Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will continue my remarks on the fair work amendment or 'union power' or 'ALP donations' bill 2022. That's what this bill in fact should be called because that's what it in fact represents—and those opposite, a collection of trade unionists, staffers and apparatchiks, know it too. I said in my remarks earlier that I had been a trade union member for 21 years, which was more than most of those in the chairs opposite could even admit themselves. I'd been a member of the Australian Journalists Association. Then it became the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and I was a member of that union. I do understand the importance of balance within the union movement. But I also understand what this bill is going to do to small business. Indeed, we all know that he, or perhaps she, who pays the piper calls the tune. What worries me about this bill is that those who are paying the piper are the unions, and the piper in this case is the member for Watson, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. You can see him with his pipe. He will be leading our small businesses over the cliff.

There are 2.4 million businesses in Australia, and the majority of them, 98 per cent, are small or medium-sized enterprises. I can remember being a small business owner. Not many of those opposite can claim that feat. They haven't run a small business. They've run picket lines.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're not getting much reaction from your colleagues, because they haven't!

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They have!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They just haven't, and you can argue all you like. They've run plenty of picket lines—plenty of picket lines—Minister, out the front of businesses, but they haven't run many businesses. I well remember a bookshop that actually stood up for a small business policy that was being put forward by the coalition, and that small business then had union activism against it. It had the Transport Workers Union making sure that the book deliveries didn't arrive, and, if the books did arrive, they were thrown out onto the street, and they had damaged corners such that the bookshop could not sell them. This is the sort of union activity that I fear we are going to see as a result of this bill.

Indeed, in the June quarter 2022, there were 52 disputes, 22 more than in the previous quarter. Why do you think that might be?

Might it be due to the fact that we've now got the Labor Party in power? Some 73,700 employees were involved—an increase from 11,400 in the previous quarter. Some 128,100 working days were lost—an increase from 19,600 in the previous quarter. Small business can't afford this. Ordinary everyday Australians can't afford this. Union disputation leads to higher costs for families that are already struggling with energy costs, which are about to go up by 56 per cent under those opposite and their shonky policies—their misled, misguided policies on energy.

A government member interjecting—

Year ended estimates—if you could pronounce it right, we'd discuss it; but seeing as how you can't, I won't—234,600 working days were lost, which was 176,900 more than in the previous year. This is what we're going to see. This is the thin end of the wedge. We know that, because Labor is back in town. Moreover, the unions are back in town. The unions are back in control. Indeed, I very much agree with the Leader of the Opposition when he said:

The coalition wants to see wages increase. We do; of course we want to see workers' wages rise. Of course we do, particularly to help Australians deal with cost-of-living pressures inflicted on them by this government's catastrophic energy policy decisions, among many other bad decisions they have already made just in the last five months. But there is no evidence that this bill will bring about rises in wages. In fact, it will lead to job losses.

I well remember that, when the pandemic was at its height and when many Australians were very fearful of the loss of their jobs, the member for Rankin gave us the goal—the ambition—to keep unemployment down and to keep the doors of business open. We not only met that goal and that ambition; we beat it big time because we actually created jobs—

An honourable member interjectin g—

Yes, we did—during the pandemic. I know those opposite talk—

No, it's not, in fact, Member for Moreton. In fact, it's not. What we did during the pandemic and the policies we put in place not only saved lives but saved livelihoods. Those opposite would not know. They were not around the table when we were told that we were going to lose tens of thousands of Australians within weeks if not months due to COVID-19. I was there. I well recall it. They were heart-wrenching times. From the moment when James Kwan lost his life on 1 March 2020—the first Australian to lose his life due to COVID-19—they were times that needed a responsible government, able to make the right and proper decisions at the time. That said, this particular policy is bad policy.

I must say that it would be remiss of me not to note, with some sadness, the death of Peter Reith. He was a very good industrial relations advocate for our nation. He has passed away at the all-too-young age of 72, and I acknowledge the role that he played in very difficult circumstances. I know what the waterfront wars—the dispute on our wharves—meant for Australian farmers and Australian businesses. They were trying to export to the world and trying to bring in heavy machinery to plant the crops, to strip the crops and to do what they do in rural and regional Australia and they were unable to because of union activity. What we don't want to see as a result of this bill is the likes of John Setka dominating our industrial relations. We need to keep those sorts of people very much at bay. Those sorts of people should not have control over industrial sites, over workplaces or, indeed, over construction sites. That's the fear. We all have it, and we know this is just the unions leading Labor a merry dance.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. I want to put on the record that I rise to support this bill not just because I sit on this side of the House and certainly not because I am any kind of apparatchik, as the previous speaker seems to think. I rise to speak in support of this bill because of the dozens and dozens of early childhood educators that I've met with and the dozens and dozens of young people who are in insecure work that I've met with over the past few months. Over the past few months I think I've had around eight round tables with early childhood education workers and, on top of that, met with some in their workplaces. And I've held around the same, maybe eight or nine, round tables with young people aged 12 to 25, but predominantly of working age, about their experiences in work and the impact of insecure and casualised work on them and their families. Through those discussions, talking to those people, I have become entirely convinced that this bill addresses the modernisation of the industrial relations system that is needed to give these young people the security they need in their work to address the issues they're experiencing in work as well as giving early childhood education and care workers the power they need to ensure that they are fairly paid and that their pay reflects their level of expertise and the important work they do.

I also have become more and more convinced about this bill—if I wasn't already convinced, but even more so—in listening to those opposite and their arguments against this bill. Every argument they've got against this bill is purely about fearmongering—a Chicken Little style 'sky is falling' scaremongering that this bill is somehow going to lead to union thuggery and strikes and whatever. Those opposite can come and meet with the 30 early childhood education workers who are here today, who were up in the gallery when the Prime Minister was up on his feet speaking about this bill, and tell them to their face that they're union thugs. Have a look at the kinds of people who are fighting for this bill. They are not union thugs. They are early childhood education workers who are trying to make ends meet, who are dedicated to caring for and educating our most precious asset: the children of this nation.

