like at all is when those on this side make some constructive suggestions—when we do not flail about in some sort of sycophantic fiesta celebrating the greatness of the government but instead come into this place, as our constituents expect us to do, and make constructive representations and engagements on the bills that are before the House.

I say to the government that they should open their ears on these matters, listen hard and take on board the constructive comments that are being made by the opposition. This is now their responsibility. The government find it very difficult to accept that, when they bring in bills like this, particularly after an election, they are now putting their system in place. They will be accountable for their system and they will have very real responsibilities and accountabilities for the outcomes that this bill will impose on the Australian economy.

This bill represents the single largest re-regulation of the labour market in at least my lifetime and, I am sure, the lifetimes of many in this place, regardless of how long they have been here. This is a massive level of re-regulation of our labour market. It takes us not only back to 1996, when, as I have reminded this House before, there were also mandates given by the Australian people to the then Howard-Costello government—mandates that were acted on—but back prior to 1993 when it was not uncommon for Australia to lose more than a million days to industrial disputes a year. They are the days that we are going back to in terms of the re-regulation of the labour market. That is the mandate that this government has in bringing this bill before this place, that is the mandate it sought in industrial relations and that is the mandate that it was so effectively supported in achieving by the union movement, which are the prime beneficiaries of this bill. I note, for the sake of humour and interest, that in 1993 the No. 1 song in the charts for 10 weeks was I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston, and I suspect that is what the union movement will be singing to the Labor Party all the way through the debate on this bill. And they will be singing it for a very long time to come because the primary beneficiary of this bill is the union movement.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting

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

Will the Chamber of Commerce always love you?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And they will always love you, Member for Reid, and they will always love you, Member for Braddon. The union movement will always love the Labor Party because the Labor Party will always come into this House and do their bidding. They will do their bidding for many reasons, but one of those reasons is the fact that the union movement in this country spent $30 million in the last election campaign bringing this government to power. For that $30 million, there are debts to be paid, and we are seeing those debts paid even now as we debate this bill.

I have heard other speakers say that this bill simply delivers on what was put to the electorate. Speakers on this side of the House have made it quite clear that is not the case and that the bill that is before this House overreaches in many areas—but I will come back to that. The coalition does understand very clearly the message that was delivered at the last election. Work Choices is dead despite the efforts on that side of the House to try to resurrect this idea. Work Choices is dead and we understand that message more so than I believe our opponents do because we actually understand what killed it. Principally, the measure which I think most upset the Australian people was the abolition of the no disadvantage test.

The government may think that there are a whole range of other issues, particularly the re-establishment of union power in the workplace, which the electorate was pining for. I am happy for the government to think that if that is what they want to think. I am happy for the government to take that message to the Australian people at the next election. I am happy for them to think that the key thing that people want more of is unions coming into their workplaces and unions looking into their personal records with no guarantee that those records cannot be copied and kept—and kept permanently. I am happy for them to make that argument at the next election.

Those on that side of the House are desperate to try and ensure that Work Choices is not dead, because they know when we go to the next election that without Work Choices—without the big orange signs which still remain up on some telegraph poles around the country—they will have no argument to put before the people. They want a re-run of the last election at the next election, because at the next election they will have to be accountable for the policies that they have endeavoured to put in place, the policies that will have failed and the policies that will have wreaked havoc—as we have already seen with things like the unlimited bank guarantee and other measures in their response to this global financial crisis. The government is going to have to go to the next election and be accountable for what they have done.

One of the things that they are going to have to be accountable for is this bill that they have brought into this House. The concern on this side of the House is that Australians have jobs. Jobs are not an entitlement. Entitlements are something that you have when you have a job. The test of this bill, to be crystal clear, is jobs, jobs and jobs. When we go to the next election, that is the benchmark, that is the litmus test and that is the acid test that this government is going to have to pass with respect to this bill—and not only this bill but the other bills that it has brought into this place. Their performance on the economy will be marked on their performance on jobs.

On every occasion possible, those on that side of the House like to bring into disrepute the reputation and the earnestness of the coalition when it comes to jobs. We have a record on jobs. We have a record on jobs that the electorate understands. It is record that they experienced. It was not something that was simply talked about. It was not some earnest speech by a Leader of the Opposition on their commitment to jobs. They were actual jobs. People actually got jobs under the coalition—more than two million got jobs under the coalition. Unemployment was reduced from over eight per cent to record low levels of around four per cent. Participation in the labour market increased from 63.5 per cent to 65.1 per cent.

The growth in jobs created prosperity. Real wages increased by more than 21 per cent. Jobs and higher wages were delivered under the coalition. Compare that to when Labor was last in office, when there was a real decline in wages. Our policies led to a strong increase in household wealth and a rise in disposable income, which was recently acknowledged by the Reserve Bank deputy governor, Ric Battellino. On 30 October of this year, he gave a very interesting address at the ITSA Bankruptcy Congress in Sydney. He made some reflections on the status of household income. This is what he had to say:

The first thing to say about household income is that the past five years have been an extraordinarily favourable period. Real disposable income of the household sector grew on average by 6.1 per cent per year, resulting in a cumulative increase over the five years of more than 30 per cent. One has to go back more than thirty years to find a bigger increase over a five-year period.

He went on to say:

Even after allowing for higher interest payments, real household disposable income over the five years still increased by more than 25 per cent.

That is after paying for mortgages; that is after having to deal with the rises in house prices around our major capital cities and in particular my home city of Sydney. He went on to say:

This increase, too, was the largest since the early 1970s. Put another way, over the past five years, the amount of money that Australian households had left over to spend—

money in the pocket—

after paying taxes and interest on all their loans, grew in real terms at the fastest rate in over 30 years.

That is what jobs give you. That is what real wage increases give you. He went on to say:

This growth in household incomes in Australia greatly exceeded that in any other developed economy.

Just in case those opposite might think that only some benefited from this, as is often their protestation, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank said clearly:

The percentage increase in real income was very similar across all the income quintiles.

He concludes by saying:

In short, the boom in income in Australia was very strong by world standards and a high proportion of Australian households shared it.

That is a record to speak about and to be proud of. That is a record that is on the books. It is something that we as a coalition can be incredibly proud of, because our record on jobs is clear.

The coalition’s workplace reforms revolutionised our economy, not just in the incomes and jobs of Australians but particularly on the waterfront, where we all know that crane rates increased from 16.9 per hour to almost 27 per hour. That was a result of our reforms. That is a real economic record. That is the clubhouse, so to speak. Labor on jobs and on economic reform is yet to tee off. But as they head to the first hole we should note that, when it comes to economic reform, workplace reform is not a club that they have in their bag.

We see in this bill that once again workplace relations have been given the leave pass in the government’s latest war of the day. In February, we had the war on inflation. We had in that war the five-point plan from the government, which we heard about ad nauseam from those on that side of the chamber day in and day out in the early part of this year. It has been a while since I have heard about the five-point plan on inflation. Maybe that is because point 1 of the five-point plan involved fiscal restraint. They say that they were preparing for the global financial crisis over many months. They could see this on the horizon and they were preparing their response. Point 1 of their response was fiscal restraint. This was the thing that was apparently going to save our economy this year in the midst of what we were seeing coming from the United States. By contrast, the then shadow Treasurer, now Leader of the Opposition, understood what was coming from overseas. He understood what was coming down the pipe and what that would mean for our economy and was making very sober and wise comments as a result.

But there was fiscal restraint. There were private savings measures. There was the skills crisis, which I have noticed they have solved simply by looking forward to an increase in unemployment. There was infrastructure investment and workforce participation. What I do not read in that five-point plan, as I noted at the time, was a mention of doing anything on the fight on inflation. When they were talking about inflation, when they thought that was the big problem, they did not think that wage pressures were an issue and they did not think that workplace relations was an issue that had to feature in that plan.

Today we have the war on employment, amongst many other great wars, and once again workplace relations have no role to play, according to this government. Labor simply does not see a role for workplace relations in economic management, and they parade themselves around this place as economic conservatives. But if they are economic conservatives they must be going to different meetings from the ones I am going to for economic conservatives. They must be at different meetings. They must be part of some other weird sect of economic conservatism, and certainly not the fundamental school.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Laurie Ferguson interjecting

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure that the member for Reid would think himself an economic conservative, but the truth is they must be going to incredibly different meetings. But what would you expect from a government that sees a deficit as the preferred economic strategy to address the global financial crisis? It is not the last card in the deck; it is the first card in the deck.

And for their inspiration on economic conservatism we heard the Prime Minister here in this place the other day highlight Japan, Germany, the UK and USA as their economic conservative policy partners on issues like deficits. But if you look at the IMF statistics released in October we learn that the Japanese had their one and only surplus during the past 25 years in 1992. The Germans have had only two surplus budgets since 1980, one in 2000 and the other in 1989. In the UK the last surplus purple patch was from 1999 to 2001 when they achieved a trifecta, showing just how rare such an achievement in budget management can be in the G20, while across the Atlantic, Bill Clinton is the only US President to have presided over a budget surplus in almost 30 years, between 1998 and 2000.

Returning to the bill, the government must be accountable for its economic consequences. In the West real concerns have emerged and they have been highlighted by the editorial writers in the West. The bill reaches well beyond its mandate, as I have noted before, with assurances from the Deputy Prime Minister on issues like compulsory arbitration, pattern bargaining and union right of entry all going to the wind. Never mind the fact that on 30 May 2007 at one of her addresses to the National Press Club she said:

Under Labor’s policy there is no automatic arbitration of collective agreements.

Never mind that on 17 September 2008 she said:

Compulsory arbitration will not be a feature of good faith bargaining.

Never mind that, on union right of entry, on 28 August 2007, she said:

We will make sure that current right of entry provisions stay … We will keep the right of entry provisions.

On 28 May of this year she said in a speech to the Master Builders:

We promised to retain the current right of entry framework and this promise too will be kept.

So what we see is a walking away from those commitments. We see a bill that is overreaching on the mandate. But let this be for the government to explain to their constituents. Let this be for them to explain to the electorate when they have to justify how this bill has performed in terms of serving the economy of this great country, how it has performed in delivering jobs to Australians and how it has performed in delivering real increases in wages and incomes that have put money in the pockets of Australians to support their families. Let them explain these things, as they must  be accountable for them.

Let me conclude by making reference to something which is very close to home in my own electorate of Cook. We already know that the rise in industrial disputes that has occurred under this government is shameful. In fact in the 12 months to June it rose from 88,000 working days lost to almost 165,000 working days lost. But in addition to that and in the context of that union activity, the government’s brothers in New South Wales have not been able to help themselves by getting a bit of a head start on this union right of entry. I refer to an article by Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 November, when she said:

There is no clearer demonstration of who is in charge in NSW than the union raid last week on the desalination plant construction site in Kurnell, against the wishes of the builder, John Holland, and in defiance of Federal Court action. And who led the raid? None other than the Water Minister, Phil Costa.

And if I go to an article by Imre Salusinszky in the Australian on 13 November he said:

Mr Costa’s actions were supported yesterday by NSW Premier Nathan Rees. In a thinly veiled threat to John Holland, Mr Rees said NSW occupational health and safety laws should apply to the site because they provided “much better protection for workers”.

If John Holland doesn’t like that, too bad,” Mr Rees said …

Earlier, Mr Rees told a Sydney radio station he and Mr Costa discussed the visit to the plant weeks ago.

The risk in the Government’s position is that, if union interference causes delays, it could trigger penalty clauses in John Holland’s contract and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As if we have not already paid enough for a desalination plant the people of New South Wales do not need and do not want.

But of greatest interest in Mr Costa’s visit is that Mr Costa has not been prepared to turn up and talk to the residents of Kurnell about this disastrous project in our electorate and in their community. He does not have the courage to come down and talk to them at all. But what he does have the courage to do apparently is to turn up, don the AWU vest and crash through the gates with his union mates and start demanding things left, right and centre. This bill will be judged on its performance, and that performance is about jobs.

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

The member for Cook concluded his bluster, which unfortunately lasted for most of his speech, by referring to the Sydney Morning Herald and a none too supportive commentator in that newspaper. I would like to start my speech in a similar vein by analysing the article by Phillip Coorey yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald. I think it is very reflective of those opposite and their real approach to the Fair Work Bill 2008.

Mr Coorey’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday had a heading ‘Libs look back in anger in a new moderate era’. The gist of his argument was that there is currently a real crisis of identity inside the coalition between the old guard—the Right—and a new guard, the moderates. Essentially, the old guard do not accept the moderates’ public proclamation that Work Choices is dead. Mr Coorey named some of those who do not accept that Work Choices is dead. There was the member for Mackellar, who apparently rose in the party room and demanded that she be able to register her internal dissent from the moderates’ views. He mentioned the member for Bradfield, who was nodding energetically when the minister pointed out those who still supported Work Choices or refused to repudiate Work Choices in this House some days ago.

My good friend the member for Hume did not just give it the thumbs up; he gave it the double thumbs up and his speech yesterday made it clear that he still endorses many of the elements of Work Choices. What I thought was very interesting about the article in the Sydney Morning Herald was its conclusion. There is a reason for this conclusion and it has a lot to do with the legislation before this House currently and most of the legislation that we have introduced since the beginning of this parliamentary year. The article concludes:

… the Coalition ends the year more unpopular than it was at the election.

Why is this a fact? Why is it so? The reason it is so is that those opposite refuse to understand the lessons and the message that were passed on by the Australian electorate in November of 2007. One of those fundamental messages was that not only did they not support Work Choices; they did not support the philosophy behind Work Choices and they wanted fairness in their industrial relations systems, just as they wanted fairness in their negotiations and in negotiations between all levels of government. They wanted fairness in the allocation of funds for the provision of health and education services, fairness in the provision of resources and support for the environments in which they live. Indeed, I think it is best summed up at the end of our national anthem, where it says ‘Advance Australia fair’!

If we ever had a citizenship values test, we could really centre it around what fairness means in Australia. That is at the heart of our industrial relations policy, which was put out prior to the 2007 election in our policy document, Forward with Fairness. I think that indeed encapsulated what the Australian people wanted. Fairness as a value also complements another value, which is balance. Reasonableness, balance and fairness strike me as very much the Australian way. We are an interesting people: we arrive at a certain point and we generally know when enough is enough. We generally know when we reach that point where, if you go beyond, it is not fair—and the Australian people have reached that point. I do not think I am being melodramatic when I assess it that way. I believe it is true and indeed it is at the heart of the character of this legislation.

What is the essence of this legislation that so riles the other side and that sends some newspaper commentators in this country into a frenzy? This was no better expressed than in the Australian newspaper, which is always quick to divide this community. It sees that the sky is about to fall in, that productivity will go through the floor, that there will be division in the workplace and we will be pitting one against the other, that it is too extreme on one side and not enough on the other. But we on this side think Work Choices was about extremity; this legislation is about reintroducing fairness.

What does this legislation intend at its heart? It seeks to create a safety net of minimum employment conditions that cannot be stripped away. The member for Mackellar yesterday said she believed that the taking away of a safety net in Work Choices was unfair and wrong. I did not hear her publicly or in this place express that sentiment before. Was it expressed in the caucus room, because others have said it was wrong? Did they express it? I did not hear that publicly or privately. Secondly, the legislation restores a right to good faith enterprise bargaining. Thirdly, there are protections from unfair dismissal for all employees, the right to be represented in the workplace and protection for low-paid workers. It seems to be sending some commentators into a frenzy that we could seek to protect low-paid workers and to allow them to find a balance between work and family life. All of these major principles were set out in Forward with Fairness in 2007.

I would like to raise a few areas of comparison and contrast between what was and what we believe will be. Work Choices allowed agreements to slash the safety net. There is ample evidence of that, a clear demonstration in the many examples raised in this place of how people had the safety net slashed from under them. Even the member for Mackellar acknowledged that. Under this bill agreements must leave every employee better off overall than under the applicable award and cannot remove National Employment Standards or the safety net.

So, for the record, what are the National Employment Standards? There are 10: hours of work; the right to request flexible working arrangements; parental leave; personal, carers and compassionate leave; community service leave; annual leave; long service leave; public holidays; a notice of termination and redundancy pay; and a fair work statement. They are the heart of the safety net envisaged in this legislation. It was taken to the Australian people and overwhelmingly endorsed by them in November 2007. Agreements cannot fall below minimum wages at any time and there will be new effective transfer-of-business provisions to ensure agreements cannot be evaded. It is common sense, fair and balanced.

Under Work Choices, awards were left to wither on the vine. Under this legislation, awards are a fair and decent safety net of conditions which are industry or occupation based. Under this legislation annual wage adjustments are made by Fair Work Australia based on criteria that balance economic and social factors. Awards are reviewed every four years for changes to community standards and awards are easy to find, read and apply. Work Choices gave no effective right to bargain collectively. Under this legislation an employer must bargain collectively where a majority of employees so desire. So there is now a right to bargain collectively.

Fair Work Australia can decide disputes over the proposed scope of the application of the agreement, and good faith bargaining obligations with enforceable orders apply to all parties. Arbitration is available where parties flout good faith bargaining obligations. Multi-employer bargaining is available, including a specially facilitated stream particularly for the low paid. Employers and employees can make arrangements over a wider range of matters, including the role of the union. Of course, that is at the heart of most of the objections from the other side. Union representation is seen by those opposite as the antithesis of what is right, acceptable or the natural order. Everyone has a right to be a member of a union. This legislation says that if you want that union, and it is appropriate and legal, that union can represent you. And why not? I do not hear the other side equate membership of business chambers of commerce with anything wrong, with anything unnatural.

Work Choices was all about AWAs. They were the heart of it. Under this legislation there will be no individual statutory agreements—none. The focus is on collective bargaining at the enterprise level and arrangements can be made for genuine individual flexibility—for example, flexibility based around family-friendly hours or flat, all-up rates of pay—but with strict protections for employees. That was the element of fairness so missing under Work Choices. For many there was no choice, no choice at all. Common-law contracts are available but must be above the award. It is only fair and reasonable.

Unfair dismissal rights were slashed under Work Choices. Under this legislation unfair dismissal rights exist for the vast majority of employees, including high earners covered by awards. Special provisions for employees of small business with fewer than 15 employees exist and there is a removal of operational reasons as an exemption. Under the proposed laws three million more workers will have access to protection against unfair dismissal. Casual employees will be covered for the first time, and unfair dismissal protection will be available to workers in businesses with fewer than 100 employees, provided they have worked there for six months. Small businesses with 15 or fewer employees will have more protection from claims of unfair dismissals. Workers will have to hold their job for 12 months before they can take legal action over dismissal. Employers will be able to implement genuine redundancies but, as I mentioned just a moment ago, not argue operational reasons for sacking. That is a fair and reasonable balance that I think most Australian employers and employees would accept.

Work Choices deliberately sought to marginalise unions. Under this legislation agreements can deal with the relationship between the employer and the union, and employers must respect employees’ rights to be represented. There are enhanced protections for freedom of association, including for a wide range of legitimate union activity—note that I said ‘legitimate’ union activity. Awards and enterprise agreements provide for employees to be represented in consultation and dispute resolution processes. The right of entry to hold discussions with members and potential members is no longer displaced by non-union agreements.

Work Choices rendered the independent industrial umpire powerless. On the other hand, Fair Work Australia will be able to conciliate, mediate, call compulsory conferences and make recommendations on application by one of the parties. A key role of Fair Work Australia is varying awards and setting minimum wages. It has an important role in assisting parties with bargaining and in supervising industrial action. It has a special new role to facilitate bargaining for the low paid—an excellent facility and role, and so needed for those who are most vulnerable in our workplaces. It provides new grounds for arbitration where bargaining genuinely fails. Work Choices did not create a truly national system. This legislation seeks to do that. The interaction between federal and state laws has been negotiated with the states. Indeed, this has been a long process of negotiation. The Fair Work Bill will create a truly national system for the private sector—and for the state public sector and local government only where the relevant state refers powers—through cooperative means such as referrals or harmonisation.

I am very proud to be able to support this legislation, as I was at the beginning of the year when legislation was introduced and passed to be rid of AWAs. This, like most of the legislation introduced by this government, is the result of a promise and a commitment made before the last election, and that promise is now being kept. There are many workplaces, employees and employers who are very glad of this legislation. I look forward to the working out of this Fair Work Bill in this country under the values of fairness, balance and equity.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a great democracy we live in. We live in a democracy where we can choose who our partner is going to be, we can choose how many children we are going to have, we can choose where we live and we can choose where we take holidays. But in this great democracy, with the Fair Work Bill 2008 before the parliament, we will not any longer be able to choose what our working conditions will be. It is absolutely extraordinary. Of course, the opposition value choice in everything that we do. Tonight, as this bill goes through the parliament, choice in how you work will disappear.

Let us look at what the government has inherited from the former government. Labor has inherited the strongest economy in Australia’s history—economic growth of 4.2 per cent for the year ending December last year. Confidence was very high, unemployment was at a 30-year low, the nation was debt free, the budget was in surplus and money had been set aside to meet future liabilities. What has happened since Labor came to office? Inflation is up and economic growth is down. More people are out of work, many more are working less than they would like to and there are many more to come out of work as well. Business and consumer confidence has slumped, industrial disputes are up and productivity growth is down. Labor has imposed $19.7 billion in increased taxes and other revenue measures it did not tell the Australian people about before the election. The budget surplus has been slashed and, very recently, we have found out that the budget in fact will go into deficit. It is a dismal picture and I use the example of all those things to indicate that the bill tonight is a dismal outcome forAustralia.

