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

I commend the member for Brisbane for his contribution to this debate on the Fair Work Bill 2008, truncated as it was with question time. There was certainly a lot of passion and a lot of horrible stories in his speech. If there was one message that was delivered loudly and clearly on 24 November last year, the members in the House at the moment would know very well that Australians do not like it when people mess with fairness. That is what the election results showed, and if the current opposition had been good students of history they would have known this lesson. It happened before when Stanley Melbourne Bruce and his government changed the industrial relations laws. What happened? His government was thrown out and he lost his seat. History repeated itself in 2007 when John Howard went on with his extreme industrial agenda and tried to change the industrial relations laws. He lost his seat. It is a significant slap in the face for a Prime Minister to be thrown out of his own seat. It does not happen very often. It has happened twice in our history. Why? Because the government of the day tried to fiddle around with fairness.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Sullivan interjecting

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

Australians might be easygoing people, but there is one thing we will not move on and that is having our sense of the fair go attacked by a government. As the member for Longman indicated a minute ago, it all started back in 2004 when control of the Senate went to John Howard. I remember that sad day when a Queensland National Party senator made that phone call to John Howard indicating joy that the current Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, had been elected. It is a great sense of bookending justice, I suppose, that we had some Queenslanders responsible for a descent into madness in control of the Senate and then we had in Kevin Rudd a Queenslander restoring sanity.

Work Choices went too far. The Labor Party knew it. The unions knew it and those people who never get it wrong—the Australian people—knew it as well. Unfortunately, not everyone in Australia understood it. The Liberal Party obviously did not understand it.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They still don’t understand it.

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

They still do not understand it. The member for North Sydney told Four Corners that the coalition ministers were unaware that some employees were worse off under Work Choices. It is quite unbelievable for that to be out there on the public record. I know many people opposite—and obviously it is not a full House over there at the moment—but in my one year of dealings with those opposite I know there to be some fundamentally decent people there. There must surely have been someone in the cabinet who spoke up or someone in the party room who spoke up and said, ‘This is a little bit extreme, isn’t it?’ I would hope so. I am not asking anyone to break caucus solidarity over there, but surely someone spoke up? There must be somebody on that side of the House with a heart bigger than their mouth who was able to say that this was a bad law. I am not going to ask for a show of hands, but I can think of some people who might have spoken up and said it was going a little bit too far. I know there are people on the opposition frontbench, those filled with the strut and bluster, who will never own up to being wrong. You have seen it in their speeches. They are the Work Choices warriors who are doing all that they can to use weasel words to avoid saying that this was a bridge too far, that this was wrong, that this was extreme or even just saying that simple little word that resonates so much in this chamber this year: sorry.

If it had said on every election poster in 2004 that they were going to change the industrial relations landscape then, fair cop, there could have been some legitimacy. But nobody was told. I was in the 2004 election. I remember that night very well, unfortunately; there are no second prizes in politics. I remember that night very well and there was no mention of industrial relations changes.

It has been great in the last couple of weeks to watch The Howard Years. It is like watching a slow-motion car crash with skid marks that stretch back for 11½ years, and I am looking forward to Monday night when we finally have the collision. Picking back over it, picking out particular points, you can see where they went wrong, But picking back over the skid marks of the 11½ years leading up to 24 November 2007 has been fantastic—horrible, but fantastic. As those opposite know—as anybody in politics knows—the Australian people always get it right.

I am sick of hearing from those opposite that they were voted out because of a union campaign. That is avoiding responsibility. The idea that they were voted out because of a union campaign is putting the cart before the horse. They need to remember the union campaign occurred because of the duplicity on the part of those opposite in running an election on one issue and then jumping in and changing the industrial relations landscape. The Australian union movement and those who care about fairness and rights in the workplace were not able to sit by and let the Liberal Party erode the rights of workers.