I want to start with the young people, though, and I'll come back to early childhood education workers, because I want to thank Desmond, Norby, Deanna and Asra, who met with me last night, along with a group of around 30 or 40 young people, to talk about their experience. I want to thank them for being willing to raise their voices and share their experiences so bravely and so openly. And I've no doubt that any of the other members who attended the event last night with these young people and heard from them understand from those discussions, from those stories, that the system is broken and that urgent action is needed to address it, and this bill is the urgent action that those young workers need. They were telling stories of being offered $10 an hour to work in hospitality—$10 an hour is what they were being offered to work in hospitality—as well as the conditions under which they were working, the insecurity of their work, and how difficult it is to make ends meet when you have to choose between going to university or taking on an extra shift just to make ends meet.

Anyone who's spoken to any low-paid worker in this country should understand that the bargaining system in our country is broken, and we need this bill. We need urgent action to get wages moving. That is why I am proud to stand here as a member of the Albanese government that has brought this bill forward, delivering on our election commitments.

I want to turn to elements within the bill that are particularly relevant to early childhood education and care workers. As I mentioned earlier, I have had some round tables with them, and every single one of them is excited about this bill and the ability for multi-employer bargaining that this bill will bring to them, making it easier for them to access the benefits of multi-employer bargaining. We have seen this with the Melbourne example, where 70 early childhood learning centres were able to come together and through multi-employer bargaining achieve, for their workers, 18 per cent above the award rate. They are the most well-paid workers in early childhood education and care in Victoria. But in order to do that, they each had to go through individual negotiations. Allowing for multi-employer bargaining will really improve the lot for early childhood education and care workers and enable them to get some of the pay rise they need to acknowledge the importance and significance of the work they do.

Beyond that, there are elements in this bill that fulfil our commitment to reducing the gender pay gap across a number of industries, particularly feminised industries. These include the early childhood education and care sector, where over 90 per cent of the workforce is women; strengthening the ability and capacity of the Fair Work Commission to order pay increases for workers in low-paid female dominated industries; and making gender equality an objective of the Fair Work Act, embedding statutory equal remuneration principles to help guide the way the commission considers equal remuneration and work value cases. I've heard from early childhood education workers who've taken equal remuneration cases to the Fair Work Commission and those cases have failed. This bill will help to rectify that.

We stand here for those people. Those opposite love to talk about the cost of living. Here is something that will really make a difference to the cost of living: lifting wages for our lowest paid workers. Rather than carrying on like 'Chicken Little' about the sky falling down, and some kind of scaremongering and fearmongering about unions, perhaps those opposite could go and talk to some of the lowest paid workers in their electorates and consider just how much our system is broken and how much this bill can deliver on fixing a system and delivering, for those low-paid workers, at least an avenue for wage increases. On that, I commend this bill to the House.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take you back to November 1972. I was in my second year in high school at the time. Gough Whitlam, in full campaign mode, gave a speech at Blacktown in Sydney. He said: 'The strength of the multinational corporations in the Australian economy requires strong unions.' Two months later, Whitlam was elected Australia's 21st Prime Minister. While he proclaimed strong unions as the foundation of strong business, history tells us what happened next. Whitlam had committed his Labor government to facilitate the amalgamation of Australian trade unions. He empowered them. And disaster followed. Strike action became widespread, including sympathy strikes by those unrelated to a particular dispute.

They say those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Fifty years later, and the Albanese government is on the edge of repeating history and descending Australia back to those dark days. The Albanese government wants to hand all workplaces to the unions, including small and family businesses. They are feeding the beast. These proposed workplace changes represent the most radical shake-up of Australia's industrial relations system in decades.

At a time of growing inflation, businesses struggling with staff shortages and rapidly increasing power costs, Labor and their union masters will make a bad situation worse. Industry-wide bargaining will dramatically increase the number of strikes across the economy—just like the 1970s. While on both sides of the chamber we want higher wages in Australia, there is no evidence that these reforms put forward by the Albanese government will deliver higher wages. In fact, based on all comments from the heads of business groups, there's no such confidence.

Labor's legislation will lead to more widespread disruption and productivity losses. Businesses across Australia, small, medium and large, are united in their opposition to the changes and, in particular, to multi-employer bargaining. These changes put forward by the Albanese government will: (a) lead to more strikes and job losses; (b) allow unions into small businesses which have never had to deal with them before; (c) hold up wage rises because of increased complexity and delays; (d) undermine competition so Australians have fewer choices but face higher costs; (e) force up higher prices and increase the cost of living; and (f) unfairly target small businesses because these changes will be complicated and expensive, and they don't have human relations departments that can wade through complex changes.

When I was elected member for Mallee in 2019, the electorate had 19,997 small and medium businesses. The COVID-19 pandemic placed huge challenges on these businesses. Some could not survive. These reforms place even more pressure on the ones that remain. Employers and employees alike have a right to be very concerned about this blatant union agenda. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, talks about increasing wages. There is no evidence this will occur through multi-employer bargaining. In The Conversation, Labour-market expert Mark Wooden compared 14 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations—or OECD nations—using multi-employer bargaining with 12 OECD nations where company level bargaining dominated for a decade from 2011-2021. He found that the latter delivered annual real-wage growth at 2.3 per cent, compared to 0.6 per cent for multi-employer bargaining. In short, the company model was four times more superior to the multi-employer model in terms of wage growth. Wooden has publicly questioned the utility of the new bargaining stream promoted by the unions and Labor.

Where the bill finishes defies prediction. Burke insists the bill is essential and urgent. Australian Industry Group Chief Executive Innes Willox said at the start of the week that the bill remained fatally flawed. Business Council of Australia's chief, Jennifer Westacott, said that, even with Burke's concessions on the bill, ' we run the risk that critical industries like mining, energy or our ports could be swept up' in disruption. At a precise time of economic vulnerability, Labor is compounding that vulnerability. It is pouring fuel on an open fire. Labor's line that it wants to ensure that wages get moving is the cover story for its misplaced audacity and flawed policy. Does that warrant selling Australia's soul to the greed of unions? The Albanese government is willing to risk burning down the Australian economy with this industry-wide bargaining, and after that the unions will rule over the ashes.

