Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition introducing immediately a bill for an Act to amend the Fair Work Act 2009, and for related purposes, the bill being given priority over all other business for passage through all stages, and if consideration of the bill has not concluded by 4.30 pm on Monday, 27 February 2017, any necessary questions to complete consideration of the bill being put without delay.

Leave not granted.

Today I am offering the Prime Minister the chance to work with us to work with us to protect penalty rates and the take-home pay of hard-working Australians. I am offering the Prime Minister the opportunity to fix penalty rates on a bipartisan basis with no political rancour.

I know the government are busy worrying about each other, but Labor are here because we are concerned with the conditions of up to 700,000 of our fellow Australians and having their take-home pay cut. We believe that standing orders should be suspended so that we can vote to stop the cut to hundreds of thousands of Australians' take-home pay going ahead, and we want to prevent it from ever happening again in the future.

This is a chance for the Prime Minister to show some leadership. I remind him of what he said at the National Press Club only this month. He said:

We keenly understand how many families are just managing right now; the cost of everything seems to be going up much more than wages.

This is a test for the Prime Minister and the government: cooperate with Labor to protect the conditions of ordinary people or vote to cut their pay. The government can stand up for hardworking Australians or it can choose to attack us. I have a feeling about what this government will do: they will attack us rather than deal with the substantive issues. Let's be clear: a decision to not act, a decision to not remedy this decision of the Fair Work Commission, is a decision to support it. There is no playing in the traffic on this issue, there is no fence that this government can sit on, there is no table to hide under, there is no Tony Abbott to blame for this one. This is an important issue. It is an important issue. Up to 700,000 Australians in retail, hospitality, pharmacy and fast food will cop a pay cut. Ironically, the only circumstances in which they will not cop a pay cut is if they are covered by a union agreement for the time being.

Let's be clear on the consequences of what we are talking about—just facts. A full-time or part-time retail worker who will work a full eight-hour shift on a Sunday will lose up to $77 a week. For a part-time retail employee who earns $30,000 per year, this will be the equivalent of cutting 11 per cent of their annual income. This is a bad, bad, bad decision. It is bad for women workers, it is bad for young people, it is bad for lower and middle-income earners, it is bad for the regions, it is bad for enterprise bargaining and productivity, it is bad for confidence and consumer spending, it is actually bad for the economy, it is bad for jobs and it is certainly bad for growth.

The cut to penalty rates is straight out of Liberal economics 101. If you have a choice between giving the banks and the biggest corporations in Australia a $50 billion pay cut or going after carers or people relying on Medicare or low-paid workers, the government always chooses the big end of town over the rest of Australia. This could not be a wage cut at a more inauspicious or poor time. Our economy is wallowing in mediocrity. Fifty-seven thousand full-time jobs have been lost in the last 12 months. We have record low wages growth and we have inequality at a 75-year high. The top 20 per cent of households in Australia now earn 12 times more than the bottom 20 per cent. The government has policies which effectively reward people for speculating on housing but punish working people with cuts to their wages. The question the government should answer is: why should the lowest paid Australians pay the price for economic change? Why should the most vulnerable bear the burden of this government's economic failures?

The Fair Work Commission acknowledged that the cut in pay would not be matched by more hours, saying:

... most existing employees would probably face reduced earnings as it is improbable that, as a group, existing workers’ hours on Sundays would rise sufficiently to offset the income effects of penalty rate reductions.

They described the people who would be most affected, saying:

Many of these employees earn just enough to cover weekly living expenses, saving money is difficult and unexpected expenses produce considerable financial distress.

The government are itching to give the big end of town a tax cut, yet they stand by and do nothing as the people who serve them in the shops get a pay cut. We understand that the minimum safety net and penalty rates are an essential part of the Australian safety net. Unlike the government, we are not ashamed of having a strong and high minimum wage. Unlike the government, we are not ashamed that we have strong penalty rates. We have the strongest Medicare in the world when done properly and we have the best universal retirement income system in the world with superannuation. We do not believe that when Australia treats its middle- and working-class people among the best in the world it is a cause of national shame; it is a cause of national pride. Our opposition put in a submission defending penalty rates. Our opposition stands ready at the next hearing to again oppose this decision.