Last year Australia went to an election where workplace relations policy occupied the main battleground. Although any Australian who wanted a job could get a job and workers were enjoying better conditions and higher real wages, the unions of Australia conducted an ongoing campaign to have Work Choices changed. In November last year the former government was defeated. The Rudd-Swan Labor government is now implementing the policy it took to the last election, although I do know about matters—and I will refer to them later in my speech—which they did not take to the last election but which are in this bill tonight.

There has also noticeably been much hubris within the current government as the Fair Work Bill has been brought into the parliament, but the bill comes at a time when there are dark clouds on Australia’s economic horizon. Emerging commentary on this legislation, which I do believe to be impartial and fair, is drawing the nation’s attention to a bill that is repeating the mistakes made by the former government with its Work Choices legislation. Just as Work Choices went too far one way, this bill, according to respected commentators, is going too far the other way, and there will be an undesirable result. Unions will be far too powerful for the country’s good and workers will find themselves without a job. How could that be a good outcome?

This bill shifts workplace relations policy way back to the past. It significantly boosts the power of unions, even in workplaces where they are not wanted. Unquestionably, these reforms will weaken productivity and impact on employment. I say to those opposite who think the introduction of this bill is a great victory: reserve your judgement for 12 months or so. Be prepared to face your supporters who lose their jobs because of it. Be prepared to face the Australian nation, which will struggle with the inflation that this bill will generate. It is utterly bad policy to support the resurgence of uncontrollable union power at any time, let alone at a time of global financial crisis. Just as the Rudd government’s policy to soften Australia’s stance on border protection has been greeted with glee among the people smugglers and has opened the doors to a new wave of boat arrivals, this bill opens the doors to a new wave of union power and thuggery.

This bill could well be described as a radical overhaul of workplace laws that has gone much further than the mandate given to the government at the last election. It gives the unions the keys to the doors of all workplaces, even where there are currently no dealings with unions. More disturbingly, it appears to breach the government’s commitment to overhaul the privacy laws to protect the interests of the individual. This bill gives unions the right to inspect the wages records of employees whether they are union members or not. It is none of their business and it is an invasion of privacy. The reason that the government has caved in to the unions is to allow them to collect the personal details of non-union employees. This will likely result in intimidation of employees to join a union and intimidation of employers to have their people join a union. This unprecedented access to private information takes this country in a new and disturbing direction.

It is not surprising to anyone that a government full of ex-union officials is so delighted to be making these radical workplace relations amendments. We all remember the year-long union campaign backing Labor’s quest for election. We remember it as the most expensive campaign in history, driven by highly emotive and often untrue advertising. Superficially, the campaign was about ridding Australia of Australian workplace agreements but, substantially, it was about bringing the unions back to town.

Australian workplace agreements allowed individual employees to strike their own agreements with their employers, ones that reflected how each party wanted their work arrangements to be. The agreements suited both parties because each got a benefit they would not otherwise have had. Labor and unions are opposed to individuals having control of their own employment conditions because they want to see collective bargaining introduced in a major way in the workforce.

The deeper subplot of all this is the apparent reintroduction of pattern bargaining, which will have grave consequences for the security of workers’ jobs and the stability of the annual inflation number. Let me make it entirely clear. There is no question about whether Work Choices is dead or alive: Work Choices is dead. The debate that Australia is now having is about the return of union power to the workplace.

I read a piece in the Australian Financial Review a few weeks ago by Alan Moran. He made the point that:

Labor always unravels prosperity.

He reflected on the ‘increased influence of unions, which are the party’s major funders and foot soldiers’. He went on to observe that:

… the increased influence they obtain adversely affects productivity.

He went on to say that:

As the administration becomes more established, it also starts increasing the regulatory controls over markets.

Gradually these activities undermine the prosperity that was the legacy the government inherited.

Next year, with the passing of this legislation, Labor’s chickens are going to come home to roost.

On top of the 200,000 jobs that Labor has already admitted will be lost, this bill will see many more job opportunities lost. The return of tighter unfair dismissal provisions has spooked employers. They never say so; they just quietly choose not to employ additional people or not to replace people who are leaving so they can protect their businesses against unfair dismissal claims. Labor and the unions have never been able to understand that employers never sack an employee who is doing their job, because staff are the most important asset of any business. How do I know? I ran my own business for 25 years, with a staff of about 30 people. I certainly remember before I was a member of parliament how I felt about Labor’s unfair dismissal legislation at that time and the impact it had on my decisions to employ people. It was one of the reasons that I came to this parliament in 1996.

I remind the Labor Party that the coalition had a mandate from two separate elections to remove the draconian unfair dismissal provisions—and we did. Although we had that clear mandate, Labor refused to recognise the will of the people. Yet, now they are in government, they too claim a mandate—and rightly so. Our actions in supporting this bill, albeit with sensible amendments, are in stark contrast to Labor’s actions in the past. Question time gives the people of Australia and the press gallery an opportunity to gain an insight into all of us. When I observe both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, I see increasing hubris and, particularly, personal nastiness. This is not a sign of strength but rather I believe it is a sign of insecurity, where both feel that great parliamentary debates should focus on personal attacks rather than public policy. I liken this bill to a self-licking ice-cream. It will consume itself and, in the process, consume the job security of hundreds of thousands of Australians.

I delivered my maiden speech on 1 May 1996. It was a little while ago now. That year Townsville was named Australia’s community of the year. Its star was finally on the rise and an unprecedented period of economic growth and prosperity was about to begin for Townsville. At that time the construction of a major zinc refinery was only months away. It was to be the litmus test for our city in terms of bringing online a major construction and processing project. It brought in a large amount of foreign investment and gave tremendous confidence to the Korean parent company about investing in Australia. Importantly, it delivered many new jobs to North Queensland. Sadly, this plant and the jobs at the plant are now under threat from the Rudd-Swan Labor government.

Over the past decade and more, Townsville has also built a fine reputation for excellence in marine science, earth science and tropical medicine research of world significance. It also benefited from the previous government’s rock solid commitment to rebuilding the capabilities of the Australian Defence Force. In 1996 confidence was on the rise in Townsville and North Queensland. Employers were eager to create new opportunities and began hiring and training staff in record numbers. In my electorate of Herbert in March 1996 the unemployment rate was 8.4 per cent. Can you believe that? It was 8.4 per cent. By June 2007 it had been cut in half to just 4.2 per cent. Guess where it is going now under this bill that is before the parliament tonight.

During the period that I referred to, 26,000 new jobs were created in my electorate, centred around the wonderful city of Townsville. That represented average growth of 200 new jobs a month for more than a decade. Townsville’s growth story was emblematic of many cities and towns across Australia. Its success has been underpinned by business confidence and eager private entrepreneurs keen to create employment opportunities and be part of the new value-adding industries which have so benefited Australia’s terms of trade. Townsville’s pattern of jobs growth was repeated on a national scale under the previous, coalition government. All of us recognise that between March 1996 and November 2007 more than 2.2 million jobs were created in Australia. Of these jobs, over 1.2 million were full time and almost 950,000 were part time. These were all created under the Howard government. We left office with over 10.6 million Australians in work, a record high. Over 7.6 million were in full-time employment and three million were in part-time employment. The unemployment rate in Australia was 4.3 per cent in October 2007, a 33-year low, and had been below five per cent for 21 consecutive months. The male unemployment rate was 3.6 per cent and the female unemployment rate was 4.4 per cent.

Yet in December 1992, under Labor, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.9 per cent, leaving almost one million Australians unemployed. With the passage of this bill I fear for this country and I fear for the employment of those people who have a job and I fear for their families. The so-called party of the worker had watched hundreds of thousands of people being shut out of work under its union dominated, anti-individual policies in the early nineties. Much was made in the mid-1990s of the damaging effects of unemployment on Australia’s teenage population. It was certainly a serious concern in my electorate. By the start of this year, teenage unemployment stood at 3.7 per cent, an extraordinary achievement. Not one of the 77 ABS regions recorded a double-digit unemployment rate in June 2007. In March 1996, when the Howard government came to office, 24 of the 77 regions recorded double-digit unemployment rates. Long-term unemployment in August 2007 was 66,700. It was slashed by almost two-thirds under the Howard government and was 79.8 per cent lower than the peak of 329,888 set in May 1993 under Labor.

So there are the facts. Despite the ways in which the Labor Party has tried to demonise the previous government’s record on employment and industrial relations, the facts speak for themselves. People who wanted a job had a job. And, what is more, the wages growth under the Howard government was positive whereas for the previous 13 years under Labor it was negative. The coalition performs for the workers of this country. Now we have a bill that is going to perform again—it is going to put people out of work, and in 12 months time Labor will be suffering because of it.

Much has been made of the intent of the Labor Party’s new legislation. They say it is about ‘restoring fairness and striking the right balance’. But this is really just rhetoric. What this new policy will actually deliver is very concerning. Regardless of the high-minded hyperbole that has accompanied this bill around perceived fairness or justice, the elephant in the room remains the impact it will have on enterprise and employment. After all, there is nothing fair about unemployment—and that is what the Fair Work Bill will deliver: unemployment. The true and only test of an industrial relations policy is its capacity to deliver new jobs and wages growth. Time will tell whether a yesteryear policy founded on increasing union power and placing greater hiring constraints on business can be embedded into a modern, globalised economy with any success. I doubt it.

The respected journalist and commentator Paul Kelly just this past weekend asserted that the Rudd-Swan Labor administration is today ‘recasting workplace relations to increase trade union powers, inhibit employment and impose new costs on employers’ at completely the wrong moment in Australia’s economic history. As he suggests, ‘this is major institutional reform with a long fuse’. It will take time to work through the economy. As with all Labor policies, there will be winners—unions mostly—and losers: small business operators and their wannabe employees. Kelly suggests the new regime will hurt some industries more than others. He predicts it will have a ‘substantial impact on the resources, retail and services sectors, but less so in manufacturing’.

Australia’s resources sector is already facing dramatic pressures following the collapse of commodity prices and the slowdown in China. Likewise, the sectors hardest hit by the global financial downturn are predicted to be those dependent upon discretionary spending—namely, retail and services. The Labor Party’s bankrollers—the unions—must be rubbing their hands with glee today. Not only will their coffers swell from new levies; they will have unprecedented statutory power. As argued by Ken Philips in the Age last week:

Until now, industrial relations law governed relationships between employers and employees.

Now that law will also cover relationships between employers and unions:

This is very different and unanticipated.

           …         …         …

Under the legislation unions have statute authority independent from that of any union membership they may have in a workplace.

This change should be judged in the appropriate context. Demand for union representation has been in steady decline. Around 85 per cent of private sector employees today are not union members and do not want to be. Clearly this was an intolerable situation for unionists. Unions do not care about whether workers want them in the workplace—they can now be there regardless. I can indicate that the opposition will be supporting this bill, and it is just such a shame for Australia that the result in 12 months time will be disastrous.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Fair Work Bill 2008, which we are debating in the chamber is, in my view, the most significant piece of legislation introduced into this parliament, coinciding, as it did, with the anniversary of the election of the Rudd Labor government. The bill comes before us as the result of extensive consultations with all interested parties and stakeholders. And, of necessity, it involves some compromises, but in my view it faithfully implements the major promises that Labor took to the electorate in the lead-up to the last election. In that regard I commend the wonderful campaign of community awareness prosecuted under the umbrella of Your Rights at Work. It was truly a magnificent effort. It underscores the significance of working people having a political voice to give expression to their needs and aspirations, and to guarantee them fairness in the work place. In a modern context it reinforces the very arguments that led to the birth of the Australian Labor Party.

Work Choices was a radical manifesto never put to nor ever endorsed by the electorate in the 2004 election. Exploiting its unexpected Senate majority, the Howard government then rammed through the Work Choices legislation with indecent haste. At the core of Work Choices was the ideological belief of the Howard government in the notion of the freedom of contract. In the words of the then Treasurer, the member for Higgins:

We should be trying to move to an industrial relations system where the predominant instrument is the individual contract …

It was interesting just listening to the comments of the previous speaker from the opposition. He made much of the notion of choice, but of course adherence to the principle of choice could never apply in situations where the bargaining relationship on a one-to-one basis was unequal. I have reflected on some of the debates on the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005, and I want to quote a couple of points that I made. In opposition to the bill I argued:

It means dismantling all the protections and institutions we have developed to ensure fairness and all the things we have developed for people at the lower end of the income scale and those who are vulnerable at work to get the protections that a civilised society thinks are fair. It means getting rid of the industrial umpire. It means abolishing the protection of awards. It means getting rid of industrial safety nets. Very importantly, it means that they want to erode the collective representation of workers through their unions.

Those who stood to lose the most in the short term were those who were most vulnerable at work. I consistently argued that the greatest tragedy of these changes was that those who were most vulnerable would be at the mercy of the marketplace in a very short period of time. In that category of the most vulnerable were the young people at work, part-time workers, casual workers, women workers and the 1.6 million workers who were reliant on the award safety net and the minimum wage for their protection.

I argued—rightly so—that the changes would essentially make it easier for the employer to require workers to sign individual work arrangements, the AWAs. Beyond dispute, it was my belief that those agreements would be signed, in many instances, at standards that were lower than the prevailing award safety nets that applied at the time. In many ways I regret the statements and the prophecies I made in those various debates because they were all proven to be correct.

We know that a survey of the first 250 AWAs undertaken by the Office of the Employment Advocate found that nearly one in five of the AWAs excluded all award conditions and replaced them with the barest of the five legislated minimum standards, two-thirds of the AWAs scrapped leave loadings and penalty rates, more than half removed shift allowances, and around one-third of them modified overtime loadings and rest breaks. It was no wonder that the government stopped public disclosure and analysis of the impacts of AWAs from that time on.

In fact we had a farcical situation when the member for North Sydney, who at one stage became the industrial relations minister, confessed:

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.

You have to say, ‘What ignorance prevailed amongst the members sitting around the cabinet table!’ But let’s be clear: there was no ignorance on the part of the Prime Minister or the Treasurer; they knew exactly the end result of their strategy.

At all times, as I said, I was most concerned about the disastrous consequences for those who were most vulnerable in the workplace, especially women workers in all employment categories. In one of those debates I argued:

… women are often employed on a part-time and casual basis, they are often located in industries with little bargaining power and they are often not members of the trade union movement. And, as we know from this legislation, more and more of these very vulnerable workers will be forced onto individual contracts in order to get paid employment or, indeed, to retain paid employment.

In other words, ‘Here’s the contract and if you don’t accept it on my terms forget about a job.’ I went on:

As a group, women will lose out on pay and conditions. Despite all the spin, the statistics and the data revealed by the ABS clearly show that to be the case. The data already shows that women on AWAs are doing far worse in comparison to women on collective agreements and even on award conditions.

One year into the playing out of Work Choices in the real world there was an analysis undertaken by Professor Peetz. He found:

WorkChoices has been associated with a decline in average real wages, at least in the short term, despite the economic boom. It appears to have led to real wages decline in retail and hospitality, probably as a result of the loss of penalty rates in those industries, and in the short term at least a drop in real and relative earnings for women, while profits are at record levels.

Despite such comprehensive analysis and ABS data which showed conclusively that women on AWAs were earning less than women on collective agreements the then minister, the member for North Sydney, had the gall to argue:

… the pay gap between men and women has narrowed. So we are getting to a better position in relation to the pay gap.

But his claims were not upheld by the facts when you look at the ABS data which analysed the gender pay gap that prevailed in the years of the Howard government. In fact, there had been no narrowing in the wages gap since the election of the Howard government. The ratio of total female earnings as a percentage of male earnings was 65½ per cent in May 1996. A decade later, in November 2006, the ratio remained at 65½ per cent. Female ordinary time earnings as a percentage of male earnings had been in decline since February 2005 when the ratio was 85.2 per cent. By November 2006, the ratio had fallen to 83.7 per cent—the worst outcome in the gender gap on this set of data since August 1998. In November 1996, the ratio on this data was 84.2 per cent. A decade later, the wages gap had in fact gone backwards and had fallen to 83.7 per cent. This was the legacy of Work Choices and its disastrous impact on those most vulnerable at work, including large numbers of women. I raise that as the situation that prevailed under Work Choices. I regret that some of the statements I made about the potential deleterious effects proved to be the case.

Women in any category of employment at the moment will be especially pleased to know that they will be significant beneficiaries of the provisions enshrined in this bill. Firstly, and very importantly, for those women who rely on the award and the minimum wage, this bill will provide for a fair and comprehensive safety net of employment conditions that no-one can strip away from them. There will be 10 National Employment Standards, compared to just five—and those five had qualifications—under the Work Choices regime. People will know that their maximum weekly hours of work will be 38 hours for full-time employees. They will have provisions for flexible working arrangements and improved parental leave provisions—a must for all those working people out there trying to balance work and family life. They will have clear statements in terms of their entitlement to annual, personal, compassionate and community service leave. Their long service leave rights and public holidays will be enshrined, as will notification of termination and redundancy pay.

Considering that for many women at work their award prescribes their actual wage rates and working conditions, the 10 matters that will be encompassed in awards from January 2010 will build on the National Employment Standards. Their awards, in a modernised form, will outline their entitlements including, very importantly, overtime and penalty rates—the subject of much stripping away under Work Choices. They will know their rights to minimum wages and allowances and there will be procedures enshrined in the awards for consultation, representation and dispute settlement. So no more rip-offs, no more stripping away of the safety net of entitlements and no more reductions in people’s take-home pay. Instead of the insidious AWAs, our new system is focused on collective bargaining at the enterprise level. Good faith bargaining obligations will apply to all parties, with enforceable orders. Where workers are able to bargain—and we encourage them all to do so, if they can—and where they can reach an enterprise agreement, a test will be applied to ensure each employee is better off overall in comparison to their relevant, modernised award.

As well, and very importantly for many workers who rely on annual minimum wage reviews—1.6 million at last count—in future these will be guaranteed, providing certainty for all low-wage employees. Also very importantly, due recognition is given in this bill—and this is a very remarkable breakthrough—to the fact that many employees, particularly women, lack adequate bargaining capacity and have historically been denied the benefits of collective bargaining. In such circumstances, Fair Work Australia will be able to facilitate multi-employer bargaining if such bargaining is deemed to be in the public interest. If bargaining fails, Fair Work Australia would have the capacity to make a workplace determination, resulting in ‘first contract’ arbitration. Despite the ill-informed commentary from opposition members, this is not pattern bargaining and no protected industrial action would apply. Fair Work Australia would apply a set of threshold criteria to decide whether the arbitration should proceed, including that the employees are substantially award reliant, that parties had genuinely tried to reach agreement and that making the determination would promote productivity and efficiency in the enterprise concerned.

I am delighted to read that the bill will strengthen equal remuneration provisions by including in the objectives to the act the principle of equal remuneration for work of comparable value. This recognises the limitations historically in the application of the equal pay for work of equal value principle, as it has been applied historically. In my view, this provides great scope for the union movement to continue addressing the gender pay gap that I referred to earlier. The four-yearly reviews of awards and the possibility of work value claims usher in a new era of opportunities for unions covering predominantly female workers who, as we know, have had their skills and experiences traditionally undervalued. This will help to right that historic injustice. In my view this is a historic bill, ushering in a new national system of workplace relations for private sector workers.

In conclusion, I would like to place on record my thanks to all who were involved in the outcomes contained in this bill. In that regard, two recently elected members, the members for Petrie and Deakin, deserve special thanks in so ably representing their caucus colleagues in those discussions. Both were elected in 2007 and in their first year in parliament have helped shape our new workplace relations system. That is something that will always carry special significance for them in their time in parliament ahead. As the Chinese would describe it, it is a case of ‘double happiness’. Thanks are also due to Cath Bowtell from the ACTU and Andrea Lester from the minister’s office for their painstaking efforts.

When history is written, this bill will be regarded as historic, not just for what it delivers for working people but, very importantly, for the fact that the responsibility for the carriage of this legislation has rested with a woman—a most capable woman—our first female Deputy Prime Minister. This is at a time when the ACTU also has at its helm a female president. How times have changed in a very short period. This surely must rate as a very significant milestone for women’s achievements in the labour movement. I commend the bill to the House. It is a significant and historic piece of legislation, marking in my view the high point of the first year of the Rudd Labor government.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Bill 2008. Before I speak to particular provisions of the bill, I think it is important to put on the record my view of the history of this matter. Industrial relations battles have defined Australia’s public policy history more than any other. Indeed, industrial relations spawned the birth of the Australian Labor Party and many on that side of the House hold it very close to their hearts. It is a battleground steeped in ideology as well as language. Words like ‘good faith’, ‘unfair’ and ‘entitlements’ can mean vastly different things depending on which side of the political fence you occupy. It is a subject that inevitably touches the lives of nearly all Australians through their employment or business arrangements and, therefore, it forms a very important pillar of the Australian economy.

It has become part of the political wisdom that the former Prime Minister made an error of judgement in 2005 by removing the no disadvantage test from agreement making. What is certain, however, is that Work Choices is dead. I believe the former government made an error in 2005 in removing the no disadvantage test. While it was designed to create more jobs, it concerned working Australians who believed the balance had been taken too far. To assist them with this perception, the union movement spent a record amount by a third party on a campaign to scare people. The campaign worked very well. It must also be said that the new Labor government also campaigned on the issue. They did so in a misleading way, but at least on this matter they put out a detailed policy, which is largely reflected in the bill before the House. So the new government has made its bed and it is a bed they will lie in. But my prediction to this place is this: the economic consequences of these changes will hang around the government’s neck like an electoral albatross. It is a bill written for those who represent only 14 per cent of the Australian workforce.