Let us look at what Work Choices did. It stripped the right to bargain collectively, pushing people onto AWAs. We have heard so many horrible stories in this debate about that. It threatened award wages, smashed unfair dismissal rights and left unions out in the cold. As a former union organiser in the white-collar sector in non-government schools, I can assure those opposite that unions contribute to effective workplaces. So often they are able to step in and bring some common sense—sometimes to an employer but often to an employee. That is why a good unionised workplace is normally a very effective workplace.

It is true that if you look carefully you can find the odd worker who was better off under Work Choices, but it was only those whose skills were in high demand and who had the leverage to negotiate better pay and conditions. Obviously there were others, the more vulnerable, who were forced to trade away pay and conditions, all to prop up their employers’ bottom lines. It shows that when you mess with fairness you really will be judged quickly by the Australian people.

I have spoken about this to a couple of people in my electorate—one being Susan Wilmott, a public servant and an ASU member. She said:

As an ASU union delegate in 2007 I dealt with more cases of union members feeling insecure and feeling threatened. People just felt more vulnerable.

And I felt I was inherently less effective as a union delegate because of the down grading of importance placed on the services that we offer.

The biggest reason I got involved in the Your Rights at Work Campaign was I just felt very angry that all the conditions that we enjoyed—and that unions had so worked for decades to secure—were taken away by Howard.

I was scared to think that maybe my children wouldn’t enjoy the same working conditions that I do. And that they wouldn’t have the same opportunities to combine work and family as I have …

Dean Holland from the Builders Labourers Federation said:

I got involved in Your Rights at Work because of the unfair laws that Howard put in place. Those laws restricted many of our rights and conditions.

I was only too happy to help out in stalls, collect petition signatures, distribute merchandise and spread the word. We had a great reception at the Rocklea markets especially leading up to the election.

Karen Sheperd, a community health registered nurse, said:

The main reason I became involved in the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign was because I was concerned that the impact of the WorkChoices legislation on the future generations of Australians particularly my children. Isaac in 2006 was finishing grade 12 at St Thomas More College.

At first I didn’t realise the laws would have an impact on the nursing workforce, however it soon became apparent to me that my nursing colleagues in the private and aged care sectors were suffering and that these laws would in turn diminish the standards of patient care as qualified nurses were being replaced with unlicensed workers.

Those are just three examples. They are ordinary people like you and me, but they refused to stand by and let the Howard government mess with fairness in the workplace. Not necessarily these people in particular but people who were barely moved to vote in 2004 were out there in 2007 in orange shirts for a great campaign. I do thank John Howard, I guess, for politicising and motivating a great section of our community, for surely what was one of the greatest community campaigns in the history of Australia. What motivated them? They wanted to see fairness and justice returned to Australian workplaces. It was great for the union movement that all of these people were brought together. I had a Your Rights at Work breakfast the other day thanking them again, one year on, for the great work that they did.

There never should be any doubt that the role of unions in our society is crucial, especially in Australia. They secure reasonable pay and fair working conditions. They ensure our workplaces and work practices are safe. That is why I think it is appropriate that I finish by again asking someone, somewhere, from those opposite to say that word ‘sorry’. An apology is good for the soul. It is good for the recipient; it makes the recipient feel good. I am hoping that someone finds the time to come to me and say that simple word ‘sorry’ and I will pass it on to the Your Rights at Work group in my electorate.

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would just like to say that following the last three speakers—the member for Solomon, the member for Brisbane and the member for Moreton—has been quite encouraging for me in getting up to talk about the Fair Work Bill 2008. Some of the metaphors they used—certainly the member for Moreton’s notion of a car crash and long skid marks—explained well the Howard years. But I think from my perspective it was probably more like a viral pandemic because it really was something that affected us for many, many years and because Work Choices, while it was a major reason the Howard government fell, was indicative of a whole range of other philosophies that they carried as a government.