The government has form on penalty rates. More than 60 Liberals and Nationals, from the Prime Minister down, are on the record advocating for penalty rates to be cut. I did have the opportunity to study carefully what the member for Wentworth said in this place when he voted for Work Choices. He said:

You have to free the market to do its work and let the cost of setting the clearing price—be it for labour, shares, home units or loaves of bread—be as low as possible ...

The government is like the proverbial dog that has caught the truck. It now does not know what to do. Instead of doing anything about the decision, all the government is going to do is attack Labor. The problem for the government is that they are the government. Will they turn up at the hearings in March to support or oppose the decision? Will they vote for or against legislation to support the take-home pay of workers?

This is a bad decision for women workers. We have a gender pay gap in this country which is roughly 17 per cent, but these awards, covering nearly 700,000 people in retail, hospitality and fast food, are predominantly in industries that employ women, so this will exacerbate the gender pay gap. Many young people work in these industries. They are working two jobs, supporting themselves at uni or TAFE. They contribute in the economy in ways that previous generations have not had to. Australia's young pay their HECS, they pay their Medicare, they cannot get into the housing market because of the policies of this government, and now they face a pay cut when they go to work on weekends, and they get no guarantee in return: no guarantee for more hours, no guarantee for a pay rise, no guarantee for better job security. And this is bad for the regions—not that we would need to tell the Nationals about that. The regions already have a seven per cent pay gap. The average wages in the regions of Australia are seven per cent lower than the cities. If penalty rates and lower wages deliver more jobs, why is it that, even with lower wages in the regions, unemployment is what it is in the regions?

Of course, it is time for the Nationals to stand up. The problem for the Nationals is that they are so scared of One Nation that they cannot think clearly about the issues affecting their voters. Here is some free advice to the government, from the Prime Minister to the Nationals: 'If you want to beat One Nation, you don't do it by joining them. If you want to beat them, you do it not by moving to the right of One Nation. Instead, vote with us in a bipartisan fashion to stand up for these rates.'

But of course the government instead, when it has got this decision—you can just see them in Liberal Party headquarters, or 'damage control bunker' as it is affectionately known—say, 'What will we do? Do we back the decision or do we oppose the decision?' and then of course their default position is: 'No; we'll just attack Labor. We'll just call Labor names instead of dealing with the issue.'

Well, Labor will stand on its record, and we have an opportunity here for the government to stand up for penalty rates. The government think that the electorate do not like them because of Mr Abbott's and Mr Turnbull's fighting. That is not right. The real problem here is that the people of Australia do not like the government because they are so hopelessly out of touch.

The Prime Minister has and his spokespeople have sought to lecture us about the umpire's decision. Well, remember what they thought about the umpire's decision in the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal? They were so unhappy with that umpire's decision, they sacked the umpire!

But let us be clear: we are taking this decision on penalty rates to a bigger umpire—the Parliament of Australia. And this Parliament of Australia can decide if it agrees or disagrees with the decision of the Fair Work Commission and we do not. But if this parliament, because the government has the numbers, decides to defeat protecting the take-home pay of workers' conditions, if they decide to do this and defeat our legislation, then what we will do is: we will take this decision to the biggest umpire in Australia—the people of Australia. We want to fix this with you, but if you will not join with us we will go it alone every day up to the next election. We are happy to put to the most important umpire in Australian politics, the people of Australia, our case to protect the take-home pay of the lowest-paid workers in Australia, and we will do that every day between now and the election.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and I reserve my right to speak.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have heard from the Leader of the Opposition—

Mr Hill interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bruce will leave under 94(a).

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

is yet another performance—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will just resume his seat for a second. The member for Bruce will leave under 94(a).

The member for Bruce then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have heard another performance of gold-plated hypocrisy from the Leader of the Opposition, complaining about the decision of the Fair Work Commission and wanting to set it aside. This is the man who gave them the reference in the first place! He asked them to do it. And he appointed the President. He appointed that hard-handed capitalist, that ruthless oppressor of the workers, Iain Ross, who had spent his entire career working for the Australian congress of trade unions! This is the bunch, the group that made the decision—

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari is warned.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

The member for Lingiari has just been warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Iain Ross, appointed by the Leader of the Opposition when he was the workplace relations minister; Vice President Catanzariti, also appointed by the Leader of the Opposition; Deputy President Asbury, also appointed by the Leader of the Opposition; Commissioner Hampton, chosen by Julia Gillard; Commissioner Lee, picked by Chris Evans who was workplace relations minister—this is an independent tribunal, but one whose members were chosen by the Labor government. They considered a reference to look at penalty rates given to them by the Leader of the Opposition. Here is a question for us to ponder: when he asked them to look at penalty rates, was he assuming that penalty rates were too low and that they should be increased? Was that his plan? I do not think so! Or did he think they were just perfect? Well, if that is the case, then they need not have been looked at at all.