We watch the arrogant display of those on the other side as they celebrate their victory through this debate. The Australian people dislike overt arrogance, and while the introduction of this bill may seem like their finest hour, the consequences of the changes this bill makes could well be the end of any parliamentary careers on that side. And if members opposite think that yelling out ‘Work Choices’ at members on this side each time we rise to speak will prevent us from making legitimate criticisms, they are wrong. While bullying might be alive and well in certain parts of the Labor Party, it never concerns nor fazes those of us on this side who will hold their government to account. So while the former government made a mistake in removing the no disadvantage test by taking the balance too far one way, this bill swings the balance much too far the other way and this will have severe consequences for our economy.

It should be noted that much of the former government’s framework remains in this bill. For instance, the restrictions on industrial action are still contained in this bill. In particular, retaining pre-strike ballots is a provision to be welcomed. The national system of workplace relations, fought for by the former Prime Minister and the former government, remains. And can I pay credit to the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement for standing up to forces in New South Wales on his side of politics that wanted to reverse this important reform.

The post-1996 reforms to Australia’s workplace laws delivered more jobs, higher wages and fewer industrial disputes. The reforms took Australia from the economic dark ages to the stronger, prouder and more prosperous country that we handed to the Rudd government in 2007. When the Howard government came to office in March 1996 it found a completely different situation. It found the darkest of economic times. Australia was just beginning to recover from the deepest recession since the Great Depression, with an associated human cost of one million unemployed and interest rates soaring to more than double today’s levels—destroying families, businesses and lives. It found a budget in deficit and $96 billion in government debt. The Australian workplace was uncompetitive. Restrictive awards applied across industries and businesses. The workplace was dominated by heavy-handed and unwanted intervention from third parties driving industrial disputes through the roof, killing productivity.

What the Howard government did was focus on jobs. It freed the Australian workplace from unwanted intervention, and it let it get on with business. It focused its reforms on opportunities for all Australians, not just the select few. Those on the other side will continue to claim that this reform agenda was designed to attack unions. Rather, what the government did was stand for the rule of law. In this House a number of weeks ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said that no-one was above the law. This is one of the very, very rare occasions I fundamentally agree with her. So in that respect, the decision by the Howard government to free the wharves of unlawful behaviour was right. The doubling in crane rates on our wharves proves that decision correct. The decision by the Howard government to ensure that the rule of law applied in respect of the building industry was right. The new government should resist the current campaign by some left-wing unions and members of their own side against the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC is doing its job well, increasing productivity by reducing illegal industrial action.

The approach being taken by the Prime Minister and those opposite in relation to the legacy of the former government is to dismiss it, to deny it exists. But they simply cannot deny the facts. The facts being that the Howard government’s legacy of reform has been a major contributor to the Australian economic success story. More than 2.2 million new jobs, the highest amount of Australians working in history, the lowest unemployment rate in a generation, real wages being lifted by over 20 per cent and the lowest level of industrial disputations in memory: these are the benefits of hard-won reform. The Prime Minister likes to claim that these results are simply because of a lucky mining boom, but he fails to recognise the structural changes that allowed Australian companies to make the most of the good times.

In comparing this reform agenda with the new government’s approach, I come to the bill being debated in this place today. The Deputy Prime Minister makes a great play of the idea that this is delivering on Labor’s election commitments, and to some degree she is right. Labor is entitled to move the bill to ensure its commitments are met. However, this bill goes much, much further in one respect: union power. Without doubt, unions play an important role in our workplaces, but that role should not be at the expense of choice in the workplace. This bill reintroduces the privileged position that the union movement used to enjoy to the detriment of the individual and to the detriment of choice. Through the new provisions around union preference bargaining, the bill forces employers to bargain with unions even if the majority of workers do not wish the union to be involved. It rewards union recalcitrance by allowing a third party to stand by an ambit claim with no real desire to settle, forcing an arbitrated outcome. This is in proposed section 269 of the bill. It opens up right of entry powers again to allow union officials to inspect the books of non-union employees, even though the Deputy Prime Minister said this would not happen. It allows agreements to force non-union-members to pay a fee for the privilege of being represented by a union even if they did not request it. Proposed section 124 requires a government department to send out information to a new employee that they can join a union.

These provisions are mistaken. They are a payback for the multimillion dollar scare campaign that the union bosses ran over the past two years. The Labor government is putting the interests of the union movement ahead of working Australians and the Australian economy. This bill will damage job opportunities at the wrong time for our economy—and it is not just the coalition making this claim. On the weekend I came across an assessment of the new Fair Work Bill that is important to consider. It was not an assessment done by me, by John Howard or even by one of the Deputy Prime Minister’s favourite extreme employer organisations. Rather it was a newspaper article written by Paul Kelly, who is hardly known for his conservative leanings. He writes:

Kevin Rudd shouts from the rooftops each day that the global financial crisis has changed the world, but the Prime Minister does not believe his own words. A bizarre fate has befallen Australia. At the precise time it faces a global crisis, a business downturn and rising unemployment, the Rudd Government is recasting workplace relations to increase trade union powers, inhibit employment and impose new costs on employers.

Normally this would defy any test of common sense. Indeed, it would seem the essence of irresponsibility.

Paul Kelly continues:

It is as though Australia’s workplace relations system exists in some interterrestrial immunity from the rest of the economic world.

The global crisis means everything has changed … But standing immovable is Labor’s support for greater trade union power, more costly restrictions on employers—

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

Order! I cannot hear the honourable member for Mayo because of the discussion across the table. I would appreciate it if it were kept a bit quieter so that I may hear.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for your protection, Madam Deputy Speaker. The article continued:

… a greater role for the revamped industrial relations commission, an effective end to individual statutory contracts, a revival of arbitration, and a sharp weakening of direct employer and non-union employee bargaining.

Mr Kelly concludes:

The new workplace relations model introduced by Gillard is a significant step into the past … It is hard to imagine how its impact will be other than to weaken productivity and employment.

So the message from one of Australia’s most impartial and respected commentators is clear: this bill will damage our economy. It takes Australia in the wrong direction at the wrong time. It will not create jobs; rather it will reduce employment. Paul Kelly has belled the cat, something those opposite would be wise to bear in mind during this debate.

I now turn to direct election promises breached by the Deputy Prime Minister—or the ‘empress for unemployment’, as the shadow minister dubbed her yesterday. I recall the scene last year when with great indignation she claimed she was being misrepresented on a daily basis by the then government. In fact, a piece in the Australian Financial Review on 31 August 2007 written by the Deputy Prime Minister expressed her frustration at being misrepresented.

If I had a dollar for every time I have had to correct a misrepresentation of Labor’s industrial relations policy I would certainly be a millionaire.

Let us look at the Deputy Prime Minister’s statements against what is actually in the bill. The Deputy Prime Minister claimed that compulsory arbitration will not be a feature of the good faith bargaining system. In the same Financial Review article of 31 August 2007—I have it here—she wrote:

There will be no automatic right for a union to be involved in the enterprise bargaining for a collective agreement.

Yet proposed section 269 of the bill reveals this to be a lie. Good faith bargaining is and always has been a misnomer. In truth it should be called union preference bargaining. These new provisions—this new paradigm in Australian workplace relations—are a guise to get the unions back in the door of every Australian workplace. It is couched in the term ‘good faith’ to make it difficult to argue against. How could anyone be against bargaining in good faith? But the truth is that it allows third parties to force their way into bargaining where they are not even wanted or required.

Take a situation where a workplace of 100 employees has one union member. The employer decides to engage in bargaining for an agreement directly with his workforce. Ninety-nine of the workers wish to deal directly with the employer, but one member wishes the union to be involved. The employer says, ‘No, the majority want to deal directly,’ but the union official insists. In that circumstance, the Fair Work Australia Bill will require that the employer deal with the union. So much for the other 99 workers and their rights. And this is not my legal advice; it is the advice of Freehills, a very well respected Melbourne law firm. The Australian reports today that Freehills says:

… “true non-union agreements” would be possible under Labor’s system only where there were no union members, or where a union chose not to be covered by the agreement.

So the choice is with the union. Of course, what will be included in these agreements? Union bargaining fees. My prediction is this: the fee will be just slightly higher than the annual union membership fee. Guess what that will mean? Higher union membership. The revolving slush fund is complete. Unions campaign for Labor; Labor wins government and writes law for the unions. There is no clearer proof than this that our election funding laws need to be looked at.

The House may be surprised that I make this claim, given the Deputy Prime Minister promised that union bargaining fees would be banned. She was misrepresented on a daily basis last year; it was outrageous! But section 353(4) allows bargaining fees. Imagine our surprise—the ultimate dirty little deal. This is not to say that workers should not be able to have a representative, but it is simply ludicrous to allow a situation where a union is required to be consulted on every bargain throughout Australia. How is this part of a plan to create jobs and keep our economy strong? The answer, of course, is that it is not; it is a payback. As with the COAG agreement, the Deputy Prime Minister will claim that this bill will create some huge amount of jobs. She will pluck a figure from the air. There will be no evidence to back up the claim. The Deputy Prime Minister will just make assertions, as she always does, and the parrots on the side will repeat the mantra developed by the hollow men and hollow women and parroted by those opposite. The two predictions on jobs we actually have—real predictions—are from the government’s own budget papers, the MYEFO and the OECD, which suggest, in the case of OECD, 200,000 fewer jobs.

Another broken promise of the Deputy Prime Minister, the empress for unemployment, was her promise that the existing right-of-entry provisions—and this was raised in question time today—would continue. But, again, this is proved wrong, at section 478 of the bill. I refer again to the Australian Financial Review of 31 August 2007—it is a little gem, this article—the Deputy Prime Minister wrote:

Right of entry provisions as they currently stand will be maintained by a Rudd Labor government, without exception.

‘Without exception’! The bill allows the ridiculous situation of a non-union-member having their personal information looked at by a unionist on a fishing expedition. It must raise significant concerns about privacy. Yesterday’s editorial in the West Australian says it all:

Certainly, members of such workplaces will feel betrayed if details of their salaries, which are a confidential matter between them and their employers, are available to a union they have elected not to join.

But as usual the Deputy Prime Minister, the empress for unemployment, will tell this House that black is white and white is black, with a straight face, as she continues her climb up the slippery Labor leadership pole—because, of course, part of the reason this bill goes so far in rewarding the unions is that the Deputy Prime Minister, the empress for unemployment, knows that when her time comes to start destabilising, she will need their support.

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

Could I ask the honourable member for Mayo to be aware of standing order 90 about imputations and reflections and to think about what he is saying.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But the classic piece of spin doctoring by the Deputy Prime Minister is that individual agreements are no longer part of the system. This is simply wrong. Not only will AWAs and ITEAs continue forever, but the Deputy Prime Minister has allowed individual facilitation agreements. On my reading of these agreements, they allow a legal arrangement between an employer and an employee outside of the award system. That is an individual agreement. So, to use Labor’s new mantra, ‘Look at what they do, not what they say.’

Finally, the response to this bill by certain employer organisations has been a disgrace. At some stage, their members will consider whether they are being represented properly or if those at the top of those organisations are seeking favour in the future from the current government. In this bill, we see the worst aspects of Labor—where they arrogantly presume to be the holders of all knowledge, where they assume that Australians cannot make their own decisions without having someone else tell them what to do. Labor has always been more interested in representing those in the employment club rather than those outside the employment club. The true test of this bill will be its impact on Australians. The true test of this bill will be how many jobs it will have created by the next election. The true test of this bill will be how wages have fared. The true test will be the level of industrial disputation.

I believe that elements of this bill will damage our economy and hurt ordinary workers. This overreach by the Deputy Prime Minister in her search for the Labor leadership will be a mistake that will haunt her and her party in the future. Worst of all, it will hurt those Australians who will miss out on an opportunity to get a job and an opportunity to make more of their future. This side of the House will always stand for jobs; that side of the House will always stand for big union power.

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

I rise with enthusiasm to support the Fair Work Bill 2008 introduced by our Deputy Prime Minister. Industrial Relations is all about Australians, both people and business. I know this, in part because I spent 5,000 days as an official of the Australian Workers Union. When you are a union rep—as some people opposite perhaps do not realise—you witness the full potential for greatness that individuals carry within them. When you are a union rep, you get to witness the limitless capacity of Australian workers and Australian business and, thus, the limitless potential of the Australian economy and Australian society.

I understand the abundant goodwill that exists between employers and employees in Australian workplaces. I know firsthand the many examples of cooperation, compromise and pragmatism which deliver dividends for all involved. I was involved with 1,000 or so enterprise agreements during my time as an AWU representative. In these agreements, I, along with employers, union members and employees, negotiated wage rises, productivity gains, work practice reforms, shorter hours, profit-share bonuses and safer jobs. By and large, despite the hysteria of some on the coalition side, even without rancour and division, I have operated in the real economy for 14 years prior to coming to this place, from shop floor to the superannuation funds. I have learned that successful and imaginative enterprises were underpinned by leadership, legacy and consistent values. I appreciate that business is hard work. Australia needs business. It is the principal ‘doing’ arm of our society. It creates wealth and jobs in the real economy. I have witnessed firsthand that growing a company, harvesting at a farm or tunnelling a mine requires hard effort. There are no shortcuts. You need trust, openness, fairness, partnership and a bit of flexibility and compromise all round. Where you find these qualities, you find success, growth and business leaders who understand that people are the most important feature of their business.

Industrial relations regulation should harness this innate capacity of Australians. We should uplift the industrial relations debate from the periodic blame shifting between government and business. We should raise the industrial relations debate from the old class war conflict between capital and labour, between scare creatures of the so-called unions and the old-fashioned images of employers. We should elevate the industrial relations debate from coalition sniping and rear-vision mirror thinking. The real test of industrial relations regulation is whether it addresses the conflict between those who are stuck in the business-as-usual routine and those who would pursue innovation, knowledge and creativity, the real driver of economic growth not only in Australia but around the world. The real test of industrial relations regulation, I suggest, is whether it moves our workplaces to be more equitable and therefore unlocks the potential of our fellow Australians. The real test of industrial relations regulation is whether it plugs into the lives that Australians are living. The real test of industrial relations regulation is to reinforce and enable the aspiration of Australians to live long lives full of quality and meaning.

Industrial relations regulation should never, as Work Choices did, move against the tides in the lives of our Australians, our economy and our society. Successful businesses, successful communities and successful governments understand that what really matters is people. That is why the short-term political opportunism of Work Choices failed—because it was out of step with the lives that our citizens aspire to enjoy. The present from our forebears, the great reward throughout the 20th century, was an extra quarter of a century of life for their children, their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. The current generations have sought in turn, as I have witnessed over the last number of years, to capitalise on the gift of a longer life by ensuring that their hopefully 100 years of life will be marked by meaning and quality. Australians are already re-engineering their lives—and I am indebted to American thinking on this and note the parallels in Australian society—in at least six different ways that I have observed in order not to waste the gift of a possible century of life.

So, regardless of the cuts of industrial relations political fashion in the last 12 years, firstly, Australians know that they will have to keep learning lifelong—studying again, interviewing for changing jobs, interning again, enrolling again and constantly seeking new skills and knowledge. Secondly, Australians know they will have to smooth their prosperity to secure a dignified, independent older age. Thirdly, Australians know that catastrophe in a longer life is a function of living—from bushfires and mine cave-ins to the more frequent and no less tragic situations of children being addicted to drugs, family dysfunction or ageing relatives acquiring dementia. Fourthly, Australians know that they have to do more and more often to remain healthy. Fifthly, Australians appreciate the need to have interests outside of work, a world elsewhere. Finally, Australians understand that sustainable jobs are as necessary as a sustainable environment, and sustainable jobs are not the casualised, low-paid commodities of the Work Choices era.

Sadly the old laws we seek to replace failed the test of empowering, supporting, enabling and raising the lives of Australians in order to enjoy long, meaningful lives, full of quality. The old laws failed these six themes which Australians are seeking to engineer their lives by. They failed Australian business, they failed the Australian economy and they failed Australian society. If we accept that the aspiration of Australians is to live long lives full of meaning and quality, where is the long term in no protection against unfair dismissal? What about the removal of bargaining rights? Where is the protection with conditions slashed by unfair statutory contracts? Where is the protection in the virtual outlawing of the right to belong to a union? And where is the protection in the possibility of losing your job any time, for any reason, including attitude?

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don’t believe that.

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

The member for Mayo says that I do not believe that. I do; I saw it. That is why I will be watching with interest whether or not the Liberal Party can continue their long journey of saying one thing and voting another way. By contrast, I believe the rationale for the Fair Work Bill is to support the aspiration of long lives full of meaning and quality through the creation of fairer workplaces. Consistent with the policies and time frames set out in the 2007 workplace relations election statements Forward with Fairness and Forward with Fairness: Policy Implementation Plan, our government is birthing its workplace reform agenda in measured stages to ensure the smooth arrival of a new system. As a first step, the government introduced into the Australian parliament the Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008. This act, which came into effect on 28 March 2008, prevents any more Australian workplace agreements being made and has enabled the process of award modernisation to begin.

The next step to be taken in the removal of Work Choices came with the introduction of legislation into parliament last week to ensure that its new workplace relations system can be fully operational by 1 January 2010. The relevant election commitments involve putting in place a new workplace relations system to replace Work Choices built on a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay; a strong safety net of 10 legislated National Employment Standards for all employees; a modern, simple award system that ensures decent wages and conditions for award covered employees while allowing upward flexibility for high-income employees through common-law contracts that cannot override the award safety net; a framework of collective bargaining rights and responsibilities focused on bargaining at the enterprise level to promote improved productivity, which is the key to achieving low inflation and low unemployment and to raising living standards in Australia; freedom of association for all workers and their right to representation, information and consultation at work; no provision for any form of individual statutory agreements; a new independent agency, Fair Work Australia, to act as a convenient one-stop shop for workplace relations services, advice and compliance; and unfair dismissal laws which balance the need for employers, including small business, to manage their workforce while protecting the rights of employees to be protected from unfair dismissal. Dealing with industrial relations and the changing workplace sits between economic and social policy and goes to the heart of the difference between Labor and the conservatives.

Work Choices was an obsession, not a policy—an obsession that was bad in principle and bad in practice. More than $60 million—that is how much the Howard government spent trying to convince Australians that life under Work Choices was the best thing since sliced bread. It was a lot of money, and you would think that it would have been more than enough to persuade us that Work Choices was better for us than mother’s milk and that, without it, we would all be plummeting into chaos and ruin. But, as many a business has learned to its cost, if your product is not up to scratch, no amount of slick advertising is going to save it. That is exactly what happened to Work Choices. No matter how smooth the ad campaign, no matter how hard the sell, the product was defective and Australians did not buy it. In fact, after the advertising campaign, the resistance to Work Choices went up.

The authors of Work Choices forgot that the welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. Thus, the trouble for the Howard government when it came to Work Choices was that, as more Australians came face to face with it, they did not much like it. In their rush to put their stamp on industrial relations in our country, I think the coalition forgot my very simple opening point: industrial relations is all about people. How we manage and invest in people will drive higher levels of workforce participation and productivity, securing Australia’s living standards and prosperity into the future. After all, we are a small nation, and the thing we have going for us is our people.

In these times, when innovation and knowledge are becoming the main drivers of economic growth around the world, it is important that people are healthy, skilled, motivated, engaged and empowered at work. That is why industrial relations should be about fairness, not fear. That is why it must be about flexibility—about giving people real choices as they increasingly move in and out of the workforce, from job to job and from career to career. That is why it must be about simplicity and certainty, especially for small and medium sized businesses. That is why it must be about creating real opportunities across the workforce for reskilling, retraining and lifelong learning. These are the signposts that guide sustainable industrial relations in our modern, 21st century society. These are the signposts that guide more productive, innovative and diverse economies than Australia’s. They are also the principles that Australians want to see operating in their workplaces. The failure to sell Work Choices was not the failure to sell the message. The failure of Work Choices was its lack of relevance to Australians and the expectations they have of work in the 21st century.

Sustainable industrial relations policy is not just about the fine print of the policy. It is about working Australians feeling as if their contribution to their workplaces and to the broader economy is being treated with the respect, fairness and reward it deserves. As part of my previous job, I talked to a lot of senior managers and CEOs, and I can tell you that a great many of them recognised that Work Choices was first and foremost an ideological agenda—one that had little to do with genuine, effective people relations and pretty much nothing to do with providing solutions to Australia’s biggest challenges. They certainly knew that it was not really about deregulation—just ask Spotlight!—because for many it simply led to even more red tape, more compliance and an even greater administrative burden. It led to foreign backpackers assessing weekend rosters in the retail industry. Those senior managers and CEOs knew that it did doing nothing for skills—the area that concerned them and their employees the most. They knew that it had nothing to do with what this country desperately needed and only got on 24 November—government leadership to boost productivity.

I do not think there are too many people left in Australia—apart from perhaps a few unreconstructed Liberals imitating Japanese soldiers holding out in the Philippines in the early sixties—who truly believe that Work Choices made the contribution that the Liberals claim it made to employment, workforce participation and levels of industrial disputation. The reality is that levels of employment and workforce participation rates were already high and industrial disputes were already low prior to Work Choices. The flexibility in the labour market was already there, and these trends simply continued.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Briggs interjecting

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

The member for Mayo wants another go. I am sorry he did not include his arguments the first time round. Meantime, productivity in Australia—the key to sustainable economic growth and high standards of living—continued to decline. Productivity was down under the Liberal government.