My contribution to this debate is quite humble compared to the contributions of the others who have spoken—people who have worked very extensively in industrial relations and within the union movement, as organisers, as lawyers, as professionals who bring together our understanding of human resource management, human resource development and the ability to organise labour correctly on the ground. Why I say my contribution is humble is this. I was not one of those professionals. My background is a business background. While there was a period of public service work, essentially I am a small business man who lived and worked with unions for many years and enjoyed the benefits of having an organised workplace. To hear members on the other side of the House talk about the terrible thing that we are doing now by bringing back a system of fairness through our Fair Work Bill quite amazes me. I will give some examples of how the business sector reacted. I know many of those in the union movement would have dealt with employers on a regular and reasonable basis. They and others—in the House and in the community—knew that the Work Choices legislation was dreadful. It was dreadful for our community for a whole range of reasons.

The interesting thing is this. If it is about fairness, if it is about bringing fairness back to the workplace, the debate should be robust. The opposition have their view. I would like to explore what drives the view that Work Choices was so good. On 24 November 2007 Australia resoundingly threw out the government, largely because of what Work Choices was doing to our work and community. Those who have worked closely in the area of industrial relations know that it is all about having a system that has harmony. Industrial harmony is what we are trying to achieve. People who invest money and people who take wages for their work, who sell their skills to a company or to a business, come together and it is all about achieving harmony. We in this country have a long history of very good negotiations. We had all industrial parties working together to get resolutions. Yes, we have had periods in our history where these have reached a flashpoint. But the reality is that we had legislation that could deal with this appropriately and we could move on.

One thing that concerns me is this. They talk about Work Choices and the wonderful components of Work Choices, but I can only see from my perspective. In the debate in the House today, we have probably covered just about every aspect of this bill—inside and out. It is interesting to see that the opposition read even more into this bill than we ever considered. That extra reading into the bill is very much about their fear campaign. Work Choices was about fear. It was ill-conceived and it hurt a nation of workers. We heard stories from all the members speaking in this House, especially the last few members. The member for Solomon had some bad examples; they were good examples of bad situations. I commend him for bringing those to this House. I am sure that we have all heard of similar experiences.

I will go back to the history. The member for Moreton spoke about 1996. Yes, we remember when the Howard government came into power and changed a whole lot of arrangements. The problem is that it was driven by vindictiveness. Changes to our industrial legislation were very much about how the government thought they had been treated by the unions. They could not sit down in a reasonable and logical way and debate and change legislation, if that was the requirement. They had to tip the cart on its head and they went too far, and we all understand that. Unfortunately for the Howard government, they were marked and marred by their push. I believe it was driven by vindictiveness rather than by a sensible way of dealing with industrial relations as they saw it.

We know that with the Howard government on so many other issues there were mistruths. There were the Tampa and the children overboard, the weapons of mass destruction, the core and non-core promises. Of course, Work Choices dropped in on top. Work Choices was without a doubt the major driver of their collapse as a government. In my electorate—and I have spoken about this in the House before—there was a swing. To have a 15 per cent swing in your primaries really indicates that change is on and that there are good reasons for change. The changes were also about the parliamentary party. The Rudd leadership in opposition was about bringing opportunity for the future. It was about presenting all of those nation-building opportunities. Work Choices was a major part of why we had to come up with alternatives. It was ill-conceived and it was built on fear. Their whole argument on this legislation is about fear—fear of this legislation and fear that the unions are going to take control. To me it is unreasonable that in this day and age, in this country, we should have had a government pushing the fear line. We are a peaceful society in everything we do, but people in the workplace were fearful. And that is obviously not a good thing.

It was about manipulation. There is a need for industrial harmony for people to work together. You hear in this debate hollow statements that Work Choices is dead. I am not sure whether it is ‘dead’ in the terms we understand or whether it is an acronym. Maybe the word is actually ‘D-E-D’—that is, a ‘dead-ended debate’.

Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Core dead?

Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or core dead or not dead! I would say that it is an acronym for dead-ended debate. Remember, by their own admission, that this is a party of Lazarus and triple bypasses. It will surely rise again. We know from the debates and the interaction we have had that, yes, they are saying that Work Choices is dead but they are giving every argument for why our legislation is wrong and should not proceed. What are the alternatives? We do not know what they are. Work Choices is not dead; it is just D-E-D for now. Let us keep an eye on this. When people go to the polls in two years time, they should understand that the Liberal Party is driven by the need to reform industrial relations—whatever that means in their speak. We know it is driven by ideology, and that is my concern. We should all understand when the terminology starts to roll. Their campaign slogan might be something like ‘deal or no deal’ or ‘bold employment options’ or ‘jobs of fortune’ or ‘the job is right’. We must watch this space, because it is not dead as we understand it; it is just D-E-D.