Taking the construction industry as an example, the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission—the ABCC—is a serious concern. It is Labor kowtowing to Australia's most militant union—the CFMMEU. The ABCC is—or, should I say 'was'—the last line of defence between a vibrant building sector and the chaos and delays caused by a union-run Labor government. We can now expect jobs will be lost, building costs will skyrocket, and large and small businesses will fold, with Labor rolling out the red carpet for the CFMEU to rule with an iron fist.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The CFMMEU.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for that correction. That union's construction division will make millions of dollars in civil penalties and legal expenses in coming years. It is no wonder the CFMMEU's Victorian secretary, John Setka, said he was impressed by Tony Burke's move to scrap the ABCC and the building code. The Ernst & Young report from April this year was very clear that if the ABCC is abolished it could lead to a total economic loss of around $47.5 billion by 2030. This is all deeply concerning.

The overwhelming number of issues in Labor's bill relate to bargaining, particularly the provisions relating to multi-employer bargaining. Labor's bill explores the single-interest stream by allowing the Fair Work Commission to authorise workers with common interest to bargain together where it is in the public interest for them to do so. Business groups are united in their condemnation of the common interest provision being so broad as to be ridiculous—and they are right. This is a gift for the union movement around Australia. This will allow unions to apply to compel employers to bargain together if the move has the support of the majority of employees, and this is backed by the right to strike. Being coerced into bargaining based on some vague common interest test, which could simply be a small flower retailer in the same complex as Myer, is fundamentally unfair. That is not bargaining. It is compulsion, and it is fundamentally unfair. It is coercion. It means that once an employer becomes part of a multi-employer agreement, it can no longer pursue a single-enterprise bargain.

The Labor government knows what it's doing. It is going to kill off enterprise bargaining by stealth. What does this all mean? In time, these multi-employer agreements will be the new form of centralised wage-fixing system where the wage will be fixed by a union or the commission. Awards will become less relevant because they will be replaced by these large omnibus multi-employer agreements coercing many employers into a one-size-fits-all document called an agreement. This is all justified on the basis of getting wages moving. It may well get wages moving, but it might do so in a way that adds to inflationary pressures. It also gets wages moving with no productivity trade-offs and job losses.

This bill represents a very clear and deliberate shift by the Albanese government away from bargaining at the enterprise level towards industry level, something the unions have been long campaigning for. It all comes down to what should be the fundamentals of society: governments do not create jobs; businesses and employers do. Governments put in place frameworks that business and employers are able to lever off to prosper, grow and create more jobs for Australians. This should be the essence of fair work legislation.

Industrial relations reform is without a doubt one of the most important of all the economic reforms required to make Australia more productive and competitive. Any changes to the industrial relations framework must be designed to lift both productivity and wages. This is the last thing that this bill will do. Businesses across Australia have deep reservations that the expansion of multi-employer bargaining risks jeopardising the important focus on encouraging employers and employees to reach agreements at the enterprise level. Any broader system of multi-employer bargaining must be voluntary and cannot lead to another layer of ill suited industry-wide terms and conditions. It is critical we avoid any changes that could result in increased industrial action, supply chain bottlenecks and unsustainable wage pressures, and that is what this bill does.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the House that the member for Macnamara and other members will be heard in silence.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur that the member for Macnamara absolutely should be heard in silence! He's a very sharp member, if I may say so! In the chamber we have some very well behaved schoolkids who have been listening to this debate, and I have to say they have done extremely well. They obviously have better things to do than to listen to this particular contribution. But what's in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill is very important for the young people of Australia because the sorts of workplaces that these young Australians are going to be entering are ones where there has never been more insecure work. The workplaces that these young Australians are going to be entering are going to have the highest rate of casualisation of any time in Australia's history. Wages have been flatlining for the best part of a decade, and the sort of gender pay gap that confronts especially the female students that have been watching this debate is too high at 14.1 per cent. What we have in this country is an economic system that is really creating so many hurdles for young Australians to get by, and so these young Australians are watching this debate and thinking. They're asking themselves: what am I going to have to show for the 40 years of working in this country? What am I going to have to show for contributing and doing my bit for this country? Well, the majority of young people who are entering the workplace are going to be priced out of the housing market. For especially females working in the lower-paid industries, superannuation will determine their ability to retire with some form of reasonable financial security, and for some that is going to be completely unobtainable. So what is this place doing to try to create the systems and empowerment for those Australians who are going through our workforce to try to have a bit more of an even ledger?

What we've heard from those opposite throughout this entire day has been the same old tired argument. They claim that they want to see higher wages in this country. I've heard a number of speakers on that side of the House—they've all walked out—claiming that they want to see higher wages in this country, which would be believable except for one fact: over the last 10 years, when they were in government, I cannot name, and I challenge the House to name, one initiative that they brought in while they were in government that was designed to lift the wages of Australian workers. There was not one thing, one policy, one piece of legislation that those opposite, when in government, brought into this place that was designed to lift the wages of Australian workers. Instead, we saw attacks on the things like the better-off-overall test. Thankfully, the Senate rejected their continuous attacks on working Australians. But they come into this place, where there is a fair and good piece of legislation that for once is designed to lift the wages of Australian workers, and yet again they are opposing it.

The former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, famously said:

When you change the government, you change the country.

Look at all the differences in wages already in the six months since we took government. Despite the hysteria that those opposite were ranting and raving about—saying a five per cent lift in the minimum wage was going to cause all sorts of chaos and the sky would fall in—all it did was provide a long-overdue pay rise for our lowest-paid workers. That's it. And then we see a refusal by those opposite to back in the wage request of our aged-care workers, people who literally turned up during the height of the pandemic, who put themselves at risk to work in some of the most vulnerable environments, who were understaffed, who were facing the unimaginable circumstances and unimaginable suffering of our old Australians. These people turned up to work to do their best for our older Australians, and those characters on that side of the House didn't even have the heart to back in their wage request at the Fair Work Commission. Think about what it takes to actually deny our aged-care workers the support of their government when they're requesting a rise in wages.

Those opposite oppose the minimum-wage rise. They oppose the wage rise for our aged-care workers. I know that the Minister for Early Childhood Education has been absolutely on the side of our early educators in working to try to get them the support that they need, because they do such important work supporting our youngest Australians, but of course those opposite don't support that. And yet they come into this place with the union-bashing lines that, frankly, haven't won them an election for a long time. What does a typical unionist look like in Australia? It is a 40-year-old woman who's a nurse, a teacher, and aged-care worker or an early childhood worker. These are the people, these are the workers, that those opposite are disparaging. They are the 'thugs'—our teachers, our nurses, our aged-workers, our early childhood education workers, our cleaners. They're the people about whom those opposite come in here with their tired old lines that, frankly, belong in the political conversation of yesteryear.

