Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That:

(1) a Joint Select Committee on Fair Work Amendment Legislation be established to inquire into and report on the provisions of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022;

(2) the committee consist of 12 members, being two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate nominated by the Prime Minister, two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, and two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate to be nominated by any minority group or independent Member or Senator;

(3) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(4) in the event that a house is not sitting and is not expected to meet for at least two weeks, the relevant whip in the House of Representatives, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, minority groups or independent Senators may nominate any appointment or discharge of a member of a committee in writing to the relevant Presiding Officer. The change in membership shall take effect from the time the Presiding Officer received the written nomination. At the next sitting, the Presiding Officer shall report the change to the relevant house and the house shall resolve that membership of the committee;

(5) the persons appointed for the time being to serve on the committee shall constitute the committee notwithstanding any failure by the Senate or the House of Representatives to appoint the full number of Senators or Members referred to in this resolution;

(6) members of the committee hold office as a joint select committee until presentation of the committee's report;

(7) the committee elect a chair and deputy chair;

(8) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;

(9) four members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include at least one Government member of either house and one non-Government member of either house;

(10) the committee have power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private; and

(d) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the Senate and the House of Representatives;

(11) the committee report on or before the last sitting day in February 2023;

(12) the bill not proceed past its second reading until the committee has reported; and

(13) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing and sessional orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing and sessional orders.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Manager of Opposition Business from moving the following motion immediately—

That:

(1) a Joint Select Committee on Fair Work Amendment Leg islation be established to inquire into and report on the provisions of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022;

(2) the committee consist of 12 members, being two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate no minated by the Prime Minister, two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate nominated by the Leader of the Opposition, and two from the House of Representatives and two from the Senate to be nominated by any minority group or independent M ember or Senator;

(3) every nomination of a member of the committee be notified in writing to the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(4) in the event that a house is not sitting and is not expected to meet for at least two weeks, the relevant whip in the House of Representatives, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, minority groups or independent Senators may nominate any appointment or discharge of a member of a committ ee in writing to the relevant Presiding Officer. The change in membership shall take effect from the time the Presiding Officer received the written nomination. At the next sitting, the Presiding Officer shall report the change to the relevant house and th e house shall resolve that membership of the committee;

(5) the persons appointed for the time being to serve on the committee shall constitute the committee notwithstanding any failure by the Senate or the House of Representatives to appoint the full numb er of Senators or Members referred to in this resolution;

(6) members of the committee hold office as a joint select committee until presentation of the committee's report;

(7) the committee elect a chair and deputy chair;

(8) in the event of an equally di vided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;

(9) four members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee provided that in a deliberative meeting the quorum shall include at least one Government member of either house and one non-Government member of either house;

(10) the committee have power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private; and

(d) adjo urn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the Senate and the House of Representatives;

(11) the committee report on or before the last sitting day in February 2023;

(12) the bill not proceed past its second reading until the committee has reported; and

(13) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing and sessional orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing and sessional orders.

Standing orders must be suspended so that the House can agree on mechanisms to allow proper scrutiny of and informed debate on Labor's industrial relations bill, the so-called 'Fair Work, Fair Pay' bill in the House of Representatives. This is urgent, because it is clear that the Albanese Labor government is planning to use its numbers to ram this bill through the House of Representative. This is not good process. This is a 249-page bill and it needs proper scrutiny and examination.

That is why this motion would establish a joint select committee to examine the provisions of this bill and to report back by the last sitting day in February 2023. The model of establishing a joint select committee is exactly what the government did with its National Anti-Corruption Commission Bill, and the drafting of this motion draws substantially on the drafting of the motion moved by the Attorney-General to establish the joint select committee into the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The matter is urgent because the government has been taking precisely the opposite approach to that which is required in relation to this lengthy and detailed bill, which would introduce the most radical changes in industrial relations in Australia for decades. This is absolutely the kind of bill that deserves the proper and careful scrutiny of the House of Representatives, but we have seen precisely the opposite approach from this government in seeking to ram this bill through the House as quickly as possible and using their numbers to do so.

The joint select committee which this motion would establish is designed to correct some of the flaws in the government's approach by allowing a more proper and thorough process of investigation into this bill. There is little doubt that this is what the Australian community would expect of their parliament in considering this important legislation. There is little doubt that every electorate which has elected a member to this place expects that member to be able to do his or her job in scrutinising and overseeing legislation which is before this House.