The member for Warringah has certainly spoken a lot on this issue and talked about comparisons. Before I close in tonight’s debate can I say that those opposite talk about how this was nation building for the Howard government, how it was great for prosperity. I understand that the national average unemployment rate is around 4½ per cent. In Queensland, my home state, we are running at 3½ per cent. Queensland is a state that has a very, very strong industrial relations base. I should at this stage commend the current minister in Queensland, John Mickel, who always brought the arguments up to the Howard government in terms of where their legislation, Work Choices, did not fit.

I close today by saying that the end of Work Choices is good. We have got the legislation that will make those changes. The Fair Work Bill goes towards our other nation-building strategies. We must maintain our vigilance and our push to change this country for the better. For those reasons, I commend this bill to the House.

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

in reply—It is with great pleasure that I sum up after what has been not only a very extensive debate in this parliament on the Fair Work Bill 2008 but also a very extensive debate in this nation about what we wanted as a nation from workplace relations, and of course people voted to reject Work Choices, voted for fairness and balance, and that is what this legislation delivers. This has been an extensive debate and I thank all members of the government that have spoken during the course of it. I thank those opposition members who have contributed as well. We have seen a variety of contributions, with some members coming out as Work Choices supporters loud and proud, and some of them instead saying that they recognise Labor’s mandate—but always through gritted teeth, because the Work Choices ideology pumps very solidly through their veins.

What I want to do in this summing-up is deal with some of the sillier things that have been said during this debate as they should not stand unchallenged on the public record as descriptions of what is in the Fair Work Bill. Those descriptions, coming from opposition members, have been made to try to squirm and find an excuse to defeat this bill when it goes to the Senate. It is very transparent. That is what the opposition is on about—looking for any excuse to thwart the mandate of the Australian people and their wish for fairness and balance in Australian workplaces. Consequently, we will not allow those myths to stand on the public record.

First, let me state this very clearly: we are implementing the Forward with Fairness policy, the policy approved by the Australian people. We are implementing it clearly. We are implementing it with the strongest possible mandate. We have undertaken an unprecedented level of consultation with businesses, small businesses, unions, people who work in every sector of the economy. We have listened to their legitimate concerns. We have presented to this parliament a bill that puts workplace relations right where it should be—in the dead centre, where the pendulum should be, between the interests of employers and employees. It is a fair and balanced bill.

Members opposite have asserted that the Fair Work Bill will have a catastrophic effect on employment levels. Of course, this claim is nonsense. I remember that every day they used to stand at this dispatch box and say that Work Choices was the thing that was propping the economy up. Not many opposition members make those claims now. They were silly then; they are silly now. Obviously, there are a variety of factors that go into the employment horizons in our economy. What the government has been saying very clearly is that we are not immune from the global financial crisis, and everything we have done has been to keep this nation in front and protect jobs. But one of the things we also need to do is make sure we do not leave employers and employees in months of legislative limbo and uncertainty about what the workplace relations laws of this country will be. In these difficult times we should be delivering certainty, stability, productivity and flexibility, and that is exactly what this bill does. We need employees to have confidence that their pay and conditions are secure; we need a truly national workplace relations system; and we need a system that develops productivity and flexibility. We need all of this now. So there should be no unnecessary delay in the Senate in dealing with this legislation.

The shadow minister for employment and workplace relations has claimed that the government has not analysed the regulatory and economic impacts of the key legislative proposals contained in this bill. This claim, like much else said during the debate, is not true. Seventy-seven pages of analysis are included in the explanatory memorandum to the bill. The Office of Best Practice Regulation agrees that this analysis has effectively documented the regulatory implications of the legislative proposals.

