Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House how the Fair Work Bill will protect and benefit low-paid workers?

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

I thank the member for Moreton for his question and for his interest in fairness in Australian workplaces. Of course, the Rudd Labor government went to the last election with our industrial relations policy, Forward with Fairness, which included in it a commitment to assist low-paid employees and their employers to access the benefits of collective bargaining. We have had 15 years of enterprise bargaining in this country, first brought to this country by Labor, and it has delivered significant economic benefits for employees, employers and the nation.

There have been gains in productivity and service delivery improvements. It has enabled employers to keep good staff and staff morale has improved. Through productivity gains, employees have been able to achieve better wages and conditions. But we also know that there are Australians who have not had the benefits of enterprise bargaining and the government wants to extend the benefits of enterprise bargaining to a greater category of Australian working people.

In particular, we are very concerned about those low-wage employees who are substantially reliant on the safety net. At this point, we should remind ourselves that the minimum wage in this country today is $14.31 an hour. We want to assist employees who are earning $14.31 an hour and employees who are substantially reliant on the safety net. These were the very employees who suffered the most under Work Choices, as they had basic pay and conditions ripped away.

I would like the House to just for a minute listen to the voices of some of these workers. They were interviewed for the Fair Pay Commission report published this year. There was a man called Sam who lives with his wife, one small child and two parents in a house in Perth. He is the sole income earner for that household of five people. He earns around $17 an hour, depending on his shifts as a security guard. He has watched the rent on this home go up from $120 per week to $375 per week. There is a great deal of pressure on that man. There were other low-paid workers who were interviewed for this who talked about not having enough money to leave their suburb to go and see another part of the city, because of their low wages.

We are introducing in the Fair Work Bill 2008 a special bargaining stream to assist these low-paid workers. We know that these low-paid workers and many of their employers lack the capacity to bargain. They have never bargained before. So we want Fair Work Australia to be able to assist them with that bargaining in a hands-on facilitative role

If bargaining facilitated by them cannot reach a conclusion, we will, through the Fair Work Bill 2008, be empowering Fair Work Australia to in very limited circumstances make a workplace determination. But in order to do that they have to be sure that the parties are unable to reach agreement, that the employees are substantially reliant on the safety net, that it would promote bargaining in the future, that it would promote productivity and efficiency in the enterprises and that it is in the public interest. This is a strictly limited category of workplace determinations for low-paid employees who have never had the benefits of a collective bargain.

When I look across this chamber, I see the Leader of the Opposition and members of the Liberal Party. The Leader of the Opposition has made a lot of money in his lifetime. I certainly do not begrudge him that. No-one in this chamber is a low-paid worker. But what I say is wrong is for members of the Liberal Party to say to low-wage Australians that they will block that Fair Work Bill 2008 and stop these employees getting wage justice. On the incomes that they are on and with the resources that they have at their command, to say to these low-wage workers on $14-odd an hour that they will deny them wage justice is wrong. That is what blocking the Fair Work Bill 2008 would do; that is what the party of Work Choices looks like it is committing itself to.

The Leader of the Opposition said that Work Choices was dead. He is obviously in the process of being rolled by his colleagues. But let us just remind everyone what being the party of Work Choices means: it means that you believe in ripping off these low-wage workers and not assisting them to get the benefits of enterprise bargaining. Unfortunately, that is what the Liberal Party seems to stand for.