It is not a sufficient answer to that proposition to say, 'There's no need to worry because there will be a Senate committee.' There are two houses of this parliament, and it is important that this matter be properly and thoroughly considered by both houses. That's a principle that was acknowledged by the government in establishing the Joint Select Committee on National Anti-Corruption Commission Legislation, because there is representation from both houses on that joint select committee, and it's a principle which the opposition believes should underpin the establishment of this joint select committee.

The fact is that many concerns have been raised across the community about what the government's bill will mean for businesses, for workers and for all Australians. Many concerns have, rightly, been raised about increased strike action, increased industrial action, the impact on small business and many other considerations. Australians deserve to have those concerns heard, examined, ventilated and scrutinised, and for this House to be able to reach an informed position on this bill. By contrast, the deeply deficient process which the government is pursuing is that this 249-page bill was introduced in the previous setting week—only a few short days ago—and we now understand that the government intends to ram it through this chamber with very little time for appropriate consideration, appropriate examination and appropriately putting forward and debating amendments.

Let's be clear. Let's understand the urgency. Let's understand why standing orders need to be suspended. This is radical industrial relations legislation. This is the government jumping to the tune of the union bosses. It will mean more strikes. It will mean unions coming into small businesses when they have not been there before. It is a recipe for chaos in our economy. It means that the militant CFMMEU will be able to ride roughshod over building sites around the country, because this legislation abolishes the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which has been an important check on some of the worst excesses of the particular thuggish organisation. It means a return to the pattern bargaining that bedevilled Australian economy in the strike-ridden 1970s. The reason it is urgent that this matter be considered now, and vital that standing orders be suspended so that the House of Representatives can consider and vote on the establishment of a joint select committee, is that the policy matters here are weighty, the process that has been proposed for consideration is deeply inadequate, and we simply need to do better.

The key figures in the government—the Prime Minister, for example—talked big when in opposition about accountability and the need for a full and proper debate. The Prime Minister told Australians that he'd changed his spots—he was no longer a tough career politician. We were going to have new, kinder and gentler politics. He said he wanted to 'change the way we do politics in Australia'. Despite those promises, what we saw was that at the very first opportunity upon coming to government the Albanese Labor government fundamentally changed the way that procedures work in this House of Representatives, giving themselves power to impose gags and to shut down debate simply on the say-so of a minister, without any need for the matter to be voted upon at all. Sadly, gagging bills has become a pattern of behaviour from this government.

The facts are very clear as to why this matter is urgent and why standing orders need to be suspended. The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is 249 pages. It is a very complex and detailed bill, and upon any view it will have material consequences for industrial relations in Australia and for the operation of our economy and our society. That is why this motion seeks to have standing orders suspended so that a motion can be put to establish a joint select committee, in order that the issues connected to this bill can be subject—as they should be—to the fullest weight of parliamentary scrutiny. It has been drafted having regard to the approach the government took in relation to the National Anti-Corruption Commission and in relation to other precedents in the way that joint select committees work. This is good process. It's being proposed to correct a clear weakness in process, and so I commend what we are proposing to the House and I commend the motion to the House.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HOGAN (—) (): I stand to second the motion. This is an important suspension and a very important motion to refer this bill to a joint select committee. What the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022is about—let's make no mistake about this—is the Labour Party paying their union piper. This is about them paying back the money that the union movement has paid to the Labor Party, the fact that the union movement funds Labor Party members into their positions. This is about paying the piper. We know that the unions control the factions of the Labor Party, we know that the unions control preselections of everyone within the Labor Party, so the unions now control the Labor government. That's the basic fact of what we're talking about.

I don't have a problem with unions. I think unions play a very important role in our economy and the workforce. But unions represent 14 per cent of the workforce. Over there, everyone is basically part of the union movement, or they won't get their job, so this new government is not reflective of the workforce in Australia just because they are looking through the prism of how 14 per cent of the workforce operate. What this legislation is about is they're paying their puppetmasters. This legislation is one of the first pieces of legislation they moved. As the Manager of Opposition Business said, this is a piece of priority legislation they want to get through because they have to pay the puppetmasters. They are paying the piper, and that's what this is about.