We know that productivity based bargaining and flexibility are at the heart of the new system and studies show that collective agreement making is good for productivity. Bargaining allows employers and employees to examine the way they work, discover ways to improve productivity and efficiency and make workplaces more flexible. This keeps wages in line with productivity growth and helps to control inflation. We should remind ourselves that Work Choices coincided with a poor productivity performance. Annual productivity growth averaged only 1.2 per cent between March 2006 and September 2007 compared to the annual average over the previous two decades of 2.3 per cent.

This bill delivers to the Australian people what we promised them—fair protections and a productive workforce. As promised in Forward with Fairness, the Fair Work Bill outlaws pattern bargaining. False claims have been made about this during this debate. Industrial action in support of pattern bargaining is clearly prohibited and an injunction can be sought direct from the court to restrain any such industrial action. An employer who does not want to bargain for a multi-employer agreement is protected from adverse action, from coercion and from discrimination for being covered or not covered by a particular kind of agreement.

Perhaps one of the most distressing claims made in this debate was that somehow the low-paid bargaining stream is a form of pattern bargaining. These claims are nonsense. We went to the Australian people at the last election with a clear commitment in Forward with Fairness to help low-paid employees and their employers to gain access to enterprise bargaining and the benefits it brings. Through enterprise bargaining, businesses gain productivity and service delivery improvements, they keep good staff and staff morale is improved. Through productivity gains employees achieve real improvements to wages and conditions. We want to allow as many Australian employees and employers as possible to receive the benefits of enterprise bargaining. We know that there are people who have been left behind in sectors like cleaning, community work and security. We want through this bill to enable our industrial umpire, Fair Work Australia, to be able to convene conferences, help to identify productivity improvements to underpin an agreement and generally guide parties through the negotiating process.

When bargaining fails and agreement cannot be reached for a particular employer or employers, then Fair Work Australia in very limited circumstances can make a workplace determination to resolve the issues in bargaining. In order to make a workplace determination, Fair Work Australia must be satisfied that there is no reasonable prospect of agreement, that the employees are employed substantially on the safety net and have never had a collective agreement, that it would be in the interests of promoting bargaining in the future, that productivity and efficiency in the enterprise or enterprises concerned would be promoted and that it is in the public interest. Further, in making a workplace determination, Fair Work Australia must ensure that employers are able to remain competitive and must consider how productivity in the enterprise may be improved. This framework delivers on our election commitment and could only be opposed by those who are not at all distressed by the circumstances of the low paid in our community. Labor believes they deserve justice. We believe they deserve the benefits of enterprise bargaining and that is why this low-paid bargaining stream is in the bill.

Throughout the debate, members opposite have also claimed that the Fair Work Bill enables bargaining fees. Nothing—I repeat: nothing—in the bill allows a union to impose bargaining fees on a person without their consent. It is plainly misleading and mischievous for members opposite to suggest anything to the contrary. The effect of the provisions in the Fair Work Bill is exactly the same as the current provisions in the Workplace Relations Act, which date back to 2003.

As outlined in Forward with Fairness, compulsory arbitration is not a feature of the new system, despite claims to the contrary. The Fair Work Bill delivers on this promise. The focus of the new system is to encourage employees and employers to bargain in good faith and reach agreement voluntarily. This is the way that most bargaining takes place. Employers and unions must bargain in good faith. This means that they must meet, exchange positions and refrain from capricious and unfair conduct. But good faith bargaining does not require either side to make concessions or to make an agreement. The new system is not about delivering access to arbitration any time parties get into a disagreement during the bargaining process. Far from it. Parties can take a tough stance in negotiations. Workplace determinations can only be made in clearly defined circumstances: when industrial action is causing significant harm to the national economy or threatening the health and safety of the community, where a protracted dispute is causing significant economic harm to the bargaining participants, or where a party has engaged in serious and sustained breaches of good faith bargaining requirements and is flouting the law. We believe such conduct should not be rewarded.