No; the reality is: he knew very well that there is a trade-off between the level of penalty rates and the level of the availability of jobs on weekends, and there is a trade-off invariably between penalty rates and ordinary hours. He knows all about that because he has done it himself, when he was a union leader—one deal after another: trading away penalty rates with Clean Event; Clean Event, he excluded in that deal, protected award conditions—

Opposition members interjecting—

They are shouting because they cannot bear the truth. The union officials opposite, and none more so than the Leader of the Opposition, have been trading away penalty rates for years and years, whether it was Clean Event or whether it was Chiquita Mushrooms—exactly the same thing. Or what about the young man who was with the Leader of the Opposition, who worked for Coles, I think, who talked about how much he was going to lose on penalty rates? And of course, sadly, there was a lack of research on behalf of the Labor Party; it turned out his EBA was not affected by the Fair Work Commission's decision at all. Why is that? Because his union had already done a deal reducing penalty rates, in return, no doubt, for other arrangements and other conditions.

This is an exercise in complete and utter hypocrisy on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, who will say anything to suit his purpose. Let us see what he did say not very long ago: 21 April 2016. Neil Mitchell says:

… the Fair Work Commission will report soon on Sunday penalty rates. They're an independent body—

Mr Mitchell says—

in fact you had a lot to do with the way they operate now when you were Minister. Will you accept their findings given this is an independent body assessing penalty rates for Sunday, if you're Prime Minister.

SHORTEN: Yes.

He said yes.

MITCHELL: You'll accept them?

SHORTEN: Yes.

MITCHELL: Even if they reduce Sunday Penalty rates?

SHORTEN: Well, I said I'd accept the independent tribunal and that makes a big difference between us and … the Liberals.

So right then his argument was that we were not going to accept the decision of the independent tribunal. We always said we would. He has no basis at all for this monstrous falsehood that somehow or other the decision of the Fair Work Commission is a decision of the government. It is not. He knows it is not. He has explained why it is not. He has set it up. The Leader of the Opposition owns this decision.

But it goes much further than the decision itself. We understand, all of us understand, how hard this will hit people who are working on weekends, particularly those whose work is solely on weekends. They will get less for their Sunday work. But the trade-off has been—and this is the judgement of the Fair Work Commission—that, as a consequence, there will be more hours worked and there will be more jobs in hospitality and more jobs in retail, so that, overall, workers will benefit. That is the trade-off. And that has been the trade-off in penalty rate negotiations, whether they are done by central tribunals, like the Fair Work Commission or its predecessors, or whether they have been done directly by unions in their negotiations.

There was a very wise letter written to the newspaper by Jennie George, formerly the head of the ACTU and a member in this House. She said:

I worked alongside Iain Ross for several years at the ACTU. His diligence, competence, commitment and integrity was acclaimed throughout the union movement and by all who dealt with him. After working in the legal system, his appointment as Fair Work Australia president by the then Labor government recognised the qualities and widespread experience he would bring to this important position.

Of course unions should express concern about the impact of the decision on the wages of affected workers. I am sure this weighed heavily on the FWA members, who spent years examining the submissions and witness evidence. That’s why the bench has deferred consideration of the transitional arrangements to implement their decision, mindful of the potential effects on low-paid workers.

She then says:

Be careful what you wish for. Bill Shorten was right to say before the election that he would accept the decision. An independent umpire has been the bedrock of our industrial relations system and should be beyond party politics.

It is; it absolutely is. We respect the decision of the Fair Work Commission. We respect it in the same way that the Leader of the Opposition promised he would. We are told that the member for McMahon changed his mind in January after consultations. I think we know what consultations they were. They were directions. He got directions. As the director of any wholly-owned subsidiary, his shareholders called him in and he was told what to do.