The disturbing thing about this is that this is going to take us back to pre-Hawke and Keating days. Hawke and Keating weren't run by the union movement; they were standalone Labor operatives who knew that the unions occasionally had to be reined in. Keating wasn't taking his tune from the union movement. But with this legislation we're reversing some of the reforms that were implemented by the Hawke-Keating government. What does that mean? What don't they see? When you are only reflecting 14 per cent of the workforce, what no-one over on that side of the House understands—and we've said this many times in the past—is what it's like to run a small business. They have never run a small business. They've never been in private enterprise where they've had to go: 'You know what, I've got to pay someone else's salary. I have to work out how to run my balance sheet. How do I run the business to make sure that I can pay people back?' There might be one or two who claim they have, but I would like to see the proof for it.

That is why they do not see through a wider prism of how an economy and the workforce operate. They still have the mentality—it's almost like a 1950s mentality—that everything is one versus the other. They view it as Labor versus capital, but that's not how the world operates anymore. Any small business and any large business operator will tell you the most important asset they have, the most important people in their enterprise, are their staff, and that's how they treat them. The vast majority of employers treat their staff well and give them incentives to stay because they know they are the most important people they have. They know their business will only survive if they have good staff. But these guys and these ladies don't understand that, thinking it's all about labour versus capital. The union movement always says, 'They're the bad ones, and we're the good people.' That is how this legislation is drafted, so this is going to give us a big power imbalance.

As the Manager for Opposition Business said, it means we're going to get more militancy in workplaces. We're going to have more strikes, and what does that mean? Unfortunately, the worst affect of this legislation will be on the workers. What will happen is that it will make us uncompetitive, it will make us unproductive. As a community we saw that Keating and Hawke led this charge with workplace relations reform because they saw that we needed to become more competitive and more productive as a country that is operating within a global economy. We have to compete with everyone else, and this legislation unfortunately takes us back to the seventies. But no surprises because we know what this is about: they are paying the puppetmaster.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It won't surprise people to know that the government is opposing the resolution in front of us, but I think that, given the comments just made, it's important to explain why in the view of the government we are pressing the time lines on this. It's important given that this has been raised, and I pay respect to the Manager for Opposition Business; this is absolutely an appropriate use of a suspension. This is not just to blow up the parliament. It's an argument about delay that those opposite have put publicly and are now putting within the parliament.

A few things were said, so I want to explain why the government does have a timetable where we want to get this in front of the Senate when the Senate returns. To be able to do that means it going through the House this week. This resolution, if carried, obviously means it wouldn't go through the House this week and, in fact, couldn't go through the House at all this year. The contributions just made had a few references to the reforms of the Hawke and Keating years. When those opposite talk about those years, they often only talk about the beginning of that time, with the accord where you effectively had the trade-off of wages in return for the social wage. What those opposite rarely talk about—it certainly didn't come up in their contributions—was what happened in the latter part of that period in terms of enterprise bargaining, because it was at that moment that you had a way for wages to move forward and productivity to move forward. The trade-off concept of wages versus social wage no longer had to occur, and you had a serious shift to get wages moving in enterprise agreement. The 14 per cent figure that they refer to is not the 14 per cent figure that I'm really mindful of. The 14 per cent figure that I'm really mindful of is the percentage of the workforce that is on enterprise agreements that are currently in date. That is a huge part of the story of low wage growth over the last 10 years.

There have been attempts, and those opposite have said they introduced legislation to try to get agreements moving, and that's true; in the omnibus bill they did do something that would have potentially caused more agreements. But their way of getting more agreements was to suspend for two years the better-off-overall test. Their way of getting more agreements was to keep the productivity dividend and get rid of the wages part of the equation, allowing wages to go backwards in order to get more agreements. That was never a sensible way, and it simply would have made of the problem that Australians face right now so much worse if the one way of getting wages above awards became a pathway for wages in fact to be below award levels. That was their approach to getting more agreements.

Our approach to getting more agreements is to do a couple of things that make a fundamental difference. The first is to reform how the better-off-overall test works. That's in this bill. Business has been calling for this for a long time. Had this been the only thing the government had put in the omnibus bill when that came through last time, they would have had legislation that could have been supported, because they would have had legislation that in no way drove wages down. But, effectively, what is in this bill in terms of the rejigging of the better-off-overall test is a way of making sure that, if someone is found to fall below it, the commission has the power to fix it for that individual rather than blow up the whole agreement. The reality that you could end up with a whole agreement being blown up has been a key reason why a whole lot of employers have said, 'This system is too complex' and have walked away from it. As they've walked away from it, the productivity benefits haven't been made available for them, and, at the same time that the productivity benefits haven't been made available, the wage rises haven't happened either.