Instead of denying the minimum-wage increases, instead of denying aged-care workers a pay increase, instead of attacking the better-off-overall test, what does a Labor government do? A Labor government comes into this place and says, 'We want to empower workers and give them more ability to bargain at the enterprise bargaining table.' What do we want to do? We want to make sure that, when companies are advertising their jobs, they don't advertise jobs that are paid below the minimum wage. What do we want to do? We want to make sure that for all of the young Australians who are entering into the workplace and who are facing the highest level of casualisation in the history of our country, the highest level of insecure work in the history of Australia—what we want to do? We want to try and put an end date on that to say that if you are working in a company for two years we think it's fair that you have an opportunity for either part-time or full-time employment and all of the benefits that come with that. What do we want to see? We want to see women who are facing gender pay gaps in this country have a sporting chance to close that gap.

Of course, instead of bringing themselves to support people who are in the workplace doing their bit for Australia they come into this place with the tired, old lines that have nothing to do with this piece of legislation. They are stuck in this age-old conflict with working Australians, but we are not there, and nor do I believe Australians are there. Australians know how important our supermarket workers were during the pandemic. Australians know how important our delivery drivers were during the pandemic. Australians know how important our aged-care workers were during the pandemic—and still are, obviously. Australians know how important our teachers are. Australians know how important our nurses are. Australians know how important the people who serve us at cafes are—who brew coffee, who work in the hospitality industry, who make our cities vibrant and rich. Australians know how important every single worker who is turning up to work with honesty, dignity and pride in this country is. Australians know that they deserve an industrial relations framework that gives them a sporting chance to get by in this country. And Australians know that if you are working in this country for 40 years at the end of all of that you should have something to show for it. If you're giving 40 to 50 years of your life for this country, then this country should set up the framework to ensure that when you retire you have some level of financial security to enjoy your post working life.

Yet those opposite don't come in with any sympathy towards hard-working Australians. They come in with their tired, old union bashing lines, but we don't. We're here. We're proud to set up a strong industrial relations framework. I commend this bill to the House.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. The bracketed title of 'Secure Jobs, Better Pay' is, of course, completely laughable, as we know that under this legislation jobs will be less secure and real wages will be worse. The problem we have with this government and this legislation is that it was developed by people who never owned a business and, therefore, have no idea how small-business owners think. As someone who has owned small businesses for over 20 years, and mixed with other small-business owners, I can tell you that small-business owners want workers to earn as much as they can. We all want that. People often forget that 90 per cent of small-business owners started as employees, so we understand what it is to be an employee as well.

I spent the first four years of my full-time working life on the minimum wage. The last two of those years were as a new dad. I was the only household income and we got by. I worked hard. I went over and above, doing extra hours and asking for no extra pay—oh my gosh! It was all off my own bat. My sacrifices were rewarded with promotions which came along with higher wages.

In all things there must be balance. Unfortunately, this is often lost on socialist and communist governments around the world. Their misguided ideology to ensure that workers get everything they possibly can unfortunately has no regard—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the House that members are entitled to speak and be heard with respect.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

for the impact that these decisions will have on businesses, and in turn the very workers they are supposed to be fighting for. Again, this is simply a result of their lack of business experience and acumen.

Look at the manufacturing industry in Australia. As someone who spent 20-odd years in the electrical appliance industry, I watched with dismay as electrical appliances went from being made in this country to being made offshore. When I started in that industry in 1986 I was selling Malley's Whirlpool, Hoover and Simpson washing machines, Kelvinator and Westinghouse fridges, Dishlex dishwashers, Chef's stoves, Sunbeam frypans, Victa mowers and AWA TVs all made in Australia. Then, in the late nineties and early 2000s, the Westinghouse fridge was $1,000 and the Korean import equivalent was $700, so the 90 per cent of people who were budget conscious saved the $300, and eventually all the factories that made these local products shut down. From being in the industry and talking with manufacturers, it was simply a commercial decision. The cold hard facts were that a person in the factory that was earning $30,000 for a 40-hour week was now earning $40,000 for a 36-hour week. This, coupled with the lack of productivity when strike action occurred to meet these union demands, simply meant it was cheaper to go offshore and make these goods overseas. This meant thousands of jobs lost. People who had worked for these companies their whole lives, for 20, 30, 40 years, with no other training and no other job prospects—gone.

My question is: where were their union mates then? Nowhere to be seen. Those workers no longer had jobs, so they couldn't pay union dues, so 'see you later, Jack'. The same thing happened in our car manufacturing industry. For goodness sake, mainly due to high wages, it's now cheaper to send Australia fruit overseas to be canned and to have it shipped back here than it is to can it here—absolutely ridiculous.

We must leave this issue between employers and employees. As an employer I can tell you that employers would much rather hang onto employees than go through the arduous task of hiring and training new staff. To do this, employers are always looking for ways to reward good employees so we retain them in the business.

Whether we like it or not, we are part of a global community and economy, and we must be competitive to ensure our economic viability. To achieve this we need wages that are as high as possible without making us uncompetitive. Even the retail industry I'm from is not immune to global competitors. The advent of online shopping and cheaper international shipping has meant that our margins have been squeezed. The profits, of course, are what we pay our business expenses—such as rent, energy, and wages—from. Once a business has negotiated and signed a lease, that cost is fixed. Power, insurances, workers compensation and all other costs are out of a business's control. Out of all of these costs, the only controllable cost that businesses have is wages. So, if any of these costs increase, which they do every year, you must either increase profits or cut costs to meet them. Most business cannot increase prices, as it makes them more uncompetitive in a global market, so the option is to cut costs, and the only controllable cost, as I've stated, is wages. What happens in the real world is that employee hours are cut to meet these extra costs.