There are no big surprises with our workplace relations reforms. The proposals we took to the Australian people at the last election comprise the shape and detail of Australia’s new workplace relations system. While no-one will be unduly surprised by our intended reforms, neither will they be presented with a fait accompli. We have established an extensive consultation mechanism. We were determined to learn the lessons of the past and to deliver a workplace relations system that gained broad acceptance and support through consultation. As Australians, we have no choice but to work together to raise productivity and prosperity in the face of the difficult challenges ahead. Creating a workplace relations system based on trust, certainty and fairness is essential if we are going to remain a nation of innovation and rising prosperity. Our workplace relations reforms will lift national productivity. The new arrangements I outlined earlier will provide a simple, balanced system that will allow employers to get on with business and employees to get on with their jobs. It is part of our objective of creating a seamless national economy.

The Fair Work Bill demonstrates no ideological obsession but an understanding that workers and business need certainty and protection. It demonstrates that the Rudd Labor government is not a government of core and non-core promises. Promises made in last year’s election campaign are being systematically implemented, not conveniently brushed aside as the previous government was so cavalierly wont to do. This legislation aims to create workplaces where our children will do better, not worse, than we used to and in which prosperity expands and embraces us all. I recommend this bill to the House.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Fair Work Bill 2008 and am particularly pleased to follow the new member of the House from Victoria, the member for Maribyrnong. I recollect my wife and I having dinner with the member and his wife last year in Melbourne at the Davos summit, a very pleasant occasion indeed. I know that he is an ambitious man and that he seeks to attain the highest office in this land. I certainly wish him well in that endeavour. I, however, am very disappointed by the presentation he just gave. It was a very disappointing performance from a member whose reputation in the wider community is supposedly enormous indeed, but I am pleased to speak on this bill because I think it is significant in all kinds of ways for our country’s industrial relations architecture.

Before I go to the many aspects of the bill, the government’s position on them and, of course, the federal opposition’s position on them, I note the cut by the Reserve Bank of the cash rate and its significance as a stimulant for the Australian people, particularly those around the country who have mortgages. I applaud the Reserve Bank for its decision because this will have a very significant impact on households and families who might be stretched because of the global financial crisis and its impact on their budget. I think this is the right decision and this is the economic action that we in the opposition are advocating. There should be more of this kind of action before we go into the surplus. Taking funds from the surplus should be a last resort by a government, not the first resort.

I want to place on the record the formal position of the federal opposition on the Fair Work Bill 2008. In a media release dated 25 November 2008, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, said:

The Coalition accepts that the Rudd Government has a mandate for workplace relations change as proposed in their election policy last year.

The Coalition accepts that Work Choices is dead. The Australian people have spoken.

In a democracy we must respect the wish of the people. I do not hesitate to say that I only wish that when the Howard government was in office the Labor Party had respected the mandate of the people on many occasions over 11½ years, but the wheels of democracy will continue to turn.

The first sentence of the Leader of the Opposition’s statement is very significant and instructive, and I refer to the part of it where he says, ‘as proposed in their election policy last year’. The first point I want to make is that the government’s bill totally deviates from Labor’s 2007 election promise. This bill goes way beyond what the Prime Minister and the Labor Party promised at the election. This bill is overstretch. This bill is overreach. It goes way beyond what they put to the Australian people, and I think this will come back to haunt the government in the very near future. More significant, more disappointing and more tragic is that its impact on the Australian economy will be felt in the future and everyday Australians will have to pay the price as the implications of this bill and its overreach cut deeply into the national economy.

The coalition’s position is that the Work Choices legislation as put to the parliament by the Howard government is dead. It was a regime that went too far. I expressed those views at the time but, being a second-term member of the parliament, one’s voice is sometimes not heard by those with more influence. Perhaps an observation I should make to members on both sides of the parliament is: let this be a salutary lesson to those holding the office of Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition or those holding keys to ministerial doors or shadow ministries. Whether one’s party is in government or in opposition, as the Minister for Workforce Participation at the table and the opposition spokesman as good political operators and having successfully won seats will be very aware, the role of backbenchers—and I am one in my third term—is very significant. Most ministers were backbenchers before they reached higher office, but as I said following my election victory in Ryan last November I intend to play a very significant role in the opposition proposing ideas and policy. Regardless of whether one is the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition, do not discount the ideas and the contribution of backbenchers as the passage of workplace relations legislation in the last Howard government highlighted very instructively.

I suspect this legislation before us today might be going down the same track of overreach, of overstretch, because at no time did the Deputy Prime Minister, ministers or the Prime Minister say to the Australian people before the November election day that there would be pattern bargaining. At no time did they say that employers or businesses would be compromised by unions being able to go into workplaces where there was no relationship at all between employees and the union movement. At no time was it said to the Australian people that unions, union members or union officials should have access to non-union-member records. I think it is terribly disappointing. Let us not forget that only 14 per cent, if it is that, of the private sector is unionised. This is of great anxiety to me as the child of parents who ran a small business. My parents ran a corner shop and put me through law school and put my brother and sister through medical school. My parents, through running their own enterprise and employing people, put their three children through university, made their contribution to the community and are of the view, the philosophy, that they should be allowed to get on with running their business, to do the best that they can, to be a part of the fabric of our society and to not be harassed by unions for purely political benefit.

I am very disappointed at that, because I do endorse the general thrust of what is being done here in terms of cutting away any excess that may have been in the previous Howard legislation, but for this to go way beyond the mandate of the people in November last year is terribly disappointing. I ask the question: where are the civil liberties groups now? Where are those in the community whose voices for privacy are often loud and clear on other occasions and certainly were vociferous during the Howard era? Where are those civil liberties groups now? I ask them to come forth to raise their voices when we are talking in a context of unions getting access to non-union-member records. This is terribly disappointing—I say that again. It is profoundly significant. It is a policy defect, and I suspect that, as with the effects of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act in 2007 under the prime ministership of John Howard, this bill, the Fair Work Bill, will have a price in terms of its political consequences. I remind the hardheads of the Labor Party—of whom I know many, having been here for three terms—of this. A handful of them, in conversation in the last couple of days, have flagged to me their quiet disenchantment at the overreach.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t verbal people. Why don’t you name them rather than verballing them?

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear an interjection from a new member here, but I suspect that he ought to spend a few more minutes in the parliament before he tries to be arrogant and to interfere in a colleague’s presentation to the parliament. I think that is another typical example of the personal abuse and arrogance coming across from a new member of the House. We have seen in this last week of the sittings, when perhaps most of us are looking forward to going home and being with our families, some of the dialogue across the chamber extend beyond robust, civil political exchange to a tad of abuse, and that is very, very disappointing indeed. I think others will judge accordingly.

If my views as a member of the opposition do not count for anything with those in government then I, like my previous colleagues, take the government to the words of a very significant political commentator—one who has certainly on occasion, when he thought it was appropriate, fired both barrels of the shotgun at the Howard government. On this occasion, I think he is firing both barrels of the shotgun at the Rudd government, because his words are very profound and instructive. I think it would be in the interests of the government to read the article by Paul Kelly—again, from Saturday’s Weekend Australianwhere he says:

The new workplace relations model introduced by Gillard is a significant step into the past. It does more than abolish the Howard government’s Work Choices model; it goes beyond Work Choices to Howard’s 1996 reforms and even further to Keating’s 1993 reforms in reshaping the system. It is hard to imagine how its impact will be other than to weaken productivity and employment.

It is a very, very good article that I commend to all members of the House, because I think that of all the commentators in this country Paul Kelly stands head and shoulders above his peers. As I say, he is one who calls a spade a spade. When the Howard government felt his wrath, it did so with interest. I think that this time Mr Kelly’s words are very, very insightful indeed into the Rudd Labor government.

This test that the Rudd government now faces is pretty straightforward: is this bill going to help put people into jobs or put them out of jobs, as Paul Kelly alludes to? Will this bill create growth or hinder growth, particularly at a time of great economic challenge across economies and across the world? Will this bill erode labour market flexibility and options for the hardworking Australians who do not want to be part of a union workplace? Is it going to be something that the Labor Party regrets because it has not learnt from the very recent experience of the Howard government in going too far? I think that it is incumbent on members of the opposition to acknowledge that, and I do so with regret that I did not get an opportunity to be heard more when the Howard government passed its legislation, but perhaps that is the nature of politics. It is a very good lesson that this bill, going way over the top and going beyond the mandate of the Australian people, is going to be something that the Labor Party will regret. As Paul Kelly says, at a time when we should be focusing on how to create greater productivity and get people into jobs, the last thing we need is to craft an industrial relations regime that will be counterproductive to those aims. We certainly oppose this overreach by the Rudd Labor government.

While the opposition should, as the federal Leader of the Opposition has said, acknowledge that Work Choices is dead, it should also, in another sense, note our record in creating jobs and ensuring that those who found jobs were able to stay in those jobs. We should be very proud of that. We should continue to let the Australian people know, and certainly say in this parliament, that our record in this area is without peer. Let us not forget that, when the Howard government came into office, the economy was really in tatters. I think the size of that particular victory in 1996 reflected not only contempt for then Prime Minister Keating but a desire by the Australian people for a new government to manage the national economy and fix the mess that was created by the then Labor government.

The first thing that should be said is, of course, that the Howard-Costello government was confronted with a $96 billion debt. Repaying this was not something that took place in a matter of months or years; indeed, it took a decade to pay off. We should continue to remind the Australian people that, when the Labor Party has its hands on the Treasury, the DNA of the party is such that it cannot help itself; it has to spend more than revenues allow, and eventually the country is taken into a deep, dark deficit—and who suffers the consequences but everyday Australians trying to run their own businesses and everyday workers in those businesses who will end up facing unemployment?

So I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that the Howard-Costello years will stand as a beacon of national prosperity and growth. The tragedy of it all is that we are seeing the first signs of how this will be squandered by a Labor government—and of course we are gravely concerned about the impact of this bill on jobs and job creation, particularly in the current climate of economic uncertainty. Our focus has always been on jobs and it will always be on jobs, and the 2.2 million jobs that we created over the 11 years of the Howard government are evidence of that. I know it is an inconvenient truth for the Labor Party, but those 2.2 million jobs were real jobs. Unfortunately, in the first Rudd budget this year we saw them trying to signal to the people that some 134,000 jobs would have to be lost—and that was before the global financial crisis hit, so I am not sure how they are going to find work for people who lose their jobs, because certainly the policies of the government are not enhancing that prospect.

For my electorate of Ryan, I want to compare what might lie ahead for the unemployment rate with the situation at the time the Howard government left office. In Australia in October 2007 the unemployment rate was 4.3 per cent, an over-three-decades low, and had been below five per cent for 21 consecutive months. The male unemployment rate was 3.6 per cent and the female rate was 4.4 per cent. In contrast, if we go back to 1992 under Labor, the unemployment rate peaked at nearly 11 per cent, leaving almost one million Australians unemployed. Those are the hard facts. That is real evidence. I know that those opposite, the government, do not like references to those figures, but that is the inconvenient truth for them, and those of us on this side of the parliament must always remind the Australian people that, in our credentials in managing this $1.1 trillion economy, we are without peer.

I regret to say that my thoughts about where the national economy is heading under a Rudd Labor government are not positive. I note that the ambitions of the 2020 Summit were to make Australia the best place in the world to live and work, and to be among the top five nations in the world in terms of GDP per capita ranking—very fine sentiments, and with the right stewardship by the right people certainly very attainable, but with the Labor Party in office I suspect that we will not be going anywhere near a GDP per capita ranking among the top five nations in the world. (Time expired)

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

I would just like to note that the member for Ryan made some interesting comments. I was not entirely sure what he was arguing. He was saying that Work Choices was dead and he did not like our bill, but he did not provide any alternative, so I am not entirely sure what he was arguing for. But I am very pleased tonight to be speaking on the Fair Work Bill 2008. I am also very pleased to have in the chamber tonight the member for Wakefield and the member for Adelaide, who I know fought very hard, as I did, against the extreme Work Choices legislation introduced by the Howard government—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Even before that.

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

Even before that, as the member for Wakefield rightly points out. This bill sets the framework for fairness in Australia’s workplaces.

At the 2007 election, industrial relations were at the forefront of people’s minds. Over the previous years the Australian public had seen the Howard government’s systematic removal of the basic entitlements that Australian workers had benefited from for many years. Indeed, some of those rights had spanned a whole century. The Australian people witnessed the stripping away of a safety net for our lowest paid employees, the use of individual contracts to further drive down wages and conditions, and the abolition of unfair dismissal laws—and this was just the start.

The Australian people saw that when it came to industrial relations the Howard government had gone too far with their extreme laws. The Australian people watched as the Liberal and National parties used their numbers in the Senate to push this extreme legislation through and onto the Australia people, who had never even voted for it. In addition, the Liberal government developed a very complex system—including adding policy at the eleventh hour—in a bid to get re-elected. This was only after the Liberal government realised that their extreme industrial relations ideology was not shared by the Australian people. Originally, the no disadvantage test was abolished under Work Choices for AWAs and enterprise agreements. However, just before the election, a new, sham fairness test was introduced. This was policy on the run, creating enormous confusion for businesses and employees all around the country. Unlike the sham fairness test proposed by the previous government, the Labor government are restoring true fairness to the workplace and delivering on our election commitments.

The bill before us today will create a balance between the rights and obligations of both employers and employees. Importantly, before the election, Labor clearly outlined for the Australian people our industrial relations policy, and this was certainly supported by the mandate of government. Now, with this bill and the bills that preceded it, we are delivering on this election commitment.

The inequity and inefficiency of Work Choices is demonstrated by a story told to me by Lynette and Rob from Hackham. They described an ordeal that their daughter, Julie, went through under the Work Choices legislation. Julie worked as a professional receptionist in various medical institutions for a number of years and, at the beginning of this year, was offered a job at a local clinic in Seaford. This job was ideal for Julie, as it would allow her to care for her children during the day when her husband was at work and enable her to contribute to the family income by working at night. Julie’s parents told me that her employer would only give her the job if she signed an Australian workplace agreement, which, despite extreme reservations, she eventually agreed to do.

Julie then found herself being paid at a rate considerably less than the award rate which she had been paid at all her previous workplaces. She eventually appealed to her employer to review the AWA and was shocked to find that it had still had not been presented to or reviewed by the Workplace Authority. Following her complaint, she began to notice her hours being depleted until she was eventually forced to hand in her notice as the job no longer provided sufficient income to support her young family.

The Work Choices legislation did not protect Julie’s right to negotiate the terms of her employment or provide her with a true safety net. Julie’s story is one of many that occurred as a result of the Work Choices legislation. Earlier this year, our government abolished AWAs and introduced 10 National Employment Standards. The bill before the House today introduces the substantive bill that will replace the Work Choices legislation and add to these two previous bills.

The Fair Work Bill will provide a safety net that cannot be stripped away for any workers. The safety net will consist of the already introduced 10 National Employment Standards and an applicable modern award which will cover a further 10 matters. The modern awards will be reviewed every four years to keep up with community standards. Most importantly, this safety net of both the employment standards and the modern awards will be available to every employee who earns under $100,000.

I want to highlight to the House just how important this is. Over the years, the award system has provided industry standards on pay and conditions. However, as jobs have evolved there have been some cases where employees have slipped through the net. Howard’s Work Choices laws further put many low-paid workers at a disadvantage. I know that the member for Kingston will know this job particularly well, having been a trolley collector in the past. Trolley collectors are an example of a group of workers who work for private firms who contract their collection services out to shopping centres. During my campaign, and since being elected, I have conducted many shopping centre stalls and listened to residents. During these stalls I have been regularly approached by the trolley collectors in the car park, who have told me of their plight. Some of these workers told me that they are paid $7 per hour. These are not part-time rates; these are casual rates, so there are no holidays and no sick days. Further, these workers have told me that they have no tea breaks, no lunch breaks, no rostering provisions and no overtime. Many of these workers have no choice but to work over 14 hours per day, seven days a week. Some people listening to this might may think that they are junior employees who do get lower rates, but they are not. These are adults who need to put food on their family’s table. This situation should be unacceptable in Australia today.

Our government’s Fair Work Bill not only provides a safety net for these workers but also provides facilitated bargaining by Fair Work Australia for these lowest paid workers who have not had prior access to collective bargaining. The Fair Work Bill focuses on enterprise bargaining and, in particular, good faith bargaining. Evidence clearly shows that productivity growth is best achieved at the enterprise level. Under the new legislation, enterprise bargaining agreements must be lodged with Fair Work Australia, who will consider a number of aspects, including whether each employee covered by the agreement will be better off overall than the safety net.

The legislation also expands on the matters that can be included in enterprise agreements. One of the anomalies of the previous government’s Work Choices legislation was that, while they were spruiking the virtues of deregulation of the labour market, employment conditions and pay, they sought to overregulate anything that might benefit workers by excluding many provisions saying both to employers and employees that they could not be put into their enterprise agreements because it was prohibited content. In fact it did not matter whether an employee or an employer was happy to put up with this; if it was put in an enterprise agreement, they would be fined. This added extra regulation to employment contracts and was just to push the ideological agenda of the previous government, which was stripping employees of their rights and certainly did not make sense.

The new legislation before us today also includes reforms for unfair dismissal. The Howard government implemented an ideological policy that they had been trying to implement for some time. However, under Work Choices they went a lot further and that was to remove natural justice for those employees who had been unfairly dismissed from their workplace. They did this by stealth. Firstly, they introduced an exemption for unfair dismissal for those who worked in a company that had fewer than 100 employees. But, secondly, they allowed for other companies to unfairly dismiss employees for operational reasons, therefore providing a complex and incredibly unclear criterion in order to dismiss a worker. Both these mechanisms provided no consideration as to how long an employee may have served the company.

Our new system will restore fairness while still providing employers with the flexibility to determine if an employee is right for their business. Exemptions from unfair dismissal will occur for the first six months of employment if the employee works for a business with more than 15 people. A 12-month exemption will occur for those who work for a business with less than 15 people. This will allow time for both employees and employers to work out whether they are a good match for each other.

The same unfair-dismissal provisions will for the first time apply to casuals who have been working on a systematic and regular basis. Certainly, in my line of work, I have often seen people who had been regular casuals and who had been acting as if they were part time but who could be cut at any time. I am very pleased that casual workers will now have similar protection that had not been previously available to them.

Finally, I would like to mention the creation of Fair Work Australia, the new one-stop-shop workplace authority. It will replace the numerous industrial relations bodies that currently exist. The new Fair Work Australia will set minimum wages, vary awards, ensure good faith bargaining, facilitate bargaining for the low paid, approve agreements and resolve disputes and unfair-dismissal matters. Fair Work Australia will also conduct mediation and conciliation. This will be a very important body to help resolve issues in the workplace and ensure industrial calm throughout the country.

This government is rebuilding an industrial system in this country that is fair for both employees and employers—a system that promotes cooperation and provides balance. I was pleased last week to hear members on the other side indicate they will not vote against this bill. I assumed that that would mean they would support this bill. However, at the same time we saw the Leader of the Opposition at the Press Club last week three times refuse to answer the question of whether or not a return to individual statutory contracts would be part of future Liberal Party policy.

Furthermore, we have seen in this debate over the last two days many opposition members talking up the golden years of Howard’s industrial relations. So we have not yet had an acknowledgment from many on the other side that they got it wrong—that their ideological agenda was unfair and not popular with the Australian people. What will the Liberal Party’s policy be at the next election? Who knows! It is the Labor government’s policy that is quite clear: a national, simple and fair system with no individual contracts, a safety net for workers and an independent industrial umpire. This bill puts in place this fairer system—one that aspires to the sentiments of our national anthem: advance Australia fair. I therefore commend the bill to the House.

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

In the ongoing struggle between those who believe in the freedom of the individual, including his or her economic freedom, and those who seek to protect vested interests, the Fair Work Bill 2008 represents the latter. It is a clear signal of the protectionist outlook of the Rudd government. In fact it is no coincidence that the government is also escalating industry protection to the car manufacturers at the same time as reviving industrial relations protection for the union movement.

Respect for the dignity of the individual and his or her freedom has been the harbinger of human, economic and political progress. Only self-doubt will defeat this struggle. I make these remarks at the outset because there is confusion about what this bill does and does not do. That confusion is fanned by the government’s rhetoric. Consider, for example, the assertion by the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard when introducing the government’s new labour laws. She said:

… Work Choices is tantalisingly close to being gone forever …

If Ms Gillard means that the government is proposing major changes to the existing workplace relations legislation then she is correct. If however she means that every aspect of the existing workplace relations legislation is being changed or removed, which is the impression she is seeking to create, this is factually untrue.

Let us consider the main components of the Howard government’s legislation and Labor’s response to them. Firstly, Labor will retain the national system, a system which prior to the previous election they had opposed all the way to the High Court of Australia. Secondly, Labor said they would ban individual employment arrangements—and they have prohibited the making of new individual Australian workplace agreements generally. But the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has approved a new individual agreement clause for awards which is very similar to an AWA—in other words, an individual contract in another guise. The difference, however, is the role of the union. Being subject to an award negotiated by the union means that real flexibility and therefore productivity is unlikely to be achieved.

Thirdly, Labor complained that minimum employment standards had been decimated under Work Choices. A new set of minimum employment standards will apply from 2010. Yet most of these standards replicate existing requirements. In fact employers successfully argued for the right to request ‘reasonable’ working hours beyond the standard 38 and the right to refuse requests for flexible working hours or a second year of unpaid maternity leave. The Australian Industrial Relations Commission resisted the union proposal for mandatory union involvement in such individual arrangements.