It was amusing, as someone from a small-business family who has run his own small business, being told as I sat there that nobody on this side has run their own business. I was sitting there having run my own business and sitting beside someone who has run his own business. But I will tell you one thing I will never forget that a manager at Kmart told me at one point. He was going through the Kmart agreement and saying to me how good it was to have an agreement that took out all the rubbish in the award that was irrelevant to their workplace and was just a document where every paragraph was relevant. I remember hearing that conversation and thinking that, for the businesses I used to run—and certainly for the business my dad used to run—we never had a chance that simplicity, because we never had an HR department and we never had a chance of an HR department and the only way you would have a pathway to that simplicity is if similar businesses could just hire the one consultant and bargain together. It's the only chance you would ever have of getting a document that will work in those ways.

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear those opposite. I hear the shadow Treasurer. It's amusing that he clearly hasn't looked at any of the businesses that have called for this. He hasn't looked at the Victorian childcare centres that have called for exactly this. He hasn't looked at the sheet-metal operators who have called for exactly this. He hasn't looked at the cleaning companies. They've tried to get an agreement, and what has then happened is that, when you get an agreement in place, some new operator comes in and completely undercuts. The good employer, who wants to compete on grounds like better equipment, smarter operations and quality of service, finds themselves straightaway losing their contracts because they're competing on the grounds of a race to the bottom on wages.

There are plenty of good employers who would like to be able to have the certainty of delivering the sort of pay they know in their current business operations they can offer without being undercut in a race to the bottom on wages. As long as you don't open up multi-employer bargaining, you will always have that problem. So—

And he's there again: 'It's going to force it up.' Yes, wages will go up. And those opposite, having spent 10 years determined to keep wages down are now saying, 'Well, can't we keep wages down for a couple more months?' Can I tell you, in terms of dealing with wages—

The shadow treasurer is saying, 'I said "prices".' Yet the quotation says: 'It pushes up wages. It pushes up wages.'

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You missed the next bit: the prices, Burkey, prices.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hume will cease interjecting.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those opposite want to continue. Having had 10 years of deliberately keeping wages down, they are now saying ,'Can't we have a few more months?' And what would happen if it went through to January? They would have another reason: 'Can't this bit be delayed a bit further? Can't we keep delaying it?' That has been the experience of workers. Let me tell you: if inflation is now running at 7.3 and is projected to get to eight per cent, I can't think of a time, certainly in my working life, where delay would have a greater impact on households around Australia.

I'll leave it there because I did see members of the crossbench jumping up when I jumped up and I don't want to use up all the time, but allow me to simply say that the government is determined to get wages moving. We are in the hands of the Senate as to when this legislation gets through. I want to make sure that we have the legislation in front of them as soon as the Senate returns. We will continue to push for wages to get moving because households that are feeling the pinch of higher prices need to see improvements in wages after 10 years of them being held back.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to say that I support this motion because I think, more than any other piece of legislation this year, we have in front of us an incredibly complex piece of legislation and we need to follow process. Whether you agree with the legislation or disagree with the legislation, this place is supposed to be the place in Australia where we look line by line, detail by detail, and we give fair consideration to changing the laws of Australia. This goes to transparency, and it goes to process. The thing is—and I think this is to be said of both sides of this House, for generations—when we've rushed things through in this place, we've made mistakes. It doesn't matter who is in government: it happens.

This bill was introduced on the last sitting day that we had, and now today we're going to be debating this legislation. In my hand I have the explanatory memorandum, which comprises more than 250 pages. The bill is the same again. I think it's incredibly unreasonable for us not to have proper debate and proper scrutiny of an incredibly complex piece of legislation. There are unintended consequences when bills are rushed through, and that is that we make mistakes—and those mistakes are borne by the people of Australia, whether they be businesses or whether they be employees. So I would ask the government to consider this. Let us have an inquiry. An injury fleshes out the issues.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The time for the debate has concluded. The question is that the suspension moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be disagreed to.