I spoke to a baker in my electorate of Longman after the latest $1-an-hour pay increase. One dollar doesn't sound like much, I agree. But here's the reality if it's $1 per hour. If you have 20 employees, that's an extra $20 per hour, $160 a day or $1,120 per week, which is $58,240 per year. I asked him how he covered the extra cost to his business, and he said he laid off two people. And now he and his wife are doing extra hours, and he has asked his remaining staff to work harder to cover the shortfall. The remaining staff will now not receive a Christmas bonus either, due to the lower profitability. This is what happens in the real world, not in a textbook. What about the two workers who lost their jobs? Where's the Labor government when it comes to them?

As an employer I am comfortable with the current model, where the Fair Work Commission operates independently from business and governments and decides on items such as award wages and endeavours to make their decisions that balance ensuring workers are paid as much as possible without sending businesses to the wall. But Labor don't care about this. They only care about union membership, and the way to drive this is to preach only half the message and to incite division between well-meaning, caring employers and hardworking employees who, in the main, have had a good working relationship to date and have been able to come to agreeable terms without government and union interference. But, of course, we know that socialist and communist governments' underlying ideology is to control people's lives, and this legislation feeds into that ideology.

I've listened with interest to the comments by many of those on the other side, talking about the fact that men aren't taking up the teaching profession due to low wages. As the son of a woman who was a schoolteacher her entire life, and from having two close friends who are in the teaching profession, I know that it is the fear of false abuse allegations and the stress of being spat at, kicked and punched by students and not being able to discipline them that is keeping them away, not low wages. That is why the teaching profession is more female dominated.

But why would the Labor Party let the facts get in the way of their little fantasy story? After all, we have Peter Pan for a prime minister and Tinkerbell for a treasurer, who live in a fantasy land called never-never land, which is pretty well named because, under them, Australia will never, never get ahead. The newly elected member for Hawke showed the Labor Party's true colours with his comments that this legislation gets equal income distribution going. That is the real agenda here: pure socialism, which says that, no matter how hard you work, what sacrifices you make or how much you personally put on the line, everyone should have the same standard of living.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I give the call to the member for Bruce.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek an intervention under standing order 66A, and I invite the member to explain a little more about communism, socialism and also why the car industry left Australia.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Longman, do you accept the question from the member for Bruce?

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, of course not. It's ridiculous. So what planet does this thinking come from? Someone who makes a sacrifice like giving up four years to study or who does an apprenticeship or puts their family home up as collateral and works 80 hours a week should have the same income and standard of living as someone who decides either not to work at all or to work a 38-hour week with no risk? Hello? Hello? We're back in never-never land. No. When I was on the minimum wage and I watched others who had success and I saw what they did, I was inspired and wanted to follow in their footsteps.

Of course the Labor Party with their core purpose to increase union membership will do all they can to ensure larger employers—which are easier to infiltrate—will put smaller local family owned and run businesses out of business by having industry-wide bargaining. Smaller employers who do not have HR departments like their bigger counterparts will simply have no say in future workplace industrial relations, which is reprehensible and is, again, part of the socialist agenda which wants to eliminate individuality and small-business aspirations in favour of big companies that they can control via union membership. This bill is nothing to do with workers. It's all to do with attempting to drive up union membership. I hand it to the Labor Party. They are experts in getting people to bind to their hidden agendas by having the appearance of caring, but, in reality, they truly are wolves in sheep's clothing. I believe the Australian people are smarter than the Labor Party give them credit for and will see this smoke and mirrors legislations for what it is and I hope the non-Labor senators will block it as well.

To further show how out of touch this Labor government is, in question time today the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations rattled off over 25 names of organisations and groups they consulted with on this bill. Do you know how many names of small businesses he stated? Zero—not one. He of course consulted with three large employers, Qantas, Woolworths and Toll—no union membership going on there—but the majority of consultations were with bodies that are supposed to be representatives of small businesses, not real, living, actual small-business owners. Yes, Tony, they really are out there if you want to go and actually meet them.

This bill is a disgrace. It has no balance and it puts more strain on already stressed small-business owners. It will cause more job losses and Australian workers will be worse off. If this Labor government understood business and the economy, they might actually get this.

(Quorum formed)

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been terrific, actually, sitting through the contributions of those opposite, but I think, having listened to some of them, I'm just going to issue a trigger warning at the start: I'm going to say 'wage rises for workers', which is obviously a very upsetting and concerning phrase, given the kinds of demented reactions we have had all day from those opposite when we have talked about this. Let's be very clear: the primary purpose of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is to get wages moving again. We've heard the blather and the noise from the bin chickens over there for the last 24 hours, but there's a cost-of-living crisis in this country. Everything is going up except your wages. The Leader of the Opposition thought he was very clever running that line.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Bruce will take his seat. The shadow minister, the member for Bradfield, has the call.

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

That was an unparliamentary term and the member should withdraw it.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a bit unfair to bin chickens.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the member for Bruce assist the House, please?

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will assist you, Deputy Speaker, by withdrawing those things I just said. Everything in this country is going up except wages—electricity, gas, bills, food, rent, goods, services. But, let's be clear, the cost of living has two components: the price of goods and things that people pay for and the wages that people earn. It's money in, money out. I know that's a very difficult concept for the former government over there that left the country with a structural budget deficit of $40 billion, nearly a trillion dollars of Liberal debt and not enough to show for it, so we'll just break it down: it's money in, money out.

Now, the budget that we, the government, just handed down included cost-of-living relief without putting upwards pressure on inflation—cheaper child care, cheaper medicines, extended paid parental leave, affordable housing—and without the cash splash, which we saw from the former government, that pushes up inflation. That's one side of the equation. This bill is the other side of the equation. This is about getting wages moving and putting more money in people's pockets—the trigger warning that I gave you before.

Now, after a decade of the Liberal Party being in government, let's be really clear on their record. Real wages in this country were lower after 10 years of the Liberals than they were when they were elected. It's a shocking record. Australians are desperate for wage rises. Then they blamed COVID. They cannot hide behind COVID, because between 2013 and 2019—the six years before COVID—real wages were third last in the OECD. They'd fallen by 0.7 per cent in this country even before COVID. That's their economic record.

