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

I move:

That the bill be laid aside.

The government has taken this unusual step because the Liberal Party has made it clear in dealing with this bill that it will stand in the way of this crucial piece of legislation to enable the harmonisation of occupational health and safety laws in this country. This major reform has been sought by the business community for decades. For decades the business community has called on governments around the nation to work together to achieve uniformity of laws around the country so that, for those businesses that trade interstate—and increasingly in the modern age that is more of them—the occupational health and safety laws they face are the same.

The former government, the Howard government, in office talked a lot about achieving such uniformity in occupational health and safety laws and indeed the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard, dealt with the proposition at one meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. Unfortunately, after that effectively nothing was done by the then Liberal government to deliver uniform occupational health and safety laws. In contrast, this government, which committed itself to this difficult reform task, has been very active in the area all year. Most particularly, at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in the middle of the year it secured an historic agreement to move forward with occupational health and safety model laws and model regulations. A process was put in place which has involved the leadership of an expert group by Mr Robin Stewart-Crompton. That group has produced its first report. Its second report is due quite early on in the new year. We were making good progress for a timetable to deliver draft model laws for consideration in May 2009.

At the centre of this new set of arrangements was to be a new body called Safe Work Australia. Safe Work Australia was to replace the ASCC, the current safety body of the federal government, and Safe Work Australia was to be the organisation that would be at the apex of dealing with these new model laws and model regulations. As I have made clear to this parliament on a number of occasions, the composition, operation and, in particular, the membership and voting structure of this new body, Safe Work Australia, were the subject of in-detail negotiations at the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and then at the Council of Australian Governments before the historic COAG deal was signed. As one would expect, in that process ministers from jurisdictions around the nation sat around the table, and they came with different views. People did not walk into that room of one mind; they walked into that room with a variety of views about what this body should look like, what its membership should be and what its voting structure should be. In order to progress the agenda and move towards this historic agreement there was, around the table, give and take. No-one got everything they wanted but everybody got enough of what they wanted for them to say that they would sign the agreement. Such is the nature of intergovernmental negotiations.

I well understand that if the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations had been a government minister he might have gone into that meeting and put a view different on the membership composition and structure that is in the legislation. Had he been a minister representing a government, that would have been his right. But what he would have found if he had gone into that meeting is that, whatever view he started with, in order to get agreement there would have been a bit of give and take and what he walked out of that room with as an agreement would not have been the same as the set of ideas he walked into the room with. Such is the essence of negotiations. So we negotiated through and we delivered this intergovernmental agreement at the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and we delivered it at COAG. I am obligated under the intergovernmental agreement to use my best endeavours to deliver Safe Work Australia in the same terms as the intergovernmental agreement. As I say, there is nothing more pivotal than the membership and the voting structures—nothing more pivotal.

Despite me explaining that on a number of occasions, the Liberal Party has taken the view that it can amend the voting structure, it can amend the membership and it can do a series of other things to this bill and that somehow it does not matter. Well, I have explained time and time again that every bit of unwinding is an offence against the intergovernmental agreement which will require me to go back to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and to COAG to see if we can reach agreement again. Despite that explanation, and in clear knowledge of the consequences, the Liberal Party in the Senate has once again moved to amend this legislation in a way that renders it inconsistent with the intergovernmental agreement. Consequently I have taken the extraordinary step of moving that the bill be laid aside. That means that I will go back to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and to COAG and I will see what, if anything, we can salvage out of this process—and I am not optimistic. I believe the Liberal Party’s actions have wrecked and derailed the prospect of having model laws and model rules in this country. I believe they have embarked on that course in full knowledge of the consequences. Whilst we were on a productive path to get the business community the single biggest regulatory reform they want, that productive path has now been knowingly derailed by the Liberal Party.