Forward with Fairness outlined that we would fully respect the right of employees to join and be represented by a union or not to do so as they wish. Using its tired old anti-union mantra, the opposition claims we have breached our commitments. Far from it—we are implementing our policy to the letter. There are no longer union or non-union agreements. All agreements will be made directly with employees. Where 50 per cent of employees approve an agreement, the agreement is made. Employees can be represented in the bargaining process by a union or by another person they nominate.

The government promised in Forward with Fairness that it would maintain existing right of entry rules and outlined those commitments in detail. The government promised that our right of entry laws would strike a balance between the right of employees to be represented by unions and the right of employers to run their businesses. The Fair Work Bill delivers on all of these promises. Unions will have to comply with very strict conditions of entry. They must hold a permit, give 24 hours notice and comply with strict requirements for conduct on site. Sanctions apply to a permit holder who misuses entry rights or acts inappropriately. Importantly, when a union exercises entry for discussion purposes, it can only hold discussions with workers who want to participate in those discussions. The union cannot compel workers to speak to it.

The claims that we are swinging wildly in favour of unions on right of entry are arrant nonsense. It was the extreme, anti-union Work Choices laws that in 2005 provided for the first time that non-union agreements and AWAs permanently removed the right of entry for unions to enter to hold discussions with employees. In our view, this was completely over the top and a blatant breach of a person’s fundamental right to join and be represented by a union if that is their wish.

We all have an interest in making sure awards are complied with and rogue employers do not get away with underpaying employees. Unions have a longstanding role under industrial relations legislation, even under Work Choices, to investigate suspected breaches of awards and to take recovery action to make sure employees are paid correctly. We are allowing a right of entry permit holder to inspect those documents that are directly relevant to investigating a breach of the award or the act that affects a member of the union. Any claim that this can be used to copy lists of names and addresses of employees is nonsense. We are also introducing very strict requirements on the use that can be made of any such documents. Privacy Act requirements apply and any misuse results in a significant fine and the cancellation of the permit. The right of entry scheme we have put forward in the Fair Work Bill gets the balance right between the rights of employees to join and be represented by a union and the right of employers to run their businesses free of interference.

In closing, this is a good day for Australian working people—a good day for anybody who believes in fairness, decency and balance in Australian workplaces. I understand that it is a difficult day for the Liberal Party. We understand that the Liberal Party is now the party of Work Choices and will always be the party of Work Choices. There is only one simple proposition that now stands in front of the Liberal Party in this place and in the Senate when the Fair Work Bill reaches it—that is, are they going to stand in the way of the Australian people who voted for these policies at the last election?

The Leader of the Opposition said Work Choices was dead. Every day since members of his political party have supported Work Choices and have left the impression that the Liberal Party of this country will do everything it can to frustrate this bill becoming law. Can I say to members of the Liberal Party and to the Leader of the Opposition what the Australian people are expecting them to do, whatever they believe. They can well and truly believe in Work Choices every day they are in this parliament and every day they live; they can have the term ‘Work Choices’ put on their gravestones if that is what they believe is the animating principle of their involvement in public life. That is a matter for them; but what is not a matter for them is standing in the way of what the Australian people want.

This bill will go from here to the Senate irrespective of how opposition members vote now. In the Senate we are expecting an inquiry process. That is proper. But we are not expecting that inquiry to be used to hold up the delivery of this bill and we are not expecting the opposition in the Senate to play games, to hold this bill up or to stop the delivery of what the Australian people want. The Australian people will be watching this process very carefully and they will be judging the Liberal Party by it.

I conclude by thanking all those who have been involved in the development of this bill—all of my caucus colleagues, particularly my caucus colleagues who served on the caucus reference group; my own staff, who laboured on it long and hard; the departmental staff, who may be looking a little bit hollow-eyed in the advisers box over there because they have laboured long and hard on this over the course of the year as well. I thank them for their professionalism and their dedication to this task. I think the fact that this bill is short compared to Work Choices, that it is clearly drafted and that it can be read and understood is a great testament to their endeavours, and I thank them very much for that. I am proud we have got to this stage. I am delighted that we have got to this stage on the last sitting day of this year, and we look forward to this bill becoming law in 2009.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.