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

in reply—I thank the member for Solomon for that erudite contribution and I am sorry that the business of the House has had to intervene on its further delivery. At the 2007 election Labor promised to get rid of Work Choices and to create a new fair and balanced workplace relations system. The Fair Work Act 2009, which received royal assent on 7 April, delivers on that promise. The two bills being debated cognately today provide for the sensible and measured transition of employers and employees into the new system. The new workplace relations system created by the act starts from 1 July 2009 and will be fully operational by 1 January 2010. Obviously, given those commencement dates, the passage of this legislation is time critical.

The new system will balance the needs of employees and employers. This balance reflects an unprecedented degree of consultation by this government with employee and employer representatives as well as with state and territory governments. Representatives from these groups provided valuable feedback at meetings of the committee on industrial legislation which examined the two bills before us today as well as having examined the Fair Work Act itself. At all stages in developing and drafting the new framework we have responded to legitimate issues and concerns raised by all sides. No side got everything it wanted but the result of our consultation and approach is that we have succeeded in balancing fairness and flexibility to ensure that Australia will be competitive and prosperous without compromising workplace rights and guaranteed minimum standards. When introducing the then Fair Work Bill 2008 into this House on 25 November 2008, I indicated that the government would introduce separate legislation to set out transitional and consequential changes to ensure a smooth, simple and fair transition to the new system while providing for certainty in employment arrangements. These transitional and consequential changes are provided for in these two bills now under consideration. The Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 was introduced into this House on 19 March 2009. The Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009 was introduced on 27 May. The two bills once enacted by the parliament will operate with the Fair Work Act and will transition employees and employers into the new workplace relations system simply and fairly.

Let me remind the House now of their key provisions. The Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 repeals the current Workplace Relations Act 1996 other than schedule 1, which deals with registered organisations, and schedule 10, which deals with transitional registered organisations. The Workplace Relations Act will then be renamed the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009. The bill provides for the application of the 10 National Employment Standards and minimum wages to all national system employees from 1 January 2010, including those covered by instruments made before the commencement of the new system. The bill ensures that employees’ take-home pay is not reduced as a result of any transition to a modern award from 1 January 2010. The bill sets out rules in relation to the treatment of existing industrial instruments in the new system and includes arrangements to enable bargaining under the new system to commence in an orderly way. The bill includes arrangements for the transfer of assets, functions and proceedings from the Workplace Relations Act institutions to Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman. The bill also includes consequential amendments to create the fair work divisions of the Federal Court of Australia and the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia.

On 19 March 2009 the Senate referred the Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and consequential Amendments) Bill to its Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Committee, which reported back on 7 May. The government carefully considered the Senate committee’s report as well as the detailed submissions and, as a result, it will now move a number of technical amendments to improve the bill. These include amendments ensuring special low-paid bargaining determinations are accessible to workplaces that no longer have an operating collective agreement, providing the other criteria are satisfied; amendments preserving the interaction between transitional instruments and state and territory laws; technical amendments ensuring that the transitional arrangements in place for outworkers protect their existing terms and conditions and that outworker unions can properly enforce outworker entitlements; and amendments ensuring registered employee and employer organisations are able to represent their members in the fair work divisions of the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court. Our intention, through the consultations and through the Senate committee, was to seek views in order to improve the bill, and those amendments have come forward and are represented by the things I have just described.

I now turn to the other bill, the Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009. This bill marks the next step in the creation of the national workplace relations system for the private sector, which is a key commitment of this government. This bill amends the Fair Work Act to enable states to refer matters to the Commonwealth with a view to establishing a uniform national workplace relations system for the private sector. The bill makes transitional arrangements for Victorian employees and employers who are currently covered by the Workplace Relations Act as a result of an earlier referral of power and who are expected to very shortly be covered by a new referral from Victoria. The government anticipates the proposed legislation by the Victorian government to provide a text based referral of power, to underpin the application of the Fair Work Act to all Victorian employers and their employees, will be passed in time to coincide with the commencement of the Fair Work Act on 1 July 2009. This will ensure there are no interruptions in coverage for the working people and businesses of Victoria. Victoria is the first state that will be a referring state under the bill. However, the bill establishes a framework that can be adapted in future Commonwealth legislation to accommodate anticipated future referrals from other states.

We are continuing to work cooperatively with the other states to achieve a uniform workplace relations system for the private sector. Over the coming months, we anticipate that they will choose to become participants in implementing this crucial national reform. The bill also makes transitional and consequential amendments to 67 Commonwealth acts which refer to parts of the Workplace Relations Act that will be repealed by the transitional provisions and consequential amendments bill—and my thank you to the draftspeople for their care and attention to all of those details. This bill replaces those references with references to corresponding concepts, institutions and instruments in the Fair Work Act.

Together these two bills now before the House represent the final batch of legislation needed to complete the statutory framework for Australia’s new workplace relations system. With the repeal of the Workplace Relations Act as a result of these measures, we will see the final removal of the unfair Work Choices system that the Australian electorate rejected at the last election when they rejected the Liberal Party.

The death rites of Work Choices are now being administered and we are getting ready to see the Fair Work Act spring into life. The sensible and practical measures in the transitional provisions and consequential amendments bill will help to pave the way for the smooth and effective delivery of a balanced, modern workplace relations system for Australia. The state referral and consequential and other amendments bill offers clear proof that the government is well on the way to fulfilling its commitment to achieving, through cooperation and in consultation with state governments, a uniform national workplace relations system for the private sector in Australia.

The arrangements set out in these two bills will ensure that the transition to the new workplace relations system is seamless. The new national system is good news for Australia because it is a system based on fairness for working people, flexibility for business and the promotion of productivity and economic growth for the future prosperity of our nation. That is what the Labor government promised the Australian people at the 2007 election and that is what we are delivering.

I understand that these are emotional moments for members of the Liberal Party who still so solidly support Work Choices. But, given the Australian people repudiated their industrial relations extremism at the last election, we are hoping that the Liberal Party—during the course of today’s debate and more particularly in the Senate—does not try and clutch onto Work Choices through procedural delay and tricks but actually fulfils the voice of the Australian people and expedites passage of this legislation so that our new system can commence on time on 1 July this year and we can get rid of the Liberal Party’s Work Choices system which the Australian people repudiated at the last election. I commend the bills to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.