I anticipate that the shadow minister will say publicly that I could have gone back to workplace relations ministers and put the Liberal amendments and secured agreement. I want to indicate to the House very clearly that I reported to the last Workplace Relations Ministers Council on the proposed amendments, and they were unacceptable to the ministers who met there. I have indicated to the shadow minister in a variety of circumstances that that was the case. So, despite full well knowing that these amendments would derail this process, the Liberal Party has insisted on them. As a result of that, the government will now lay this bill aside. As a result of that, we will go back to the Workplace Relations Ministers Council and COAG and see if we can salvage an occupational health and safety uniform laws process out of this wreckage. But let me indicate very clearly to the members in this House that it is my intention to write tomorrow to the 200 biggest companies in Australia and make it abundantly clear to them what has happened in this House tonight, and I anticipate that those 200 biggest companies will make it abundantly clear to the Liberal Party that it has wrecked, it has spoiled and it has acted against the interests of the business community. Members of the Liberal Party have knowingly operated as economic vandals. It is amazing to me that a political party that once put itself before the Australian people on the basis of its economic management credentials could have degenerated to this, but it has. That is why I move that the bill be laid aside.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again we have the Deputy Prime Minister coming into this House and really gilding the lily on the circumstances of why we find ourselves in this situation. She talks about the Liberal Party moving to amend the Safe Work Australia Bill 2008 in the Senate but, of course, the Liberal Party does not have the numbers in the Senate. In the Senate you need to make an argument and you need to get other people to agree with you. Nobody else in the Senate agreed with the government on Safe Work Australia. Not one other member of the Senate outside of the government parties—not the Greens, not Senator Xenophon, not Senator Fielding; none of them—would agree with the government on Safe Work Australia.

The problem with the Deputy Prime Minister is that she always refuses to engage with senators about their amendments. I offered that in very good faith to her on a number of occasions. Every time the bill came back to this House I was very happy to talk to her about these changes. The changes are relatively minor. But what we find is that, because of the Deputy Prime Minister’s intransigence, because of her arrogance, because of her refusal to sit down and talk to the senators about these changes, she is now in this position. We have come to this impasse because of the government’s intransigence.

I just want to go through the amendments, because they are relatively sensible. I would like to inform the House again of what they are, because once you look at these amendments you realise that it is an extraordinary thing for the Deputy Prime Minister just to say, ‘I’m not interested in talking to the senators; I insist on having my way.’ What is the government’s Senate strategy? Is it just going in there and standing over them and saying, ‘We insist on having our own way; we’re not going to negotiate; we’re not going to give you anything’?

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

Mr Sidebottom interjecting

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is totally different from what the previous government did with the Senate.

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

Ms Neal interjecting

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have, actually. I will not respond to interjections, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That would be very advisable.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I would like to put on the record is what these amendments actually do, because they are reasonably simple amendments. Once you look at them you realise that the government is being exceptionally bloody-minded in taking this course of action. Some of these amendments would be problematic for the intergovernmental agreement but some of them would not be. But the Deputy Prime Minister is not prepared to engage; she is far too arrogant to do that. Her idea of negotiation is to just say, ‘Look, I insist on having my own way and everyone else can just go and whistle Dixie.’

The amendments outlined the objects of the new body. That is relatively simple, I think you would agree, Mr Deputy Speaker. They restored effective levels of representation to both the employer and the employee representatives. Ultimately, when it comes to occupational health and safety, it is the employers and the employees who you need to be involved. That is the tripartite model that is endorsed by, amongst others, the ACTU—and I will get to them in a minute. The rest of the amendments introduced balanced voting processes designed to engage the very people in our community who are affected by occupational health and safety laws, and ensured that workers and industry were effectively and ably represented by these peak bodies. They freed the peak bodies from unnecessary ministerial interference and also freed the CEO of this new body from excessive ministerial interference. Finally, they established an audit committee to examine the finances and the expenditure of the new body, Safe Work Australia. None of that, I would have thought, should be particularly problematic for the government, yet they refused to talk to the senators about it, they refused to engage with the opposition, they refused to engage with the Greens and they refused to engage with Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding. Of course, these amendments were supported by ACCI, amongst others, and, unusually I think when you find an alliance of this type, they were also supported by the ACTU.

I would like to read to the House the press release that the ACTU issued today, 4 December. It is headlined ‘Safe Work Bill changes are needed to strengthen workplace health and safety laws’. I will not read the whole thing but I will seek leave to table it. It says:

All politicians should accept the Senate amendments to the Safe Work Bill and allow a swift passage for the legislation, says the ACTU.

The ACTU is not a traditional ally of the Liberal Party, as I am sure you will appreciate. So we find ourselves in this situation because we have a government that are so arrogant they insist on having their own way. They will not engage with the Senate. They will not engage with the opposition, even though we came to them in good faith and asked them to do that. Be the results tonight on your heads.

Question agreed to.