Fourthly, the Labor government will retain some unfair dismissal exemptions for small and medium businesses. The threshold will be set at 15 employees for the first 12 months of employment. This is a concession by Labor that employment protection laws actually depress employment in the small- and medium-business sector. I say that because we should recall that previously the Labor Party voted against any exemptions for small business—on over 40 occasions in this parliament.

Fifthly, the inquisitorial approach of the Fair Pay Commission, which replaced the old arbitration system of minimum wages, is being retained. Minimum wage increases will continue to be made after study and research, not as they were in the past by arbitration between the parties. Finally, the ban on industrial action during the life of an agreement will be retained. Secret ballots will also be kept. If these tenets of Work Choices remain as they do—they are not being abolished by this piece of legislation and I do not see any proposal from the Australian Labor Party, the government, to abolish what I have just spoken about—then what is this bill really about?

The real change in this bill is the re-empowerment of the union movement through a combination of imposed collective bargaining, so-called good faith bargaining, default union representation, expanded right of entry and other provisions. The real message of the bill is that the unions are being repaid for their massive investment in the ALP’s campaign by being given access to almost every business in Australia. Let me illustrate this. Firstly, the government is re-empowering a central industrial relations body to be known as Fair Work Australia. This is based on the belief that a centralised wage-setting dispute resolution body is best for the nation—yet is an idea that governments since the early 1990s on both sides of politics in Australia have moved away from. Unions will utilise mindless costly proceduralism to advance their causes while business, small business in particular, will pay the price.

Secondly, through this bill the unions will reassert a monopoly bargaining position in the workplace. A union will only require one member in a particular workplace to become a bargaining party. With the so-called good faith bargaining in place employers will be forced into a prescriptive system complete with the provision of considerable information about the business to the unions. Thirdly, the expansion of compulsory arbitration and pattern bargaining re-creates the conditions under which wage inflation flourished in the past. Despite denying numerous times that the bill would reintroduce compulsory arbitration and pattern bargaining, they are being revived.

While inflation may not be an immediate concern in Australia, these changes will be detrimental to the nation in the longer term. I hardly need to remind the House of the economic history of Australia—that wage inflation has been the precursor to outbreaks of inflation generally and the boom-bust cycles that have occurred periodically in this country.

Australia will experience a period of creeping re-regulation under the new government, especially as the industrial relations tribunal imposes unnecessary procedural burdens on business. That has been the history of the AIRC, and no doubt that will occur under the new body in the future. And the old destructive pattern of wage rises from a successful sector of the economy flowing through to less buoyant sectors is being revived. This will occur by bargaining across multiple employers within an industry sector. Industry-wide arbitration will therefore become commonplace.

Fourthly, union right of entry is being significantly expanded, despite Ms Gillard claiming that the existing provisions would be retained. Add to this the increase in demarcation disputes that will arise under this bill and you can see how industrial action will increase in the future. Indeed, over the course of this year alone there has been something like an eightfold increase in industrial disputation in Australia.

Instead of proclaiming what this bill is really about—namely, re-empowering the unions—the government hides behind the rhetoric of abolishing Work Choices. It knows that when Australians voted against Work Choices they did not necessarily vote for the unions. That is why Labor will not acknowledge what the bill really does, trusting that most people will never hear any more than the five-second sound bite on their television news.

The government is financially and morally bound to the union movement, and this bill is the latest consummation of that arrangement. It is an attempt to reverse the declining membership and significance of unions in Australia. By imposing the collective agreement as the standard, Labor seeks to insert the union into every workplace arrangement. Indeed, it is clear from what is in the bill, compared to the statements that were made in the middle of the year by the Deputy Prime Minister, that there has been a significant expansion of what has been provided in this bill, which could not have been inferred from what Ms Gillard had said then.

What is surprising is the alacrity with which some business organisations seem to have welcomed the return of the old industrial relations club. Many small and medium businesses will come to see that they have been poorly served by those who lead their organisations.

The test for this bill is what happens not just in the next year or two but over the medium term. The government talks about productivity but provides no evidence that this massive reregulation will achieve it. Indeed, all available evidence indicates the opposite—by allowing flexibility, subject to appropriate safeguards, workers, businesses and the economy would be better off. This has been the clear outcome of industrial relations reforms in Australia over the past 15 years.

Let me remind the House, then, of the benchmarks upon which Labor will be judged. On Labor coming to power the unemployment rate in Australia was 4.3 per cent. Real wages under the Howard government grew by over 20 per cent and more than two million new jobs were created. Only 2.6 working days were lost on industrial disputes per thousand employees. These are the benchmarks upon which the Labor Party in government will be judged. And they are the benchmarks by which Australians in the future can judge the efficacy of this piece of legislation.

Using public dissatisfaction about one or two items in Work Choices—such as penalty rates and overtime—as a guise for the massive re-empowerment of the unions will prove counterproductive for the Australian economy and the jobs of many people in this country. As business costs rise and unemployment soars, Australians should look back on this exercise as folly driven by ideology. Those who continue to believe in the individual and the national benefits of economic freedom will have to rejoin the struggle.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Fair Work Bill 2008. Industrial relations has long been the great divide of Australian politics—the trench line, if you will, between the two parties. And it is not a debate that this parliament is having just at the moment; it is a debate that has gone on for decades. It has happened in pubs, clubs and meeting rooms and around kitchen tables all across this country.

I rather fondly remember having this debate with my grandfather, who was a small businessman and a member of the Liberal Party. Of course, I was a unionist and a member of the Labor Party. I guess we had this debate many times, and it was based on our beliefs and our practical experience. It was really a debate about the freedom of contract versus the right for workers to express a desire for collective bargaining. I think that debate has gone on around the country for many years, off and on, to varying degrees of intensity. It has helped to divide the parties and has helped to make this debate the most partisan in Australian politics.

You only have to look at the country’s history, including the 1890s strikes, which gave birth to the Labor Party. It was opposition to the formation of Labor that ultimately forced conservatives and liberals into the one party. There was the failure of the federation referendums—I think there were two referendums that failed—until the arbitration and conciliation power was inserted into the proposed Constitution to get workers’ votes. And only then did the referendum to federate pass.

There was the defeat of the Bruce government, with Prime Minister Bruce losing his seat, after they announced plans to abolish the federal industrial relations system and the use of the arbitration and conciliation power. Later—much later—there was the formation of the HR Nicholls Society, the Mudginberri disputes, the smashing of the unions in the Pilbara, and the beginnings of a conservative assault on the award system, the union movement and the industrial umpire.

After that was Fightback. I remember reading Fightback—in particular the industrial relations part of it, written by John Howard—when I was about 22. I lived in Elizabeth Downs at the time. It convinced me to join the Australian Labor Party. I doubt very much that I would be in public life or standing in this House were it not for the extremism expressed in that document. If you like, that was my intellectual conversion to the Labor Party and the labour movement. Later on, I was a cleaner and a trolley collector, and I saw firsthand the competition amongst contractors and the way it affected wages and conditions. When I was a trolley collector in the early nineties I got $12 an hour but I did not get my penalty rates. A couple of years after I left that occupation, the companies that did that work escaped award protection, escaped the ambit of the Cleaners and Caretakers Award, through a legal loophole. It resulted in workers getting $5 or $6 an hour. It seems unbelievable but it was commonplace in Adelaide to go to shopping centres and find people working for 50 or 60 hours a week for $5 or $6 an hour. They were the vulnerable people in our society. They were people, most commonly men, who had left school very early, and often they were encouraged to commit welfare fraud to supplement their income. Working in that area and seeing how workers like that had little to bargain with provided me with a practical education and practical reasons for being in the labour movement.

The crescendo of that political barrage against the union movement—against the award system, against a safety net and against the independent umpire—was Work Choices. It was the purest expression of the idea of freedom of contract, the destruction of the safety net and the complete removal of the umpire—Stalinist laws to restrict unions and the right to collective bargaining. There is no doubt that Work Choices affected those in vulnerable positions, like trolley collectors but also many women in retail and hospitality, in the most adverse way. It cut their pay, it cut their penalty rates, it cut their overtime and it cut their conditions. It offended the basic values of the Australian people: fairness, fair pay and the idea that our interests are interrelated. When we look at our history—and I have given my own abbreviated version—we can see that Australian people have always sought to balance hard work on one hand with fairness on the other, and Work Choices failed that test.

The introduction of this bill marks a turning point in Australian politics and at least a public retreat by the Liberal Party from industrial relations extremism. I do not think that public retreat is an honest retreat. I think that Work Choices is not dead; it is just dormant in the hearts of the Liberal Party. This bill marks a new era in industrial relations—a fairer, more civilised era—and a return to Australian values: hard work balanced with fairness. The key features of this bill are a safety net to protect workers; enterprise bargaining based on good faith by employers, employees and unions; an independent umpire in Fair Work Australia; and job security subject to performance. The safety net will be expressed by the National Employment Standards—things like a maximum weekly number of hours, parental leave, annual leave, personal and carers leave and the like—and also by modern awards, which will be reviewed every four years and which will be easy and effective to use. The safety net will protect employees, fair-minded employers and, most importantly, society by protecting our most vulnerable. Most importantly to me, it means that when I look out the window of my office at Munno Para shops and see a trolley collector I will know that they are getting paid correctly and are being treated with dignity.

The other thing people will have is a right to enterprise bargaining. This bill helps to end the dog-eat-dog world of Australian workplace agreements and puts back an obligation on employers to respect collective bargaining rights where a majority of employees want that. It puts at its foundation the right to be represented by who you want—and, more often than not, working people will ask for their union; good faith bargaining and a set of meaningful obligations to require it; agreements that can deal with a wide range of issues, with the parties deciding on appropriate content, subject to some exceptions; special provisions to help low-pay bargaining; and proper dispute resolution processes, with an independent umpire or other third party. Most of all, approval of agreements will be subject to employee consent and approval and a ‘better off overall’ test.

I remember doorknocking during the campaign and coming across a worker who I knew quite well. He was a union delegate who drove a forklift for a living. When I knocked on his door he told me that he had been voting for the Howard government since 1996 but that he was not going to do it again. He said that bargaining in the Work Choices environment was like playing poker where you had all the number cards and your opponent had all the picture cards. You might win the odd hand but, overall, you were going to lose your shirt. We are changing that situation. We are putting some of the picture cards back into workers’ hands. Likewise, there will be an umpire, Fair Work Australia, whose key functions will basically be the approval of enterprise agreements, award review and variation, good faith bargaining orders, unfair dismissal protection, industrial action orders, and mediation and dispute resolution. Having an umpire is a pretty simple idea but it is one that has been subject to intellectual assault by the modern Liberal Party, by the HR Nicholls Society and by extreme workplace relation advocates—and they are all over the place. It is a simple, prevailing idea that the Australian people strongly believe in and have always strongly believed in.

Finally, there will be job protection and unfair-dismissal rights subject to performance—subject to appropriate exemptions for small business. It will be quick—within seven days—and it will be simple and streamlined, where reinstatement will be the preferred remedy and where there will be a dismissal code for small business, which will help businesses that do not have the resources or expertise of a big human resources department. This bill has all of the essential provisions to ensure a fair workplace.

I have talked a bit about history and the public retreat the Liberal Party have staged on industrial relations. I think it has been pretty tragic to watch so many Liberals get up in this House, nitpick on provisions, talk about their philosophy, as the member for Menzies did, and then say they are going to support the bill. It is the most deceptive thing I have ever seen in my life. Their stance is a betrayal of their history and their most cherished beliefs. It is certainly a betrayal of my grandfather’s beliefs. It sees the courage and the conviction of the IR extremists of HR Nicholls Society and their parliamentary advocates—John Howard and the member for Higgins chief amongst them—replaced by cowardice and deception. The Liberal Party, once committed to fighting for these things, has gone from being the party of conviction to the party of cowardice. It robs the Australian people of a proper debate. I think it has turned the Liberal Party into the gutless party of Australian politics.

This bill reflects 100 years of debate and discussion on industrial relations. It reflects the priorities and the values of the modern labour movement—fairness with flexibility, fairness combined with hard work. In closing, I would like to hark back to Chifley’s words. I remember reading Chifley’s biography when I was a trolley collector. On the quiet days you got a reasonable lunch hour. I remember this quote sticking with me. Chifley said:

I don’t care what the privileged classes say about the Labor movement. We work for humanity when we fight for better conditions.

It is with those thoughts I commend the bill to the House.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I compliment the previous speaker for his very excellent contribution in the debate on the Fair Work Bill 2008. Obviously it was one that came from his personal experience and from the heart; I think it was a very excellent contribution.

I will just give a quick history of the union movement in Australia. There were the great strikes of the 1880s and the 1890s—you hear a lot of talk about this being the worst drou-ght in our history; it is really mild com-pared with the Federation drought. It was called the Federation drought because it did not rain much between 1884 and 1914. But it precipitated the union movement because the wool cockies were in terrible straits. They felt that they should pay the shear-ers less and the shearers were not on particularly glamorous wages, and the fight was on. It is a very sad aspect of our society that not many Australians really know the history of their country.

I come from Waltzing Matilda country; it is just a few miles down the road from my hometown of Cloncurry. There was a shoot-out at the homestead where Waltzing Matilda was written. It left one man dead on the day, but another one died of wounds later on in the week. The shearer Hoffmeister, according to historian Richard Magoffin, was probably shot by the other shearers because there was a huge reward—it was one of the highest rewards ever offered in British history—for anyone to dob in the strikers at the station property. The owner of the station property, ironically, was very sympathetic to the shearers’ cause. In fact, he shouted grog down the pub and handed out the grog at the pub. He would not dob anyone in.

It told you a lot about the real Australia, but the people in Brisbane—the government of the day—sent more than 1,000 troops with cannons and gatling guns down into western Queensland, to Claremont and Winton. Most of the state executive of the AWU were thrown in jail. The AWU, who were really the cutting edge of this movement, saw their membership fall from about 15,000 to about 5,000. They saw all of their men who had done the right thing, as they saw it—who had gone out on strike, gone without pay, gone hungry with their families and lived in galvanised iron lean-tos—go back and work with all the scabs who had had a good income throughout that entire period. Of course, a lot of men lost their faith in unionism and simply would not touch it again. It burned into the memory and the soul of the AWU. Today many people say it is a supine union, and it is not strong enough, but really, if you know the history, it is very interesting.  Even to this very day, that history still burns in the memory of the AWU in Australia.

I do not come from sheep country—it starts a few miles down the road from my hometown. I come from mining country. This time last century, one in 32 Australians who went down the mines never came back up again, or came back up and died the most dreadful death of miners phthisis. There was only one person in my class whose dad was a miner, and his dad died of miners phthisis. One in 32 is the actual figure. EG Theodore, who was the founder of the AWU as we know it today—there was an AWU, but Theodore refounded it, if you like, in Queensland as a mass union. And to this very day the AWU has been dominated by the huge numbers out of Queensland, where his brother organised the canecutters. Again, in the big strikes in the cane industry, there were two men shot dead in the main street of Innisfail during the strikes and upheavals similar to in the shearing industry.

I have to pay tribute to the Christians in Australia, because the first president of the AWU and I suppose the great driving force behind it was a lay preacher in the Wesleyan Church, and a very committed Christian. My own great-grandad, who gave, in today’s money, nearly $1 million—I repeat that very slowly: gave, in today’s money, nearly $1 million—to the strike fund in the late 1890s, was also a very committed Christian. He saw it as his duty as a Christian to do everything humanly possible to help these people who lived in such terrible circumstances.

Debate interrupted; adjournment proposed and negatived.

I was saying that my great-grandfather contributed a very large sum of money. I think it was out of his Christian commitment. The two sisters of Theodore, whom I was also referring to, became nuns, and his brother was a Christian brother. So the Christians were very much amongst the people who fought this battle, and I think that that must be recognised in a debate of this type.

Henry Bournes Higgins, when addressing the opening of a big AWU centre in Saint Arnaud in Victoria, said—and I remember the Prime Minister quoting this in the House some time ago: ‘A contract made by one person is not a contract.’ Of course it is not—and that is what was proposed in this House with the IR legislation which swept away the last government. If they thought that Australians were so stupid that they would accept that proposition and not understand it, then they were badly wrong. A lot of people were deceived, but the vast bulk of Australians were not. The then government launched the biggest political advertising campaign I have seen in 35 years as a member of parliament, and it was the most counterproductive of exercises because it just reminded every single person in Australia that they no longer had protection.

The people on this side of the House really amaze me. They must have absolutely no experience of the real world, but it was clear to me as a young man 17 years of age when I started my first job at Mount Isa—and I had a lot of years at university, so I would like to say that I did it hard, but I did not in that sense—that if you complained about something you were called a troublemaker and you would be out the door. If that something happened to be a dangerous work situation then you were in a very bad spot if you did not have a trade union so that you could make your complaint through the union without having your job threatened. If the people on this side are naive enough to believe for one moment that you could complain or say, ‘We should get extra pay for doing this’—most seriously, particularly in mining, if an issue of safety were concerned—and do it without a union, then they believe in the tooth fairy. All that the now opposition did was demonstrate their towering ignorance of the real world out there, where 90 per cent of the Australian population live. It was staggering for me. If you had told me that in my lifetime someone would take the arbitration commission away, I would have thought you were mad. If you are naming the great pillars upon which freedom and democracy are built, I would say private property comes first, but I would say No. 2 might well be the arbitration commission.

I played rugby league for much of my life and I have been an official since I gave up playing. The thought of playing rugby league without a referee—sometimes I would have enjoyed it, I must admit, but at other times I think I would have come off very badly indeed—is quite something. But, in the far greater and more important game called the Australian economy, the then government foisted upon all of the Australian people its plan to play without a referee. Of course, the concept then becomes: who is the most powerful? I can tell you that it is the employer that writes the cheque at the end of the week—there is very little doubt about who is the most powerful figure.

The other thing that convinced me to be so passionate about this issue was that, as a very young man just out of university, having done economics—or economics having done me, to be more accurate—I went out with this free-market concept. When Doug Anthony introduced the wool scheme, I thought that it ran against everything that I was taught at university and that it was going to fail. Then I watched the price of wool double over the next two years and I saw the enormous value of collective bargaining. I still thought it would probably fall over, but for the next 20 years I saw a nice, steady, stable increase in the price of wool that we enjoyed throughout all of rural Australia. It was just one of the most magnificent success stories and achievements of government in this nation’s history. And I regret to say, to put in a discordant note as far as the government is concerned, that Chifley considered wheat stabilisation one of his greatest achievements.

All of the history books nominate the Snowy Mountains scheme, the Holden motor car, the campaign for the eradication of tuberculosis, the housing commission, which built so many much needed houses in Australia, and wheat stabilisation as the five great postwar achievements. And it is not to Labor’s credit that it was responsible for removing wheat stabilisation. The then government applied one set of rules to the employees of Australia and applied another set of rules to the poor old farmers. Let me say, for anyone who had any doubts about the value of collective bargaining as far as wool went, it was removed by Mr Keating and within three years the price of wool had dropped clean in half. The wool industry in Australia is simply closing down. We have lost 50 per cent of our sheep, the numbers are continuing to fall and the price has been abysmally low. There was no doubt in my mind about the fate of wool producers in Australia. Within three years of the destabilising deregulation by hypocritical Mr Keating, we were averaging a suicide every two months in rural Queensland.

The egg industry was deregulated, and the right of egg farmers to collectively bargain was taken away. Sugar was deregulated, and the right of sugar producers to collectively bargain was taken away. The right of tobacco farmers was taken away. The right of dairy farmers was taken away. I recently brought into this House a litre of milk, a dozen eggs and a kilogram of sugar and I said, ‘The mark-up on this is 270 per cent, the mark-up on this is 270 per cent and the mark-up on this is 270 per cent.’ I am sure Mr Samuel, the champion of competition in Australia, does not believe in what the government is doing tonight—or maybe he does because maybe he thinks his job might depend upon having the attitudes that reflect the government’s attitudes. Mr Samuel said that there was no problem then. God is good, because those three items that I just mentioned were in fact under a fair claims tribunal, if you like. They were under statutory marketing arrangements and, when you had to justify how much the farmers should get and how much the retailers should have to pay and that was decided by a fairness tribunal, the difference was 80 per cent. It was 270 per cent under the free market—the magnificent magic mother of us all—but under a fairness tribunal it was 80 per cent.

I think everybody here knows the fate the sugar industry is facing. For those who do not know, there were 2½ thousand egg producers in Australia before deregulation and there are fewer than 300 now. In the dairy industry, the price of eggs dropped by 30 per cent within one month of deregulation. So, whilst it was never going to happen that dramatically to the Australian employee, there was never any doubt in my mind that it was going to happen. Harking back to my old great-grandad, he was not all just totally Christian; he was a shopkeeper. So long as the average worker had money in his pocket, his cash register was ringing. If you take the money off the ordinary worker, as they did in America in the late 1920s, then there will be no money going through the till. And then you have a thing called a depression, when there are a lot of people up here who have got all this money in their pockets and want to keep it there and there are a whole lot of people out there with no money to spend at all. That is the logic of the current government in giving handouts before Christmas—to enable the economy to boost up.