The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill is critical, then, and urgent to getting wages moving. It delivers on our election commitments and on the agreements made right across the country through the Jobs and Skills Summit. It promotes job security through new laws with new limits to stop employers from misusing fixed-term contracts. It'll help close the gender pay gap. It'll modernise the wages bargaining system and reform the better off overall test. It will ban job ads that advertise jobs below the legal minimum. I can't believe that it was ever legal to advertise jobs at $10 an hour or $15 an hour and trick people, often vulnerable migrants and students, into working under slave-like conditions.

Why do those opposite oppose this legislation? First, before we go into that, I just want to call out the nonsense and hysteria that we've heard from the Liberals—the dregs, the leftovers of the former government.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business.

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

Deputy Speaker, the member appears to have a problem with the repeated use of unparliamentary language. He's doing it again and he needs to withdraw it.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're right. I think we did have this debate in question time yesterday, and the conclusion was that 'dregs' is probably not nice—but it's easy to withdraw, so I'll withdraw that—but 'leftovers' is fine; the Speaker confirmed that. So let's go with 'leftovers of the former government'.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bruce, in continuation.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The hysteria and fearmongering about this bill is all they've got. Senator Cash is indeed—as the Leader of the Opposition told us yesterday—a gift to the nation by being left in that opposition shadow minister portfolio. She says it will lead to 'more strikes and less jobs!' This spouting hyperbolic nonsense—she looks like a demented real estate agent, popping up, running these weird lines. It'll unleash industrial and economic—actually, that was unfair. I'll withdraw 'real estate agent' because that was unfair to real estate agents.

These are speakers' quotes from the last couple of hours: 'It'll unleash industrial and economic chaos,' 'Unions will rule over the ashes of Australia,' 'The bill will potentially close down Australia,' 'If wages go up, Australia will close down,' 'If we have wage rises through this bill it will be feeding the beast.' The member for wherever she's from said: 'All businesses will go broke; businesses will all just close!' That's apparently what's going to happen if this bill is passed.

Let's be clear what's really going on. The Liberals are desperate to stop this bill, as it will reduce barriers to bargaining and actually get wages moving again. That's the point of the bill, and it will especially help lower paid workers, who are overwhelmingly female workers. The Liberals always fight against wage rises. In a decade there was not one piece of legislation in this country, not one real action, to ever push wages up. That was a deliberate policy that they had. It's the entire point of the Liberal Party, isn't it? When you boil it down and strip away all the rhetoric and the nice little dot points and cute little phrases, they exist for two reasons: to protect those who already have the most wealth, and to stop workers getting a greater share of the pie. That's the point of them. That's who donates to them. That's who funds them. That's who props up the whole rotten edifice over there.

I'm proud of the record already of this government. We've shown our colours: 5.2 per cent. We backed it at the Fair Work Commission, a rise to the minimum wage. Last week we backed a rise for aged-care workers. A royal commission recommended it, the former government wouldn't do it and we did it: a 15 per cent wage rise for aged-care workers.

Their former finance minister admitted—in a rare outbreak-of-truth moment—that it was a deliberate policy of the former government: 'It's a deliberate design feature of our economic management to keep wages down.' That's what he said. Another uncharacteristic outbreak of truth came this week, I think, from the shadow Treasurer. He was asked by journalists why he opposes the industrial relations changes. He said, 'Because it would push up wages!' He should probably tell some of the members, because we've just heard quite a number of them say in the same speech, 'This is an outrage because it'll push up wages,' and in the next breath, 'but there's no evidence that wages will rise.' That's a direct quote from the member for Mallee who just spoke.

It is also amusing when they talk about productivity, which we've heard a bit about from those sitting here. Apparently it's going to hurt productivity. That's nonsense. It's pretty bizarre they've raised productivity, because their record on productivity is amongst the worst in the OECD. Over their decade in office, in government, we saw less productivity before COVID under the Liberals. In 2013 we were ranked 10th highest in the OECD for productivity, 1.7 per cent growth. Not terrific but a damn sight better than their record. In 2018: fifth last, negative productivity growth, minus 0.3 per cent. They have no basis to lecture us on productivity.

The bill is urgent. There are claims—false ones—that it's rushed. There's been extensive consultation. There'll be a Senate inquiry. There have been months of consultation with employer groups, with unions—I should have issued another trigger warning before I said 'unions', for those over there—academics and experts, the Jobs and Skills Summit. Australians want this done. Wages are going up at 2.6 per cent now, yet inflation is running at 7.3 per cent. So, no, in answer to the cries from those opposite, we can't wait another month. We can't just think about it for a little bit longer over Christmas. Australians have waited for a decade as their wages have fallen. They shouldn't be made to wait longer because of delays here, because the parliament can't do the job it's paid to do. It's been through the election. It's been through the Jobs and Skills Summit. There have been months of consultation.

In particular, in closing, this is so important for women in this country. For too long, women's work has been undervalued and underpaid and concentrated in insecure sectors and conditions. Our economic recovery from the mess left by those opposite cannot be based on women's work continuing to be undervalued and unequally paid. The gender pay gap in this country is 14.1 per cent, and let's be very clear: this bill will put upward pressure on wages, which is what we need, and it will particularly enable lower paid workers in female dominated industries to actually have a fair crack at the enterprise bargaining system. Only about 14.1 per cent of workers in the country now have access to the enterprise bargaining system. That needs to improve, and in particular we need to help those lower paid female workers. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's clear that the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is nothing more than unionism gone mad. I'm compelled to speak in opposition to these radical reforms not just for the sake of common sense prevailing, not for the sake of smart and successful business practice but, more importantly, for the sake of small, medium, and large business owners in my electorate of Dawson.

The government's role is simple: set up business for success. These reforms do not do that. These reforms put the agenda of the unions first and the interests of business second. Never once have I heard from a small business owner, 'I would love nothing more than to bargain with the unions.' You see, if this legislation were put into effect in its current form, family businesses in Dawson such as a petrol station, an independent supermarket or a cafe would be facing infiltration from the unions when they simply work to serve the community and provide for their families. I visit local businesses in Dawson every week and I can see the hard work, the long hours and the personal resources that are poured out by hardworking residents for their businesses to succeed.

Small business makes up 98 per cent of Australian business, and 4.7 million of our jobs are in small business. These guys have been through so much already. Through COVID they were emotionally and financially depleted, and this just may be the tipping point for them. This bill will undermine the autonomy of business, undermine and compromise competition and allow unions to infiltrate small business. It will lead to job losses, will lead to more strikes and industrial action and will unfairly target small business. This bill doesn't improve the lives of Australians; provide long-term, sustainable, real wage growth; make a fairer system for individual businesses; increase productivity; or reduce the cost-of-living pressures.

