Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services and Superannuation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to cover off a few points in my summing up. On Friday, 21 September I announced that the government would introduce an amendment to the Fair Work Act to protect the entitlements of state public servants threatened by job cuts announced by state governments.

This is a federal Labor government that supports our public servants. It is a fact in Australia, under our transfer-of-business laws that, if you are in the private sector in the national workplace system and your work is outsourced, your terms and conditions transfer under certain circumstances. The private sector covered by the national laws is the vast bulk of workers in Australia.

There is a second group covered by transfer-of-business laws—that is, public sector workers who work for the governments of Victoria, the ACT, the Northern Territory or the Commonwealth. For all of these public sector workers, in the event that their work is outsourced their entitlements transfer under the existing instrument under which they are employed.

So we have the vast bulk of Australian workers, when their work is transferred to an employer in the national workplace relations system, covered by transfer-of-business laws. But what has caused consternation in recent times is the harsh slashing, cutting and burning by certain conservative state governments, ripping up the metaphorical Geneva convention of the existing terms and outsourcing them on inferior terms and conditions of employment.

It should always be remembered that public sector workers in Queensland and New South Wales in particular but also in South Australia and Tasmania have negotiated in good faith with their employers—the departments and the government entities—over many years. It is true to say that we do not believe that public sector workers in these four jurisdictions should have inferior rights when transferred to the national workplace relations system to those of the rest of the Australian workforce.

Furthermore, with this bill there have been some issues and concerns raised because we are extending the national system. But the Fair Work Act review panel said that the existing laws covering the bulk of Australian workers are working well. This is a government that will not leave public sector workers stranded because of the tough slashing-and-cutting attitudes of state governments, which is I suspect a reflection on what the federal coalition would do if they were ever so fortunate as to form government. I commend the bill to the House.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be agreed to.

Bill read a second time.