I do not come in here one-eyed. I admit that I was very briefly a union spokesman—I might even say a union rep. I do not come in here with any starry-eyed notions that the unions are saints or anything of that nature. In Queensland, the electricity union stood us up. They just turned out the lights. They left the lights off for a significant proportion of Brisbane—about one-seventh of Brisbane—for about 11 days. Parts of Brisbane were out for 14 days straight. Two people died at intersections where there were no traffic lights working. Whether that was entirely attributable to there being no traffic lights working, I do not know. That was the situation with which we were confronted. These were people who, in today’s terms, were on about twice the average weekly earnings, so about $100,000. A large proportion of them, if not most of them, were on a nine-day fortnight.

A lot of us had made great sacrifices to deliver great power to the unions. Some of those unions abused that power most irresponsibly. That caused a lot of people to be anti union. It was not Mr Howard who removed our automatic right to arbitration but Mr Keating with his legislation of 1993. I remember being quite staggered at the time and thinking, ‘If the Labor Party got away with doing this, what is going to happen when the other mob get in?’ I must admit I did not think they would abolish the arbitration commission entirely. But that was what they did. If the union movement let the ALP get away with doing what they did, they sure were asking for trouble. They had opened the door and the other mob was going to walk through it. There was no hesitation. There was no doubt in my mind that that was going to happen.

Whilst we have made a great song and dance about what is happening here tonight, and I think many aspects of this show a degree of application of intelligence and responsible government, I probably am a lone wolf once again here. You do not have the right to arbitration in this legislation. The only way you can get the referee to act is if there is damage to the community as a whole or damage to one or other of the parties. Lockouts are very, very rare, so I doubt we would be getting the arbitration commission for a lockout. I can only remember one example of that in my whole lifetime. I know that has happened, but it is not a regular happening. The other occurrence is a strike. I could not get the figures tonight, but strikes are almost negligible these days. I cannot remember the last time we had a strike in North Queensland. The worst strike in Australian history and the worst strike in the last 40 years happened in my electorate at Mount Isa. But a stoppage is just not conceivable. It is not part of the modern lexicon. I do not know whether that is entirely a good thing, but the reality is that it is not there. So, if there are not going to be any lockouts and there are not going to be any strikes, you will not be able to get arbitration. That is where I regret that this legislation is very deficient. It has not returned the right of the worker to arbitration. The circumstances would be very peculiar if you got that right to arbitration.

I think the bill lacks the most fundamental of propositions, which the Prime Minister himself espoused in this place when he quoted Henry Bournes Higgins at St Arnaud’s: ‘A contract made by one person is not a contract at all.’ Let me conclude by quoting a person in my electorate. He said: ‘I was given the offer. They said: “Take it or leave it. There’s the door. It’s my way or the highway.”’ That is now the law. (Time expired)

Maxine McKew (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Fair Work Bill 2008. I must say that, sitting in the House as a native of Queensland, it has been most entertaining to listen to the member for Kennedy recount an extremely colourful, if somewhat selective, history of unionism in the sunshine state. But I intend to use my time to recount a little history of my own. Exactly one year after Australians said no to the Howard government’s Work Choices by choosing a new government, the Rudd Labor government continues to honour its election commitments. The Fair Work Bill 2008 provides Australian workers with a new and democratised workplace relations system. This bill begins a series of reforms that will be implemented over the next two years. The Fair Work Bill says yes to rights at work, it says yes to a safety net, it says yes to good faith enterprise level collective bargaining and it says yes to balancing work and family life.

This bill guarantees social inclusion for all Australian workers and economic prosperity for the nation. It is significant, I think, that the introduction of the Fair Work Bill marks the anniversary of Labor’s victory. It is also significant that this bill marks the conclusion of the Rudd government’s first year, a year which began on a most historic day for the nation: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to Indigenous Australians. It is momentous as well that the Fair Work Bill 2008 will deliver a workplace relations system equipped to meet the needs of the Australian people in the 21st century. It will move Australia forward with fairness.

Tonight I would like to speak to those parts of the bill that I believe are most relevant to my electorate of Bennelong, because, in 2007, then Prime Minister John Howard fundamentally misread how Work Choices was hurting his own constituents. That misunderstanding cost him his seat and his government. Bennelong is representative of the nation. It has the same ambitions, the same expectations for fairness in the workplace. This legislation returns equilibrium to workplace relations. It will replace the Workplace Relations Act and the complicated Work Choices amendments introduced by the Howard government. For the first time, a diverse range of stakeholders, including unions, employer groups and state and territory workplace relations ministers, have been consulted and have participated in the drafting of a bill. Their input was invaluable and indicative of the government’s commitment to implementing a balanced and equitable workplace system. The Fair Work Bill is grounded in the corporations power of the Constitution and will create a truly national system.

The bill provides for a comprehensive two-part safety net which comprises National Employment Standards and modern awards. The National Employment Standards are 10 legislated employment conditions. Included in these, and of particular interest, is the new entitlement to request flexible working arrangements. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that, for 2008, some 96,000 mothers in the workforce are eligible to take advantage of this entitlement. The cost to the employer should be minimal and the practical implications will result in increased staff loyalty, productivity and retention. The new National Employment Standards also increase parental leave for both parents, as well as extending parental leave to same-sex couples for the first time. The new Employment Standards remove the 10-day cap on carers leave and provide for employers to offer make-up payments for community service leave such as jury duty.

The safety net also consists of new, modern awards which will add another 10 conditions to the National Employment Standards. The modern awards will be tailored to specific industries and occupations and will include a flexibility clause which allows for employers and employees to agree to flexible arrangements that meet both their needs. This will guarantee both worker protection and business productivity. The modern awards will instigate the return of legally enforceable minimum wages, which means that employers will no longer be able to strip away an employee’s entitlements without compensation. The modern awards will also provide for representation and dispute settlement opportunities. Importantly, the principal objective of the modern award and minimum wage is to strengthen the equal remuneration provisions—equal pay for equal work. This will address the ongoing issue of gender inequity which remains prevalent in many industries. Modern awards will be reviewed every four years and minimum wages will be reviewed annually. This will allow for minimum wage adjustments to be argued annually, based on social and economic factors. The combination of National Employment Standards and modern awards creates a flexible and stable safety net for employees and employers. It recognises the importance, and encourages the maintenance, of a work-family balance. The National Employment Standards and modern awards will come into effect on 1 January 2010.

There will also be a new institutional framework which will administer and regulate the new workplace relations system. Fair Work Australia will combine seven existing government agencies to provide efficient and effective assistance to employers and employees. It will incorporate the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman, who will promote cooperative workplace relations and provide education, assistance and advice. Fair Work Australia will conduct the reviews of the modern award every four years, and a specialist panel will review minimum wages. This will ensure that a fair safety net is maintained. Fair Work Australia will also set a national minimum wage order to provide minimum wages for all award-free employees. Importantly, Fair Work Australia will mediate, conciliate, deal with industrial action and unfair dismissal matters, approve agreements and assist with bargaining at the request of a party. If Fair Work Australia is unable to assist parties to reach a resolution, the matter will be dealt with by new, low-cost, informal processes in the Fair Work Divisions of the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court. New powers will be granted to the courts to remedy breaches of the act. Fair Work Australia will offer a balance of arbitration and legal proceedings.

Importantly, the legislation allows Fair Work Australia to facilitate a special bargaining stream for low-paid employees. The low-paid stream is part of the Rudd government’s commitment to enterprise level collective bargaining. Employees in industries such as child care, community services, aged care, cleaning and security often have difficulty negotiating agreements with their employers, so the focus will be on as many as possible of these workers and businesses receiving the benefits of bargaining at the enterprise level.

The new workplace relations system also offers low-paid employees access to a multi-employer bargaining stream. This allows for agreements to be put in place across a number of employers and employees. Fair Work Australia will play an active role in ensuring that equitable agreements are reached. It will assess applications for multiple employer bargaining across a number of public interest criteria, taking into consideration the interests of both workers and employers. The process of assisted enterprise bargaining offers low-paid employees greater opportunities.

Similarly, Fair Work Australia must take consideration of the circumstances and the productivity of the businesses concerned. What this means for childcare workers, for example, is that a multi-employer agreement involving a number of employers could be negotiated which establishes flexibility for employees around hours, roster and pay increases, as well as considering productivity improvements. Fair Work Australia must find the balance that is acceptable for both employer and for employee.

The Rudd government’s commitment to enterprise level collective bargaining is oriented towards a balance between workers, unions and employers to secure protection. The Fair Work Bill establishes a new framework based on enforceable good faith bargaining. Fair Work Australia will have the power to intervene when negotiations between parties break down. The bill encourages productivity and fairness through enterprise bargaining which is tailored to the needs of businesses and workers. Agreements will be approved by the majority of employees to whom they will apply. Combined with the safety net, the bill ensures that employees covered by agreements will be better off overall. Agreements must pass the better off overall test. Agreements that fall below the standards and conditions set by the safety net will be brought up to those standards.

Another important aspect of the Fair Work Bill is the reinstatement of unfair dismissal rights for the majority of employees covered by awards and agreements, including high-income earners. The bill introduces special provisions for small businesses and removes the 100-employee exemption. New qualifying periods based on the size of the business are introduced to manage unfair dismissal claims by employees. This bill also introduces a small business Fair Dismissal Code which provides a step-by-step process for small businesses to keep dismissals fair. Fair Work Australia will determine whether dismissals are just or unreasonable and provide a more efficient and less formal process.

The final aspects of the Fair Work Bill I wish to discuss are the return of freedom of association and right of entry. These two aspects of the bill relate specifically to employees’ rights to be represented by a union or another third party of their choice. This bill ensures that employers respect employees’ rights to be represented by a union. It eliminates discrimination based on association and provides more effective remedies to discriminative acts. This bill re-establishes the right of union representatives to enter workplaces where they do and where they do not have members. It allows for union meetings to be held with members and nonmembers at appropriate times and places within the workplace. Union representatives will be required to provide employers with 24 hours notice of intended visits and behave in a fit and proper manner appropriate to their position as employee representatives.

The Fair Work Bill continues the rights of union representatives to investigate alleged breaches of workplace obligations. Union representatives will not be required to release the names and details of the members involved and will be allowed access to all records pertaining to the investigation. To guarantee the protection of all employees—members and nonmembers—this bill includes new provisions against the misuse of information and utilises the Privacy Act 1998 to make sure that employees’ personal information is protected. The bill formulates a fair and proper balance between the rights of employees to meet with their representatives and the rights of employers to manage their businesses without unwarranted interference.

In conclusion, as the year comes to a close, the Fair Work Bill 2008 signifies that the end is just the beginning. The Rudd government will continue to honour its election commitments. It will implement and monitor the new and democratised workplace relations system, which guarantees social inclusion for all Australian workers and economic prosperity for the nation. Moving Australia forward with fairness, the Rudd government will continue to meet the needs of the Australian people in the 21st century. I commend the Fair Work Bill 2008 to the House.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the current economic climate—with business confidence in tatters, with unemployment rising and with the historic challenges that we face in the financial markets—and in the investment climate generally, I have a lot of sympathy with the view that is being expressed by many commentators and other people that it is strange indeed for us to be adding, following an unprecedented era of economic growth and development, this type of reform to that series of challenges. It is indeed a risk that we may come to regret in this place.

If we examine what happened in the previous era of government, the 13 years of the Howard government—an era that saw the lowest unemployment rate in 33 years, a youth participation rate that ranked second amongst OECD countries, a real increase in wages over and above inflation of nearly 22 per cent and strikes and disputations at historic lows—we come to see that the current government have difficulty in defining what the problem is that they are trying to fix. What is it that they are trying to solve with the legislation that they have put before us?

The parliamentary secretary and member for Bennelong outlined that social inclusion was her priority. I would maintain that, if you are seeking social inclusion, it is very hard to be included in society if you do not have a job. It is very hard to participate in society when you do not have the ability to go to work, earn a living and provide for your family. We need to be saying—and I think the parliamentary secretary and member for Bennelong left out a few yeses—yes to jobs, low disputations and record low levels of industrial disputes and no to the return of the unions into every workplace in the country.

It is hard to see how many provisions of the Fair Work Bill 2008, which are additions to the election commitments that were given by the government prior to the election, will benefit the employment chances of ordinary Australians. The unions are enjoying a major comeback from the provisions of this view and at this time and in the current climate this may run contrary to the interests of the Australian people. If you ask the Australian people whether they voted for a return of unfettered union influence into every workplace, that is certainly not something that was proposed at the election and not something that people voted for and sought to achieve.

We are seeing a challenge here to the best interests of the economy, the jobs of Australians and the ongoing prosperity of Australian families. Whether you are a pro-union person or a person who has concerns about organised labour, there is a swinging back of the balance in favour of the unions out of this legislation. In the hidden provisions of this bill there is a return of things like pattern bargaining and the effective entry to any workplace that a union chooses to enter. The parliamentary secretary, the member for Bennelong, confirms that when she says that a union would have the right to access a workplace regardless of whether they had union members there or not. I think it was a footnote to her speech, but it is quite an outrageous contention that a union have the right to enter a workplace where they have no union members and seek access to the records and information of people that want no truck with being involved in a union.

If we look at some prominent cases from prior to the election, the Cowra abattoir is a very good example of an enterprise that had a problem with the previous Work Choices legislation and many of the attempts by the Howard government to alter and ameliorate some of those concerns, such as the fairness test, were introduced to resolve some of those concerns. However, it is reported today in the Australian that the Cowra abattoir has new concerns about further industrial relations changes in Australia and many of the things that we are facing here in this bill before us tonight. The owner, who is a former union organiser for the abattoir, Mr Cummins, has come forward and said that he is now concerned about pattern bargaining within his sector and how that may have the capacity to put his new business out of business. He says:

We already pay more than award (wages); we pay for a lot of things we don’t have to … We even pay bonuses. (But) there’s no two abattoirs that are the same. That additional cost to any business could tip them over, it’s not viable.

That is from the mouth of a former union organiser. I could not have put it better myself. The reintroduction of things like pattern bargaining across our economy at such a difficult time could well tip many businesses over the edge. That will lead to higher unemployment and the reluctance of many employers to take on more employees.

This is not a concern that is unique to the Cowra abattoir. There are many businesses and business groups, including the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who have severe concerns over the pattern bargaining provisions within the bill before us today. One of the main threats that is posed in the Fair Work Bill is to the employment prospects of many Australians. We know that in the life of the last Labor government a million Australians were out of work. We also know that the OECD has forecast that 200,000 Australians will lose their jobs by 2010 regardless of whether we pass this bill before the House or not. When the provisions of this bill are implemented, that may rise. If we destabilise the climate in the economy further by radical industrial relations reform, we may add to that burden of unemployment.

Last week we had the extraordinary claim in this place that the opposition did not have a policy on jobs, that we think that nothing should be done to protect jobs, to protect families and to protect households. There is nothing more that we could have done than provide the lowest level of unemployment in 33 years, to what economists regard as full employment at four per cent. I accept the contention from many economists that unemployment is directly affected by labour relations practices and the labour market and, if you are seeking to ensure that you have a stable labour market, the way to do that is not to pass legislation which seeks to return organised labour to the fore of economic disputation at a time when you have a severe financial crisis.

This weekend we had the Rudd government’s ridiculous attempts to pass the buck on job creation to the states, and I think this is a product of the fact that somebody in the government understands that unemployment is going to be affected by this bill. You had billions of dollars being handed to state governments with the by-line, ‘Go and create jobs.’ They are supposed to create 133,000 jobs—an arbitrary figure. These sorts of airy-fairy instructions to go and create jobs represent the best that the Rudd government can come up with in the face of rising unemployment. The OECD has forecast that 200,000 Australians will lose their jobs by 2010. To my mind, this instruction to the state governments to go and create jobs with the money that the federal government is providing is a false instruction.

With this bill we are facing unfettered union access to workplaces and a return to pattern bargaining. High levels of disputation must surely follow from such changes to the law. If we look at what is behind this instruction to the states to go and create jobs, it seems that it must be to try and ameliorate the impact that they know will occur from unfettered union access to workplaces: an increase in the levels of disputation, which have been at such historic lows. But there is a problem with that philosophy: the government cannot create the jobs the economy needs and any attempt to do so will distort the market further and make it harder for businesses and individuals.

In New South Wales we have more public sector workers than we have ever had, but if you went to an ordinary citizen in New South Wales and said, ‘Are you getting better outcomes from the bureaucracy that has more workers than at any point in New South Wales history?’ you would be laughed out of town. Indeed, we have seen the prominent example of railway workers who have been going to work for 12 months, sitting in front of televisions and playing cards and who finally have come forward and said, ‘We just want work to do; give us work to do.’ That is how you get a problem when you say to governments, ‘Go and create jobs.’ I do not think it is an instruction that will result in higher employment levels within our country.

Businesses are certainly under a crippling regime of taxes in New South Wales. If we want to do something to encourage employment, instead of changing and interfering with our industrial relations system, which has led to record low unemployment and levels of industrial disputation, we should be doing something to alleviate the taxation burden on small business. Payroll taxes in states cripple employment prospects. This government’s message seems to be: ‘Let’s take all this money from people. Let’s take it off through income taxes, the GST and a whole raft of federal and state government taxes. Let’s take it from entrepreneurs and small business people, the people who create jobs and employ people and the doers in our society. Then we’re going to reissue it to the likes of the New South Wales state government with the cheap and tawdry line that this will somehow create jobs.’ There is no doubt that that is a sham.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The honourable member will address the bill.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. There has also been much talk opposite about wages, how this bill will lead to higher wages outcomes and how modern awards, as outlined within the bill, will somehow improve wage outcomes. I also find that hard to accept, as real wages increased by over 20 per cent in the life of the previous government under the current system—and then the Work Choices system, of course—as opposed to a fall in the last Labor government. We see legislation before us today which will return us not just to the previous circumstances but further than the previous circumstances.

I also find it difficult to accept the provisions in this bill that give so much power to unions at a time when less than 25 per cent of our workforce are union members—and, of course, much less in the private sector. This legislation certainly addresses some concerns that were raised at the previous election, but we were promised by the Deputy Prime Minister that right of entry powers for unions would be retained. While this has occurred, ‘retention’ in the existing rules is something of a misnomer and is cosmetic at best. I think that when you examine the detail of this legislation before us the actual effect is to give unions the best organising conditions that they have seen for decades—something which, of course, the Deputy Prime Minister has been quoted as saying to the Labor caucus in recent times.

Unions can now enter a workplace that uses AWAs, ITEAs or non-union collective agreements, whereas before they could not. One or several unions can now enter workplaces that use an agreement made with another union, and before, of course, they could not. Unions can now access non-union-member records, and before they could not. Unions can walk into any workplace, even where they have no members, and before they could not. Restrictions on where unions could hold meetings have been loosened. Unions can now bargain with an employer about the right of entry, and before they could not. Unions are now default bargaining agents, and before they were not. Unions are likely to be automatic parties to most new enterprise agreements, and before they were not. Unions get an automatic and privileged seat at the bargaining table, with disproportionate powers, and before they did not. Restrictions on who can go to the so-called industrial umpire, Fair Work Australia, favour those represented by a union. So how can it really be said that this bill retains right of entry provisions when its detail is obviously tilted towards paying off Labor’s debt to the union movement from the last election? There are but a handful of measures left in this bill that will allow a workplace to keep out the unions where they are not wanted. The parliamentary secretary, the member for Bennelong, speaks of freedom of association. The parliamentary secretary has the gall to speak of freedom of association when we see that there are just a handful of measures left in the bill that will allow a workplace to keep out a union when the union is not wanted.

There is no doubt that we see a deviation from election promises, and in this place we have seen much made in the last year of keeping to election promises. In this bill before the House, there is no doubt that the balance is swung heavily back in favour of the unions, something that was not voted for, or sought by, the Australian people. There is no mandate for many provisions of this bill, including the return of compulsory arbitration. One of the real tests of this government and its industrial relations policies is obviously going to be how benchmarks like employment and real wages fare in coming years. If we look at some of the reaction to the announcement of this legislation from people who are close to the union movement, we can see some of the things that I am talking about here. Already since the election of the Rudd government we have seen, for example, a significant increase in industrial disputes over the past year. Disputes have significantly increased, from 36 in the December 2007 quarter to 60 in the June 2008 quarter. Working days lost due to industrial action have increased over the same period from 24,000 to 86,000. These are very worrying figures given the current challenges that we face.

Following the introduction of this bill into the House last week:

Louise Tarrant, the national secretary of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, said the Fair Work bill would be a failure if it did not deliver higher wages for low-paid workers.

Ms Tarrant said the bill “gives us the facility to try to get some sector-wide solutions”. “There is a very compelling logic as to why you want an industry-wide settlement (in industries such as childcare, cleaning, hotels, and security),” she told The Australian.

Indeed, I think that is a very revealing reaction from a prominent union organiser to the provisions of this bill that is before the House—’sector-wide solutions’. It indicates a return to pattern bargaining in industries such as child care. Ms Tarrant, perhaps, could not have picked a worse first example of where we need sector-wide labour solutions when we are looking at the closure of dozens upon dozens of childcare centres, including in my own electorate of Mitchell, where up to six or seven ABC centres are closing as a result of the problems that they have had. Sector-wide solutions do not exist. If we listen to the owner of the Cowra abattoir, he says that no two businesses are the same, and of course he has that just about right.

So the test of this bill before the House today is going to be in the benchmarks like employment and real wages, what happens to unemployment and how the levels of strikes and disputations rise in what we are going to see as difficult economic times. It is, of course, disturbing that one union member in a workplace can give a union unfettered power to access that workplace and the personal records of so many employees even if the employees do not want it.