I want to see real wages increase. This side of the chamber wants to see real wages increase. Of course we do. We want what is best for all Australians, and that's why we oppose this legislation. This bill is about the Labor government reimbursing their union masters, who have given them over $100 million—yes, over $100 million. In doing that, this reckless government is trying to rush through the most radical reforms to industrial relations in recent memory without listening to the Australian people, without allowing for a sufficient scrutiny process and without consulting with the business community. I haven't even had time to consult with my constituents or the businesses in my electorate that this will impact.

At the election, Labor made no indication that they wanted to introduce these radical reforms. They said the opposite. These are the biggest IR reforms since the GST was introduced. When the Howard government undertook the GST reforms, they held countless consultations and many inquiries to ensure that their reforms were the right fit for all Australians and for the future of the nation, but what we have here is a bill sneaking through by stealth. This bill is off. It's bad for Australians, it's bad for business and it sets us a very dangerous path.

Labor claimed that this radical legislation will be one size fits all, a magic bullet that puts more money in the pockets of workers. It will increase inflation and increase the cost-of-living pressures. Anyone who runs a small business knows that time and resources are precious. This bill accounts for none of that. A small business with a few employees doesn't have the capacity to have a HR department. In a complex system of multi-employer bargaining small businesses will be left vulnerable to over-reaching unions and lawyers.

This bill wants to make unique and varied businesses conform to a static standard. It does this under a stealthy principle called common interest. It will lead to under-resourced small business relying on big business to negotiate their own terms and conditions, resulting in the final agreed conditions being likely to be an ill fit for the needs of their organisation, thus making their operations unaffordable.

Let me give you an example, Deputy Speaker. In Mackay, in my electorate of Dawson, we have a major shopping centre called caneland. It could be deemed that the businesses that operate in the shopping centre are compelled to bargain together because of their common interest. Under this ambiguous structure the tenants of caneland will have to enter into negotiations and reach a static and uniform agreement on their employees' conditions. So you could end up with a situation where a locally-owned cafe is required to have the same agreement as a major department store within the same complex, yet these two stores are worlds apart. They have different customers, different operations, different objectives, different opening hours and different staffing numbers. One has an HR department. The other doesn't. One has the owner doing the books. The other has a large finance team. One has mostly casual or junior staff. The other predominantly employs permanent, full-time or part-time staff. One has to close the business around holiday periods or when a family emergency arises. The other has predictable opening hours. Yet because of their geographical common interest under this bill they could be considered the same. In the real world the cafe owner simply may not have the time, the staff or the capabilities to enter into complex bargaining negotiations like the department store, let alone the capacity to deal with the workers' strikes in the interim. To make the process simple they may have to defer the legwork to the HR team in the department store, meaning the finalised agreement would likely favour the interests of the department store over the cafe.

Business groups across Australia are united in their concern about this bill and its severe consequences that may force them to bargain together. Even the crossbench is against these radical laws, so that's saying something. This union-pleasing Labor government is treating all small businesses with contempt.

Principally, the government should only be introducing industrial relations reforms if they are designed to lift both productivity and wages. This bill will not achieve that. If small, medium and large enterprises are slapped with unsustainable agreements it will reduce their productivity, cut jobs and, in most cases, they will have to close the doors.

Picking up on the example of the cafe and the department store once again, should the cafe find themselves having to achieve the working hours, the contracts and the wages tailored to suit the department store needs, it is entirely possible that the cafe could find itself in an agreement that is untenable for its unique circumstances, which could lead them to shutting their doors for good. It leaves the student, the mother, the owner without a job. It's not a wage increase if you don't have a job.

This bill is a huge impost to small business, which is the backbone of our nation. I believe we should be making life easier for small-business owners, not more difficult. At a time of an inflation crisis and energy woes that are going to leave our country extremely vulnerable, and create a significant cost, this government is deciding to experiment with the Australian economy, the household budget and the working businesses of our nation. It is foolish. It is irresponsible. They are more interested in ideological battles and lining their pockets with union money than in helping everyday Australians. The Labor government are blindsiding the nation and further jeopardising businesses, who have already been through so much. These industrial laws are a disgrace and should never become law in this country. And it is all for the sake of the $100 million that has lined Labor's pockets. Look after Australia. Do your job.

(Quorum formed)

David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak in support of this important bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. This bill is why I am here. In my first speech I made it clear that fair workplace relations are at the heart of a healthy social democracy. Fair workplace relations should be a priority for the parliament to act on with the urgency that it deserves. This is why we are here. We are a government with an ambitious agenda to transform Australia into a fairer and more sustainable country. The drive for greater fairness is woven into the fabric of our government. You can see this right across our legislative program. You can see this right here in this bill. This bill represents a choice for the nation—a choice to get wages moving and dismantle the architecture of deliberate wage suppression; a choice to close the gender pay gap and take long-overdue steps to put gender equity at the heart of our workplace laws; a choice to improve job security; a choice to retire organisations that were established with a political agenda to promote conflict; and a choice to choose fairness.

I come to this debate with real experience of industrial relations in this country. Before coming to this place I spent more than a decade representing working Australians across different jobs, employers and industries in both the public and the private sector. I've represented scientists, police officers, engineers, vets and pharmacists. Before that I spent a decade in government working on industrial relations policy and delivery. I've seen enterprise bargaining in action. Indeed, I've spent thousands of hours in bargaining negotiations—an explanation for the colour of my hair!

I have seen legitimate claims for wage rises, offered in good faith, stymied by red tape and systems that offered next to no path to agreement or effective, timely conciliation and/or arbitration. Over that time, I've seen a move away from secure forms of employment and the damage that that has created in the lives of too many of my constituents and their families. But this is not an experience that I can claim a monopoly over; many of my colleagues on this side have had a similar experience. I'm proud of this. It is an important strength of this government when it comes to industrial relations. We understand it because we have the lived experience of it.