This issue is vitally important to about 600,000 workers who are affected by the decision. Most workers in hospitality and retail are not affected by it, because they have EBAs of the kind negotiated by the Leader of the Opposition and many others opposite, which have already reduced penalty rates on weekends in return for other deals. But there are 600,000 workers who are affected by it, and we understand the hardship that it will cause in many of those workers' situations. But the fundamental question is: do you or do you not have an independent Fair Work Commission that sets these rates?

Back in April last year, the Leader of the Opposition challenged the Liberal Party and the National Party to accept the verdict of the independent umpire. He said he would. We said we would. Now we discover that, just because the verdict is one that does not suit him—even though he started it, even though he staffed it and even though he defended it in advance—he walks away from it and tries to wrap himself in some sort of hero status as a champion of the people. This is yet another backflip; another exercise in hypocrisy. Nobody has traded away more penalty rates in this House than the Leader of the Opposition. This is an independent tribunal—with his people on it, with his reference and acting at his request—which he said he would respect, and he walks away from it. He has no integrity, no consistency and no commitment. (Time expired)

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this motion to suspend standing orders because this is a matter of national importance, and it is about time the Prime Minister, for once in his life, stood up for workers in this country. All we heard in that last 10 minutes was everybody else's opinion except for the Prime Minister's. We heard nothing in support of workers in this country, those hundreds of thousands of workers who will be worse off as a result of this decision. Indeed, what we have seen instead is the rank hypocrisy of the Prime Minister.

When there was an order of the independent umpire to increase the rates of pay for truck drivers, it did not take him too long to come into this place and revoke that order and indeed abolish the independent umpire. So he cannot come into this place and argue that we cannot make a change to this decision, because he did that exactly when it came to the truck drivers of this country. He did that, too, when it came to professional firefighters. In fact, this government, when it chooses to, will use this place, the parliament, to water down conditions of employment and water down rates of pay for workers in this country.

For all his working life, Bill Shorten has stood up for workers in this country. This Prime Minister only stands up for banks. In fact, this week we have a contrast in this place. We have the government introducing a tax cut of $50 billion for banks and big business while, at the same time, the opposition is seeking to bring on a bill that will protect hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. That is the difference. That is the big difference.

The fact is that we have seen the lowest wage growth in more than 20 years in this country. Inequality is at a 75-year high. These things do matter. If the Prime Minister was in touch with what was going on, if there was any real empathy for working families who are struggling to make ends meet, you would have seen the Prime Minister join Labor and support our position to look after those families. Instead, despite the fact that there is a precedent already by this Prime Minister to intervene in an independent umpire's decision, he has chosen to turn his back on hundreds of thousands of workers in this country. That is not good enough. There are times in this place where a decision comes about and you have to stand up and decide which side you are on. Today the Prime Minister made a decision that he is not on the side of workers in this country. He has chosen instead to support this decision which will have a harsh impact on too many people.

Let me make it very clear. The opposition will continue to campaign and continue to prosecute the argument that working families deserve decent conditions of employment, particularly at a time when there is low wage growth, when inequality is getting worse in this country and when cost-of-living pressures are such that people cannot afford to pay the rent, pay the mortgage, put food on the table or put petrol in the car. Families are struggling today as cost-of-living pressures increase, and yet we do not see any effort by the Prime Minister or this government to show concern for them. Labor, every day from this day forward until election day, will make sure that the Prime Minister wears the decision of today. He will wear this decision because, in the end, the Australian people will understand. You made a choice—he has made a choice, but it is the wrong choice, Prime Minister.

This is a very damning day for the parliament, a parliament that has already interfered with other decisions. You had an opportunity—in fact, you still have an opportunity. There is legislation being proposed by the opposition that you could support. You could join with us today. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we do not want to argue over this; we want to enlist your support to look after those workers. We are not seeing that happen today. As a result, we will see some retail workers in this country lose up to $6,000 a year. We are going to see retail workers currently working eight-hour shifts on Sundays having to work 10-hour shifts just to get the same amount of money. That is not fair, and the Australian people know fairness and unfairness when they see it. They will never forget the Prime Minister's position on this matter today.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The question is that the motion to suspend standing orders be agreed to.