I heard the member for Canberra, speaking on this bill, say that the unions are simply the bogeymen in the minds of the opposition. Well, I would say in response to the member for Canberra that, with the provisions in this bill that will allow unions unfettered access to workplaces, the bogeymen will not be just in our minds anymore. The bogeymen will be in the workplaces of those workers who do not want them there. They will be in every workplace, because this legislation, if passed, will allow them to be.

While the government may have a mandate to remove Work Choices—and indeed the opposition have indicated that Work Choices is now no longer coalition policy; it is dead as an issue with us—this legislation does breach commitments given by the government at the election because it adds so many components that they know will return union power to the Australian workplace relations system. That will mean unprecedented levels of union power and unprecedented conditions for unions to organise. That will indeed be a retrograde step, and that is why we in this place ought to seek to amend those provisions in another place.

As I said, while the government may have been given a mandate to remove Work Choices, they have gone too far with some elements of this legislation, and I believe those elements should be sent to another place to be reconsidered. Otherwise, it will be the case that those bogeymen are no longer just in the minds of the opposition; they will be real. They will be in the workplaces of ordinary Australians, and I think that when the ordinary workers of this country are confronted with the fact that those conditions for unions to organise are back we will see a different attitude prevail with regard to workplace relations in Australia.

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

This is a very special moment for me because tonight I have the opportunity to make good on the promises that I made to members of my community throughout the election just a little over a year ago. The issue of Work Choices was without question the No. 1 election issue in my electorate of Lindsay. Having campaigned for a period of about seven months and having doorknocked extensively—some 23,000 homes during that time—I can say that Work Choices was the one issue that kept coming up. It was the issue that had turned many people who had previously supported the Howard government away from that government and into the arms of the Labor Party. For the first time in a long time, those people supported us. They supported us because they understood a number of very basic propositions.

Firstly, they believed instinctively—and I think it has been shown to be true by the evidence that has emerged, certainly since that time—that the Work Choices laws had gone too far and the pendulum had swung too far away from employees. The balance in the workplace had shifted that pendulum towards employers and had left employees vulnerable and at the mercy of arbitrary action in their workplaces. Many of them told me their stories about how Work Choices had impacted on them, on their children, on other members of their family and on their friends. These laws violated one of the most fundamental principles that we in this country believe in, and that is the fair go—the principle of the fair go.

I have yet to meet a person who believes that in the workplace, in the overwhelming majority of cases, an employee can sit down and somehow bargain with equal power with their employer. This is one of those principles that the Australian people understood. People understand the dynamics of their workplace. There is no question that there are some people who, due to their skills and the bargaining power that they bring to the table, will be able to negotiate a reasonable agreement. As someone who previously worked as a solicitor for a large firm of lawyers I can say that I saw many people who had trained for many years at university to advocate on behalf of clients, to take up a case against an opponent and to prosecute that case with vigour. Yet I have to say that, in my observation, many of those in my workplace who had been trained in all those skills and made a living out of advocating on behalf of others found it very difficult to put their own case forward when they sat down for their own remuneration discussions.

Now, if a person who has been trained at high levels to do that, who spends every moment of their working day out there representing other people, finds it difficult to sit at a table one-on-one with their employer and prosecute their own case, then what hope do the unskilled have? What hope do those who have a poor understanding of the English language or of their legal rights have? What about those who have not had the experience of advocating on behalf of others, those who would otherwise be disenfranchised within their workplace? This is something the Australian people understood very clearly, and it was something that they were moved to take action against.

What we see in the Fair Work Bill 2008 that is before the parliament is that for the first time we will have a truly national system of industrial relations, and I think that is important. The shift that is being undertaken here, away from conciliation and arbitration powers to a reliance on corporations and external affairs powers, is one of great significance. It is a shift that recognises that we are reforming our Constitution. We might not be able to do that through referenda, but we are reforming the way in which we operate at a governance level within this nation to reflect the new realities of a global economy. We have recognised the need to have a seamless national economy—and there is no reason why our system of workplace relations should not transcend the boundaries that were written on to the maps back at the time of Federation.

This is a system that is based on the principle that all employees deserve to be respected and given a fair go at work. The bill manages to bring back balance to our industrial relations system by ensuring a strong safety net, a safety net that protects the minimum conditions of all Australian workers. The bill achieves a system that restores the focus to bargaining at the enterprise level and ensures that that bargaining will occur in good faith. The bill recognises that the productivity gains that our nation needs to secure are best achieved through cooperation and negotiation at the enterprise level. That is best done collectively where employers and employees have some opportunity to negotiate on something that is a little bit closer to a level playing field.

The bill provides greater protection from unfair dismissal, and this is an important point. One of the biggest issues that had resonance in my community throughout the last election campaign and through the many interactions that I had with people in my community was the fear in those workplaces of fewer than 100 employees, and we were told anything with fewer than 100 employees was a small business. If I can just digress for a moment, the only suggestion that was ever put forward in the preceding term of parliament before the 2004 election by the then Howard government was that they would introduce new unfair dismissal laws that provided an exemption to small businesses with fewer than 15 employees. That strikes me as something closer to a small business than something with fewer than 100 employees. In making that point, I think it is important to note that one of the things that people resented most about the Work Choices laws—and I know that they resented this because they kept telling me—was that the Howard government went to the 2004 election without putting these plans on the table. Introducing the Work Choices laws occurred only because the Howard government secured a majority in the Senate. They saw an opportunity. The then Prime Minister saw an opportunity to deliver on one of the great dreams that he had always held, and that was to reform the industrial relations system in a way that shifted the pendulum dramatically in the direction of the employer. He did not miss the mark, but people resented the fact that he did not put his proposals on the table before the election.

We heard from the member for Mitchell, who says that Work Choices is dead, yet there he was with the defibrillator trying to bring it back to life. In fact, it is not dead at all when it comes to those on the other side. The old saying that a leopard never changes its spots is absolutely true when it comes to those on the other side. This is an article of faith for them. Maybe this is just Lazarus with a triple bypass, but I can tell you that they believe in this stuff. They will not be giving up on it lightly and, in the same way they went to the 2004 election without telling people that they had plans to introduce Work Choices, they will go to the next election telling people they have no such plans. In the same way as after their electoral defeat in 1993 they suffered as a result of their attempts to try and introduce the GST and to introduce more radical industrial relations reform, they said, ‘Look, we have learnt; we have heard the message of the Australian people.’ They heard it all right, but at the very next opportunity they had they went back to their old form and tried to introduce the very reforms that the Australian people had already rejected.

I hear those on the other side, and in particular the member for Mitchell, say, ‘What a terrible thing to be introducing laws like this at a time when the international economy is taking a turn for the worse.’ Let me make this point: there is no question that this country is facing greater pressures when it comes to unemployment in the same way as other nations throughout the world are because of the impact of the global financial crisis and the flow-through effects of that to the rest of the economy. There is no question we face those challenges. But what do people in our communities expect and demand of us? I know what they demand of me in my community, and that is that I make good on the election commitments that I made to restore some balance to our workplaces by providing some protection against unfair dismissal occurring in an arbitrary way.

I heard many stories throughout the course of my discussions with people about how these laws, these Work Choices laws, were used to kick people out of their jobs, to sack them without any good reason and without any explanation. I remember one case in particular, a man from Cranebrook who I doorknocked. He worked for the same company for 20 years and was then dismissed without a reason and with no recourse to any protection under unfair dismissal laws. This was the sort of unfairness that was allowed to occur under the former regime and this is what we are dismantling. People in my community expect us to provide sufficient protections in the workplace so that they will be protected against arbitrary and unfair dismissal.

On the issue of individual agreements and contracts, we know that those on the other side have refused to rule out bringing them back. When this parliament last considered legislation in relation to individual statutory contracts, the opposition refused to rule that out. This was at the very heart of the unfairness of the Work Choices system. They decided to weaken the award system, to strip away the safety net and then, at the same time, to unleash the individual contract. There were many instances in my community where people came forward and told me about their unease with these individual contracts. They told me about how they were effectively being offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

We have seen from data that has been released by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations earlier this year that the Workplace Authority provided to the government details in relation to AWAs that were lodged between April and October 2006. In relation to that data, the analysis revealed the so-called protected award conditions that were most frequently removed. These included: 70 per cent removed shiftwork loadings, 68 per cent removed annual leave loadings, 65 per cent removed penalty rates, 63 per cent removed incentive based payments and bonuses, 61 per cent removed days to be substituted for public holidays and the list goes on.

In my community many people survive on their penalty rates. Many people see their penalty rates as being the thing that supplements their income to give them the basic and decent standard of living that they require to provide for themselves and their families. To put them in a position where their penalty rates were under threat was to threaten the very viability of the household budget for many people—and that is why people revolted against this. I am pleased to see that there will not be individual statutory contracts. There will be opportunities for flexibility in the form of individual flexibility arrangements.

My predecessor the former member for Lindsay would often say that one of the great things about AWAs was that they allowed people to secure better, more family-friendly outcomes in their agreements. Well, I have not seen many of those—in fact I have seen no evidence of that at all. But these provisions—individual flexibility arrangements—will allow that sort of flexibility to be achieved. Most importantly, as with all bargaining under this regime, it will have to satisfy the ‘better off overall’ test. It is that test, combined with the strong safety net, that will protect the rights of working people.

In addition to that, we are restoring the strength of an independent umpire. Those on the other side under the former regime decided to whittle away the power of the independent umpire because they believed in freedom of contract, so they kept telling us. I just want to make one point about freedom of contract which I find to be bizarre—and that is in relation to these transmission of business provisions. The transmission of business provisions that were introduced by those on the other side basically said that, for a company acquiring a new company or business, after 12 months the effect of any employment agreements that were in place basically came to an end. I find that to be bizarre, because anyone who has ever acted in matters involving the acquisition of businesses knows that anyone looking to acquire a business or a company undertakes due diligence; and when you acquire the new company you acquire it with all the encumbrances—the legal contractual obligations that the company has already entered into. So if we believe in freedom of contract and we believe in the free market, then why should the employment contracts with individual workers be any different to that? Well, the answer is that they should not be and that is why we are restoring the position there and addressing that issue.

I want to conclude by quoting Ross Gittins, the economist and columnist with the Sydney Morning Herald. He said on Saturday 29 November this year:

… the new industrial relations legislation the Rudd Government unveiled this week establishes a reasonably even-handed treatment of employers, employees and their unions.

He goes on to say in relation to bargaining:

Of course, to be even-handed in a situation where the bargaining power of an employer and that of an individual employee are so hugely unequal requires government to provide employees with a degree of assistance.

That’s what was so unfair about Work Choices. It reduced the degree of protection afforded to employees while promoting individual contracts ...

We can add to that that the unfairness of it was in stripping away protections under unfair dismissal to make people even more vulnerable in the workplace. This legislation will right a massive wrong that was inflicted upon the Australian people. Those on the other side will say that Work Choices is dead but we know that in their heart of hearts they still cling to this stuff because they believe in it. We will keep fighting them on it because the Australian people deserve better than Work Choices; they deserve what they are getting here. I conclude by commending the minister for the outstanding work that she has done in bringing together the disparate views that exist in this debate to achieve what I think is an outstanding piece of legislation, and I am very proud to be able to get up and speak in support of it tonight.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Bill 2008. As a new member in this place this year I was not around to hear and see the debates that took place over previous years. Yet the past is clearly gone, Work Choices is finished and the coalition accepts that the policy was rejected by the Australian people at the last federal election. This does not, however, mean that the Rudd government has been given a blank cheque to unleash militant unionism into the Australian economy. The coalition of course stand by our achievements on jobs, inflation within the band across the cycle, economic growth figures and the surplus that was created out of a dreadful legacy of Labor’s last term in government—which amounted to $96 billion of debt. But, not surprisingly, the government continues to ignore the facts of the past.

In regard to jobs growth, we know that over the term of the last government over 2.2 million jobs were created—1.2 million were full time and around 950,000 were part time. That was between March 1996 and November 2007. Even during the short period of Work Choices, 438,600 additional jobs were created. This fact directly contradicts the claims by the then Labor opposition and the union movement that Work Choices would result in mass sackings by unscrupulous bosses.

In October 2007 the unemployment rate was just 4.3 per cent, and it is always worth repeating that for 21 consecutive months the unemployment rate was below five per cent under the previous government—in direct contrast to the rate under the previous Labor government, which peaked at 10.9 per cent. If you look at any of the employment figures, they show that more people got jobs under the coalition. There is no doubt that this was largely the result of the various reforms of the industrial relations system introduced under the Howard government. It seems like a distant fond memory now as we contemplate the future—with unemployment predicted to rise by 200,000, which means roughly about 1,300-odd jobs per electorate; inflation at five per cent; growth in the one per cent band and a surplus that may still exist in 2009, yet that is looking increasingly unlikely. So members of the former government should remain proud of their record.

The other thing that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations enjoys talking about is how wages were trashed by the previous government’s laws. The only trouble with this is that real wages continued to increase. There was a 20.8 per cent increase in real wages over the period of the coalition government—easily contrasted with the record of the previous Labor government of a 1.8 per cent decrease. So the facts are that even under Work Choices wages grew by more than under the previous Labor government.

In spite of what was done and where this country stood in these important areas of real economics, the Australian people still decided that there would be a change of government last year. As part of that decision at the election there is little doubt that some Australians voted on the basis of dissatisfaction with the former government’s industrial relations changes. That is what prompted the Leader of the Opposition to say that we accept the government’s mandate for workplace relations—a mandate for those policies that were taken to the Australian people—but soon I will get to the departures from Labor policy that we are now seeing.

I would also say that although the coalition has accepted the concept of a mandate in this case, the concept of a mandate was always lost on the Labor Party during the years of the previous government. That was most evident during the introduction of the overhaul of the Australian taxation system in 2000. This was despite it being a pivotal part of the coalition’s policy manifesto for the 1998 election. Unfortunately, the Labor opposition did not respect that electoral mandate. It is worth noting that during the Hawke-Keating governments the coalition respected their mandates and supported a number of significant economic reforms.

I will move onto the core of what the government says this legislation is all about. What we have constantly heard from the minister is the fear and uncertainty that some Australians had of holding onto their jobs under the last government. As previous speakers from this side have said, this legislation and this government will be judged by the maintenance of existing jobs and the growing of more jobs over this term of government.

In Western Australia the previous industrial relations regime did not have a negative effect on my election. In Western Australia the people were used to seeing the public face of militant unions, embodied by the Secretary of the CFMEU, Kevin Reynolds. They saw the CFMEU bolster their protest-march numbers by bringing their children along on the hot days of early 2007. Perhaps what they did not see was the top-of-the-line Range Rover that Kevin Reynolds had as his vehicle. I contrast this with photos I have seen of him in the past, when he was happy, on one occasion, to have a photo taken in Cuba where he was talking up socialism with the comrades. Yet these days he enjoys the trappings of the exalted position of secretary of the union, with a vehicle of a new value of around $125,000. Some may say that such a luxury vehicle was just a one-off—a one-off, just like his apartment at the Raffles Hotel site, which was, apparently, merely the result of good investments! I hear there was great industrial harmony on the site of the Raffles Hotel development, which no doubt led to the apartment being completed and available at the right price. Kevin Reynolds is clearly the epitome of the battling worker! Although some may say that I digress, this remains very relevant.

Let us look at the changes, under this bill, to the right of entry. In August 2007 the now Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister issued a joint press release highlighting that ‘federal Labor will maintain the existing right of entry provisions’. In an attempt to appease the business lobby, the Deputy Prime Minister told the Master Builders Association that Labor had promised to retain the current right of entry framework and that this promise too would be kept. The government has no credibility when it comes to criticising the coalition on non-core promises, because what was said was that they would maintain the existing right of entry conditions. There was no mention of them being increased, decreased or having extra areas added; they spoke of maintenance of the existing arrangements.

Under this legislation Kevin Reynolds will be able to view the company records of non-union-members on the work sites of Western Australia. EBAs can also include a range of right of entry terms across different issues. On Thursday 27 November the West Australian newspaper reported that union officials would be able, after giving 24-hours notice, to inspect and copy the time and wage records of both union and non-union employees. This means free access to time and wage records. There was a time when there was still some protection, some privacy in this country, but it looks as if that is now being legislated out, through this bill, by the Rudd government. Strangely, there has been silence by the Australian Council of Civil Liberties in relation to this. Surely this would represent an intrusion on individual privacy by union officials.

It has also been said that union officials can initiate meetings during meals and other breaks in order to conduct recruitment activities. Is that true? So if this legislation is not amended, the lunch rooms and indeed the lunch breaks in this country will no longer be sacrosanct. Eating a sandwich will have to be on the run, because sitting down may involve an unsolicited conversation where someone can lawfully hassle you to join the union. Instead of asking whether you want fries with that, they may just ask you if you want an industry superannuation fund or insurance with that union membership.

Of course while employers are expressing that sort of concern, the counterpoint to that comes from the CFMEU national secretary who is quoted by the West Australian newspaper as saying, ‘A few noisy, extreme employer groups shouldn’t be allowed to dictate what’s fair and just in this country.’ No doubt the national secretary has in mind who should and who already has dictated what is fair in this country. I would imagine that the national secretaries of many unions have a great deal of influence in this place—certainly not on this side, but without doubt they have influence on the other side. You need only look back through Hansard at the first speeches to know who was anointed by the powerful unions. Those that owe their place here or in the other place, to the nod or the imprimatur of a union, owe their souls to those same powerbrokers. Those that were replaced in preselections for the 2007 election by union heavyweights—and I mention the electorates of Maribyrnong and Charlton—know that they were on the wrong side of the numbers. This means that those who remain know that they are obliged to toe the line as well, as directed by the unions that control the numbers for their preselections. In the safe Labor seats, our opponents know who their main constituents really are—that is, the unions. Preselection, campaign contributions and booth workers are provided for those who toe the line. Oblivion awaits those that are not as well connected, and the preselections before the 2007 election, as I stated, saw the premature retirement of a number of the less well connected.

The next issue I would like to cover is the matter of pattern bargaining. Pattern bargaining is where unions seek to have a list of claims won across a number of industries or businesses, regardless of the individual businesses’ ability to pay. Of course the minister rejects that this bill will see a return to pattern bargaining because, she has told us, strikes to back such claims would be prevented. Yet a strike is just one weapon in the union arsenal. The point remains that this bill will actually allow the attempt to achieve a pattern bargain. We should also never forget that at the end of the process the pattern can be achieved if the government’s Fair Work Australia decides to impose a settlement. This pattern bargaining is possible because multi-employer bargaining has been allowed under this bill, as the government says, in order to assist lower paid workers. Yet it is difficult to really determine where the threshold is for the term ‘lower paid’. This will be a key point in addressing the need for amendments to this bill, when it comes to consideration of it in the other place, as the problems with pattern bargaining may still arise.

I reiterate that businesses have to have an ability to pay, otherwise we may see businesses fail and then everyone loses their jobs. Indeed, the story on the front page of the Australian highlights this fact. Owner of Cowra Meat Processors, Chris Cummins, is noted as highlighting his concerns that pattern bargaining would be highly detrimental to his operations. The government’s proposed industrial relations reforms may force Mr Cummins to close his business as a result. How would that make work fairer for his employees?

In May of last year the minister was quoted as saying:

Pattern bargaining, in the sense of having industry-wide action, is unlawful under Labor’s Forward with Fairness plans.

The Minister for Finance and Deregulation was quoted as saying:

We do not accept that pattern bargaining is legitimate.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts commented:

Once we’re in we will change it all.

That rings true. Pattern bargaining is another policy detail which did not form part of Labor’s electoral mandate. Where was the reintroduction of pattern bargaining mentioned in their campaign manifesto? You can go through it with a magnifying glass all you want but you will never find it.

Of course, the issue of individual agreements was dealt with by the parliament earlier in the year. AWAs can no longer be made, yet I note that individual statutory agreements still remain in a form. I wonder how the focused hatred of the unions and their federal government can come to terms with that anomaly. I suppose that pragmatism outweighed ideology in an attempt to keep businesses on side. It may be worth while to note that by the end of July 2007 there were approximately 811,000 AWAs in operation, indicating that they were not as unpopular as was claimed by Labor and the unions.

I, like many of my colleagues, have received emails as part of a concerted union campaign to get the government to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC. No doubt we have seen the television advertisements as well, decrying the fact that those who commit unlawful practices would actually be punished for their actions. Perish that thought! I have suffered under the withering onslaught of 15 emails, yet somehow I think I can withstand it. There are many justifications as to why the ABCC should be left as it currently stands. Indeed, it was a significant factor behind an economic welfare gain of $5.1 billion to the community and a 10 per cent increase in industry productivity. It also led to a significant reduction in sector industrial disputations by an astounding 91.9 per cent. The number of working days lost per 1,000 employees in Australia was also slashed from a high of 104.6 under the Keating government to just 0.8 under the Howard government. This represents the lowest quarterly rate ever recorded by the ABS. Why would you get rid of something that clearly works?

Some members on the opposite side of the House may question, and have questioned, how the ABCC is relevant to this bill. It is directly relevant as this bill plans to weaken it by stealth by allowing unions to have access to a vastly increased number of workplaces. The extent to which this will occur as a result of this legislation was also not mentioned by Labor prior to the 2007 election. It is not at all surprising that Labor would break their electoral promises in relation to industrial relations, considering where their true interests lie. Labor do not govern for all Australians as they may claim but, in fact, for only a small minority of the population bound by the same ideology.

As noted by the editorial in the West Australian on Wednesday, 26 November:

In tough economic times, the last thing we need is an emphasis on ideology rather than individual enterprise and a climate in which militant unionists can feel empowered to pursue an aggressive agenda.

This emphasis on ideology is exactly what this Labor government are doing. This editorial also conveys the strong apprehension of Western Australians towards the Rudd government’s industrial relations legislation. As mentioned earlier it is not surprising, considering that the only two seats won from the Labor Party by the Liberal Party, including my electorate of Cowan, which I am honoured to represent, are in Western Australia. My state saw firsthand the damage caused by rampant militant unionists who were responsible for delays in critical infrastructure projects, including the former Carpenter Labor state government’s pet project, the Perth to Mandurah railway line. Comments by union leader Joe McDonald prior to last year’s election, when he said, ‘We’re coming back,’ were indeed a forewarning of things to come under a Labor government fixated on ideology to appease their campaign financiers in the union movement. Western Australians do not wish our state to return to the soft-gloves approach favoured by the Rudd government, and there is undoubtedly a correlation between the actions of Reynolds and Co. and the strong preference for the coalition in Western Australia.

During the economic prosperous times experienced under the Howard government, Western Australia was in many respects the engine room of the Australian economy. Whether this will continue during the economically uncertain times we now face, as well as a result of Fair Work Australia, remains to be seen. I, for one, hope that this is the case, but I do have significant concerns in this regard. This view is shared by Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout, who has noted that the laws had the potential to damage the economy. Ridout is often quoted by the Prime Minister during ministerial statement time, which we previously knew as question time. However, I cannot help but notice that this view has been completely ignored by the government on this occasion.

For those opposite, Work Choices represented an attempt by the Howard government to abolish the union movement. This could not be further from the truth. We do not begrudge those Australians who wish to be members of a union. Individual choice is, of course, a strong Liberal value which I strongly advocate. The coalition recognises the unions’ previous role as guardians of workplace rights for ordinary Australians. Today’s unions, however, are a far cry from those in days long past. What we do have a problem with is when the selfish and narrow-minded behaviour of some militant unions reduces the capacity of Australian industry to be more productive and thus more prosperous, yet this is exactly what the Fair Work Bill would do if passed in full.

The coalition will not prevent the government from passing this bill. However, we reserve the right to make amendments to it in the interests of the Australian economy and to prevent the detrimental impacts it would have on jobs and job creation if this legislation were passed in its current form. I am extremely proud of the coalition’s record with regard to employment under the previous government. We will do everything we can to preserve this important legacy into the future because without jobs there can be no prosperity for Australians.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with much pleasure that I rise today to speak to this very important bill. For the record, I am the first Labor member in more than 76 years to represent the seat of Corangamite. There is a very clear reason why that happened, other than my natural charms. It is because of the previous government’s absolute ideological obsession with its Work Choices legislation, which ripped away more than 100 years of industrial history within Australia. In 1901, when Federation occurred, Australians went about building a modern economy, building a set of rights in the workplace that enable people to aspire to what it is that we currently call Australian values. Three years ago the previous government and the previous Prime Minister, who had completely lost touch, took to the Australian people their Work Choices legislation following the previous election. The Australian people at the 2007 election rejected the then Prime Minister’s ideological obsession with doing workers in the eye.

It was my great pleasure to be able to communicate, along with the trade union movement within my seat, in a very direct fashion with voters. In my seat a battle took place over people’s doormats, in people’s workplaces, in people’s communities. We took a new way forward to the people in Corangamite which overturned three years of history. The three years of history that I refer to is, of course, Work Choices. Work Choices stripped away from Australians more than 100 years worth of collective industrial history. Of course I was very proud to be associated with that campaign.

The Work Choices legislation removed from Australians the very essence that makes Australians what we are—that is, the essence of a fair go. The then coalition government felt very clearly that we should not give those who have a collective spirit, those who wish to give a leg-up to their next-door neighbour, their colleague in the workplace, an opportunity. That opportunity was absolutely essential to what makes Australia what it is today. The Australian people rejected the ideology that Work Choices was based on—that is, it is a winner takes all society. We do not want a society that is based on that. We want a society where your next-door neighbour looks after you, you look after your family, you look after your colleagues in the workplace. We do not want a winner takes all society in which your relationship with your employer is critical to how you get remunerated. We know that if we go down that path that many people in the Australian community will be disadvantaged, particularly those who come from a different background to many other people, particularly those who come from a history of repression. And we might be talking about women, we might be talking about those who come from an ethnic background. Their capacities are no less than any other white collar bloke, but in the system of Work Choices those sorts of things were disregarded. It was very much based on a winner takes all approach.

Australian workplaces have very much been built on a system that enables us to have a minimum set of terms and conditions that are fair, that are transparent, that enable people to collectively bargain around productivity; a system in which the spoils of rewards from successful businesses would be shared not only amongst the shareholders but also those who provided the labour. In Corangamite, a seat that we have not held for 76 years, we took to the people within the electorate two questions. Those questions, I think, were very important throughout not only Corangamite but also the nation. The questions were: what is a fair go? What is it that makes Australia Australia? The answer to that is the sense of a fair go, the sense of being able to give those who may come from different backgrounds the same opportunities as the rest of us, the sense of being able to restore family values in the workplace so those who have responsibility for their families, those who have responsibilities in their communities, can take that time required to care for their families, to care for their communities.

Work Choices turned that on its head. In my view, Work Choices very much took humanity out of the equation. It became an equation based much more around the economics. It removed the fair go from the equation. It threatened the values that make Australia what it is. Like many other people who chose to pursue a career in politics—of course on the Labor side—in conjunction with our friends within the trade union movement I took these questions to people’s doorsteps. We knocked on their doors and talked to them about what Work Choices meant to them, their families and their communities. We asked them whether this was what they wanted or whether they aspired to something very different. In Corangamite, along with many other electorates that are now held by Labor—often for the first time in many years if not, like Corangamite, many generations—the answer was clear: we do not wish to have the jackboot placed on our necks in our workplaces. We wish to have the opportunity to continue to keep the values that we aspire to as Australians. That was very clearly what came through.

We have all seen the statistics relating to Work Choices. Those statistics show that under Work Choices—under Howard’s AWAs—people were denied rights and entitlements that often had been built up over generations. For the first time since Federation many Australian workers actually had fewer rights in the workplace than their fathers and mothers. For the first time in our industrial history, Australia had gone backwards.

This bill restores the notion that Labor first introduced into this place in 1993. That notion, of course, was that bargaining should be based very clearly on productivity. If the workers in conjunction with their employers were able to demonstrate and deliver productivity, then they would share in the spoils. We would all have the opportunity to move forward. Of course, Work Choices turned that on its head. This bill, which I must say is a very Labor bill, gives workers and enterprises the opportunity to bargain collectively on productivity to really drive our economy forward. With the economic financial crisis that we are now suffering and the effects that might flow from it in the next 12 to 24 months, can you imagine what the consequences would have been under Work Choices? I think they would have been very dire. This bill will give the opportunity for employees to engage with their employers, with or without a union, on productivity. They will be able to implement measures in their workplaces that will make the workplace more profitable and more competitive and give those enterprises the capacity to provide better incomes for not only the shareholders or board directors but also the workers.

An enormous number of disputes have taken place in workplaces over the last 12 to 24 months which there has been no mechanism to resolve. Cochlear Ltd comes to mind, where the employer has refused, despite the wishes of its employees, to collectively bargain. There are many other examples where rogue employers have done the wrong thing time and time again under Work Choices. I believe this bill will provide the flexibility and the opportunity for a fair go, reinforce Australian values and create the opportunity to move forward. Under Work Choices we did not see this. Under Work Choices we saw rogue employer after rogue employer doing the wrong things, very much dragging down that which makes Australia what it is.

The new bill is a very Labor bill and it will very much assist working families. It will enable not only productivity bargaining but the opportunity to resolve disputes in a meaningful and expeditious way. It will not lead to a situation in which there is continual disagreement or disputation between employees and employers. It sets a new flexible safety net; it creates a new opportunity for us to bargain around maternity leave, paternity leave and all of the other things that will lead to a more productive and better society.

When I look at the changes that have taken place in the Australian workplace over the last 100 years, I see very clearly that a huge number of those gains have come from the efforts and hard work of employers working collectively and productively with unions, leading to reforms such as weekends, the eight-hour day—which came out of Victoria—and superannuation. There is no doubt that Work Choices denied the opportunity for further advancements in the workplace. If we had continued to tolerate those very unjust laws in the workplace, I very much doubt that we would have the capacity that we currently have to ride out the international financial crisis. I look forward to continuing to work with the trade union movement over the years to come to ensure productivity bargaining and to give a leg up to those that have minimum wage jobs. I think that is absolutely fundamental to the sense of a fair go and to the values of Australians.

In conclusion, as I said earlier, my seat has not had a Labor member for 76 years. I joined with the trade union movement in a doorknocking campaign, talking to people about their rights in the workplace and the laws that those opposite voted for that denied people the opportunity to have a fair go and continue to appreciate the values that make Australia Australia. I commend the bill to the House. I think it is a fabulous Labor bill and I very much look forward to my ongoing commitment and engagement with the trade union movement.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Bill 2008. I speak as a representative of an electorate that has consistently recorded unemployment statistics below the national average. As such, I am very concerned at the practical implementation of this bill and the outcomes it will produce for the employment outlook in Australia and, more locally, in my electorate in north-east Victoria. No discussion of this magnitude should be undertaken without reference to what has come before. The former coalition government created a golden era of employment, an age of prosperity, that produced economic conditions that underpinned our socioeconomic growth and our foundation for thriving employment and economic prospects. More than 2.2 million jobs were created. The participation rate grew to levels unseen in Australia. Unemployment dropped to 4.3 per cent—a 33-year low. There was a 20.8 per cent increase in real wages under the period of the coalition government, as opposed to a 1.8 per cent decrease under Labor’s last period in government. Female participation in the workforce was up, as was that for youth, where Australia ranked second highest in the OECD in the 15- to 24-year ranks for employment. The number of working days lost to industrial disputation fell dramatically to the point where, in the March 2007 quarter, the lowest ever quarterly rate of days lost to strikes was recorded.

As we are all seeing, with the election of the Rudd government, prosperous Australia is unravelling. The impact of this bill on employment prospects and job creation is a matter of grave concern, particularly as we legislate at a time of serious economic decline. The sad thing is that in last year’s election campaign the coalition was portrayed as negative when it highlighted the union movement’s entrenched links with Labor and what this would mean for the future industrial relations system. The legislation we debate today is in fact the very payback for the union movement that they so dearly wished for. Joe MacDonald’s catchcry that the unions would be coming back has indeed become a reality. Unions have got what they wanted, including access to non-union-member records, right of entry to a significantly wider number of Australian workplaces and an all-important seat at the bargaining table. This bill heralds an anachronistic return to the past of union domination and appeasement. It redefines the industrial relations landscape in this country and proclaims a return to a pre-Keating era world of compulsory arbitration and the closed shop.

But in its haste to confect outrage against Work Choices, despite keeping many of its provisions, the government has not even done a rigorous analysis of what its legislation means for employment prospects or for businesses employing people. For instance, a closer look at the bill’s explanatory memorandum at regulation 232 shows:

If employers perceive that there is a risk of an unfair dismissal claim being made, then this could increase the cost of employing workers and may reduce the incentive of businesses to employ workers.

This is a very clear statement that at least one of the provisions in the legislation will lead to increased unemployment. That did not come from the Liberal Party, it did not come from anyone in the coalition and it did not come from any employer organisation. This was from the official explanatory memorandum to the bill, which was produced by very fine impartial employees who serve this parliament extremely well. This is a very clear statement that at least one of the provisions is going to be detrimental. The title of this bill is the ‘Fair Work Bill’, but the question needs to be asked: where is the fairness in an industrial relations system that forecasts higher unemployment queues? I present this challenge to every member of the other side: go to your electorates and tell them that this legislation that you herald as some mythical utopian answer to all their problems will actually increase unemployment.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s called justice.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the members opposite think that increasing the unemployment queues is just, they should speak to those young Australians who, in the early 1990s, were the victims of the recession we had to have. They should speak to them about how their lives were altered and how their employment prospects and their ability to fulfil their potential were destroyed by the recession we had to have. The test of this bill is what it does for jobs. One can have all the protections in the world, but if you do not have an economic climate where businesses are willing to employ people then these protections count for nothing.

In the current climate of economic uncertainty, we remain concerned—and quite rightly so—at the prospects of rising unemployment in Labor’s environment of increased regulation for employers and heightened union control over workplaces. We should be rid of the days of a complex, outdated and completely arthritic industrial relations system. Flexibility is the key to modern workplaces. Just ask any working family out there what they really need, and they will tell you that flexibility is very high on the list.

The coalition understands that many in the electorate did not like the removal of the no disadvantage test that existed pre Work Choices, but the electorate certainly appreciated the wages growth, the employment opportunities and the flexibility that came with it. It is a giant leap of faith to suggest that those who may have objected to some aspects of Work Choices would necessarily wish for union domination in the workplace and a return to the economically reckless stances of the union movement in calling the shots in our workplaces. And herein lies the essential dilemma with this bill: it is really more about protecting the union movement from its inexorable decline than it is about the rights of workers and their right to a job and decent rates of pay. The government should not in any way be jeopardising the employment and welfare of Australian families and their incomes and livelihoods to repay the union movement with interest, but that is exactly what they are doing. We know the indebtedness of Labor to the unions, and this bill gives them what they want. If the unions cannot raise their membership levels beyond the current pathetic 14 per cent level of coverage in the private sector workforce, then nothing will. Labor may have talked tough on stamping out union thuggery and lawlessness, but this bill gives them what they want. They contributed more than $40 million to the Labor cause at the last election and now this bill is part of their reward.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And how much did business give you?

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not as much as they gave you. The passage of this bill will see the unions achieve seriously enhanced rights at the disputation and wage discussion levels. Previously, members on the other side of this House spoke about a new golden era, an end to the conflict between capital and labour, an end to the conflict between bosses and workers, but we still have those on the other side interjecting, crawling back to those older, dark days of conflict between workers and employers, to the old, dark days of the politics of envy. That is really at the heart of what the union movement is trying to re-establish with this bill. If you create that division, you create the politics of envy.

Through the passage of this bill we will see the unions achieve seriously enhanced rights at the disputation and wage discussion levels. There is not even a need for there to be one employee as a union member for the union to have carte blanche access to a workplace and its employment records. The imposition of good faith bargaining is a backwards step, and the rise of compulsory arbitration is something Labor explicitly said they would not bring back. The same can be said for pattern bargaining—again not promised by Labor last year but mysteriously appearing as a possibility in the legislation. This is not the thing to be introducing at the current time. It will certainly not offer any freedom or flexibility that will be required in an industrial relations regime that will need to adapt to a looming economic downturn. Does this bill stand the test of putting more people in jobs and creating the economic conditions to keep them gainfully employed? Does this bill stimulate economic growth and activity or will it dramatically weaken labour market conditions at a time of economic decline and great uncertainty? These are the things that should be asked of this serious rewriting of the industrial relations landscape in Australia.

Debating this bill with the government forecasting an economic downturn and increased unemployment allows us to look back at the crowning glory of the Howard years: more jobs and higher pay. These are the facts that cannot be denied by the opposition. We will never forget the double digit unemployment that Labor foisted on the community. There was the 10.9 per cent unemployment peak in December 1992, with a million Australians out of work. Teenage unemployment peaked at 34.5 per cent in July of that year. My generation had forlorn prospects in the labour market as they moved out of university and training—a depressing reminder of Labor’s inability to manage the economy and create opportunities for young people. I seriously hope that there will not be another generation of young Australians who have to suffer what those young Australians suffered in the early nineties.

There are some serious tests ahead for the government in managing the economy. Their response so far in policy decisions does not fill me with particular confidence. Harking back to a rigid and union-dominated workplace relations system would be the worst thing for Australia at the current time. We do need to resist throwbacks to the past. We need to look forward. We need to maintain some sort of positive economic momentum in order to safeguard jobs and employment prospects for the people of Australia. Without the creation of jobs, without a positive economic outlook and without growth there is no positive future for Australian families. We are all in this place to create a better future and a better Australian society. Without the possibility of jobs and jobs growth we cut the ground from underneath them. I am very concerned that this bill will do nothing to create jobs but, in such greatly uncertain economic times, will do everything to entrench the power of the union movement, whose representation in the workforce is illustrative of their inability to convince those in the workforce that they are acting in their interests and that they are worthy of being a representative organisation for workers. After this bill has been passed, I look forward not with great optimism but with great concern about the future prospects for jobs, particularly for young people and for this nation.

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

People who think that there is no difference between the political parties ought to pay more attention to parliamentary debates. In particular, they ought to pay more attention to this one, because it makes absolutely clear what a stark difference there is between the two parties. The member for Indi described the Fair Work Bill 2008 as an anachronistic return to an era of union domination. The opposition will vote for it, but they will be speaking against it. They give the game away. They cannot help themselves. The Liberal Party is still the party of Work Choices.

The absolute bedrock of difference between the Liberal Party and the Labor Party concerns the issue of relationships between employers and employees. The Liberal Party’s belief in free markets, in market fundamentalism, is such that they believe in individual bargaining between employers and employees. The Labor Party, by contrast, believes that this is inherently unfair. We believe that the inherent bargaining strength of employers needs to be leavened and some balance achieved in essentially three ways. Firstly, we believe there needs to be a right for employees to organise themselves and bargain collectively through trade unions. Secondly, we believe in the existence of an independent umpire who can resolve disputes. Thirdly, we believe there need to be certain minimum standards to protect those workers who have the least bargaining power. This difference between the two parties was true a hundred years ago and it is still true now. It is an ironic piece of history that former Prime Minister Howard lost his seat in the election following the introduction of Work Choices, just as way back in 1928 Stanley Melbourne Bruce lost his seat of Flinders when the conservative party which he led sought to do away with the independent umpire. So this kind of difference between the political parties has been true for a hundred years.

The opposition have forever been on the lookout for opportunities to do away with the rights of trade unions, with the independent umpire and with the legislated minimum standards. They referred to the Fraser years as a lost opportunity. Then we had the era of John Hewson, John Howard and ‘jobs back’, which was one of the things which cost them the unlosable election of 1993. And, of course, we come to Work Choices, which cost them the election last year. Those opposite know perfectly well that this is what cost them the election of last year, so now they are torn and conflicted. Some of them say that Work Choices is dead because they know that it is a lemon and that the voters do not want it, but others do not want to throw out Work Choices. The member for Hume threatens to cross the floor over it, and others in the debate make it all too clear that they are not really signed up to support this bill. Their mood is defiant. Deep down in their hearts, they still believe in Work Choices. They still believe there should be nothing standing between employers and employees in negotiations. One of the odd things about this view of the world is that it has led to more regulation rather than less. We saw a massive bill of over a thousand pages designed to restrict employees, designed to restrict unions and, indeed, designed to restrict employers with yards of red tape. You would think their view would lead to less regulation; in fact, it led to more.

The other point I want to make about the historical take on this is that in the years since the Keating government, Labor’s modern view of the needs of the workforce and the needs in workplaces is that of enterprise bargaining. The introduction of enterprise bargaining has been a great success and has led to productivity improvements far in excess of those which occurred during the period of Work Choices.

During the period after the introduction of Work Choices, it seemed to me in talking with workers that three issues were really on their minds: the issue of overtime, the issue of penalty rates and the issue of unfair dismissals or job security. Those opposite essentially do not believe in overtime and penalty rates. They think that these are restrictions on workplaces and on employers and that the boss should be free to work the workers whenever he or she sees fit. We on this side think that is unreasonable. We think that, if you are required to work in the early hours of the morning or on weekends, there ought to be some penalty attached to that, some recognition of the hardship in relation to work and family life that that involves. In the area of job security, those opposite believe that the employer should have the right to get rid of any employees who they no longer wish to have working for them. We believe that this represents a real hardship for employees. Taking away their sense of job security is a hard thing for an employee to live with, and it certainly makes things difficult in terms of planning for the future, getting housing loans from banks and things like that. These were key issues in the election where voters decided that Work Choices was not for them.

The bill before the House implements a workplace relations system that restores balance and fairness. It will promote productivity growth, it will put to the sword the ideologically driven Work Choices and it will give us economic growth and productivity. The opposition do not like to acknowledge it, but the fact is that economic growth and productivity had been occurring under the existing system—inflation had been contained and there were low levels of unemployment and industrial disputes.

Work Choices was not about economic reform at all. It was about the ideological agenda. It was the agenda of the former Prime Minister. It was also the agenda of the member for Higgins, a foundation member of the HR Nicholls Society, an organisation committed to the radical deregulation of the labour market, including getting rid of minimum wages. Even after Work Choices was implemented, the member for Higgins indicated that more radical reforms should be considered—using the minimum wage as the starting point for negotiations between an employer and employee, excluding any conditions and extending the unfair dismissal exemption to all workplaces. It was not just the member for Higgins who wanted to go further. Senator Nick Minchin told the HR Nicholls Society in 2006 that there was still a long way to go and asked for their forgiveness that change had not been as rapid as they would have liked. The opposition have that kind of attitude and that is still what they think. Who could forget the member for North Sydney revealing on Four Corners earlier this year that cabinet colleagues in the Howard government were unaware that workers could be worse off under Work Choices? It is worth emphasising the impact of Work Choices on people in low-paid employment.

Debate interrupted.