The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Dickson, asked yesterday: how many members of the government have ever run a business? This line has been echoed by nearly every member of the opposition when they have gotten up to make a contribution. Well, I'd like to ask: how many of those opposite have ever worked to get a pay rise for Australian workers, whether that be through wage cases or enterprise bargaining? We know they didn't do it when in government. How many of those opposite are even aware of, or truly care about, the facts on the ground in enterprise bargaining in this country.

Let's look at some facts. Here is a fact: the approval of enterprise agreements is at an all-time low, leaving workers and employers in stasis. Here is another fact: it has never been easier to unilaterally cancel enterprise agreements, leaving Australian workers in limbo and mired in insecurity. And here is another fact: Australian wages have been stagnating for far too long, making life harder for every Australian and biting hard at the heart of the economy. These are indisputable facts that form part of the reality of industrial relations in this country. The reality is that our system is completely and utterly broken, and has been for some time. There is no balance in this system. There is no fairness. It works neither for employers nor for workers.

For the first time in a decade there is a plan on the table to fix this mess. Over the course of this debate we have heard much scaremongering from those opposite. Instead of engaging with the substance of what is on the table here and recognising that within this bill there is part of a pathway to higher wages and fairer working conditions for working Australians, those opposite have resorted to the only tactic they know: fear and division.

The previous government presided over a broken industrial relations system for nearly a decade. They had nearly a decade to do something—anything—to get wages moving for working Australians. But instead they actively made things worse by restricting the ability of working people to negotiate better wages and conditions, and now, when we put forward a plan to end the rot and bring positive change, those opposite are unable to muster any positive contribution. I don't think we need to hear more cheap attempts at a history lesson from the HR Nicholls textbook, although I think it's worth saying that the deliberate absence of conversation around the decade of cooperative industrial relations in the eighties is telling. I say to those opposite: get out of the way and let us get on with bringing fairness back to industrial relations.

This bill should come as no surprise to anyone in this chamber. We on the side have been talking about these problems for years. During the election we made no secret of the fact that we would tackle the crisis with enterprise bargaining and industrial relations if we won the election. We convened the Jobs and Skills Summit here at Parliament House to discuss these issues with unions and employers. That summit was the culmination of a series of smaller summits that were held right across Australia to discuss the challenges and to debate the solutions. Indeed, the federal member for Fenner and I convened a local summit here too, in the Main Committee Room, bringing employers, unions and civil society together.

We have been clear and transparent, and the fact that this debate is unfolding in the way that it is demonstrates a commitment to a more transparent and collaborative process of lawmaking—a process that will continue. It will continue because what is before us is too important and we cannot allow it to get lost in the miasma of some of the contributions that have been on offer.

At its heart, enterprise bargaining, done well, has the potential to lift wages, boost productivity and improve flexibility. Reforms will remove unnecessary limitations from the existing framework. Multi-employer bargaining is already contemplated by the act through three streams. The problem is it isn't working. We're not creating new streams of bargaining; we are varying the existing streams to make them work and to get wages moving. The prohibition already in the act on pattern bargaining will remain.

These changes are critical to help tackle the gender pay gap and promote greater harmony and collaboration between workers and employers. It's a far superior model to the award system. Enterprise bargaining as it stands is not widely available to feminised workforces or to small and medium sized businesses. Where enterprise bargaining is available, workers have few options to secure an above-inflation pay rise with unreachable access to arbitration, employers can't rely on greater productivity or flexibility and the entire experience leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of all involved.

Collective bargaining done right can transform our economy, but left to rot it causes so much damage. Those opposite don't seem to think so. They don't see a problem here. They are beholden to a master-servant conception of the workplace, and that fact should give all of us pause for thought. But despite what they think over there, bargaining is in disrepair. It's holding back wages, productivity and flexibility. It is holding the Australian economy back.

But there is a core principle at stake here, a principle that has been left to wither and rot. It is an indispensable principle that must be rescued and re-established. It is the most Australian of all principles—fairness. That is what's at stake here. Forget the scaremongering, the hand-wringing, the complaints. All this boils down to is bringing fairness back to both workers and employers. We will never have fairness until we fix this broken system. This is why we are here. This is a commitment we made to working families around our nation. I commend the bill to the House.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor's proposed workplace changes presented in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Wages) Bill represent the most radical shake-up of Australia's industrial relations system since prior to the Hawke-Keating governments. In fact, they take us back to prior to the impressive reforms that they introduced. These were followed by the reforms of the Howard-Costello government that really set up our economy for the tremendous growth and prosperity that we've all enjoyed. This legislation is a reversal of that. The bill itself is called the 'secure jobs, better pay bill', but it's actually almost Orwellian in its title because, if anything, this will lead to less secure jobs and, in fact, it may well lead to lower pay rather than higher pay, which is their stated ambition. There are two pieces of data which support this conclusion. The first piece of data is looking at the budget papers themselves. I suggest to those opposite who are here, and there are many in the chamber: open up the budget that was introduced by Treasurer Chalmers just a few weeks ago. That budget itself says that real wages will decline over the next two years. That's what it says; you yourselves are admitting that, from this bill, real wages will decline while inflation continues to skyrocket along with the massive budget deficit continuing to increase. That's what it says.

The other piece of evidence that is worth examining is the evidence presented by Professor Mark Wooden from the University of Melbourne. He's done analysis of different systems across the world as to which systems have produced higher wages over the last few years, bearing in mind that across the Western world wages have been depressed over the last decade. But there have been distinctions between the systems, and what Professor Wooden found from his analysis is that those systems in developed economies which were the most decentralised and had enterprise focused bargaining frameworks have actually experienced the highest wage growth, whereas those systems which had the most centralised industrywide bargaining frameworks had the slowest growth. And he concluded that Australia was somewhere in between those two.

What this bill does is reverse the enterprise-bargaining framework which Hawke and Keating introduced and which has continued since, and chooses the pathway which, according to the University of Melbourne's Professor Wooten, puts us on a lower-wage-growth path. That's what it does, and that's why I say that this bill being called the 'secure jobs, better pay bill' is Orwellian, because that analysis itself says that this will actually lead to less pay for everyday Australians. And, certainly, on our side of the table, we don't want to see that. We want to see prosperity in this country and we want to see prosperity for everybody.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should love it then!

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've pointed out those two facts and I appreciate that the opposition don't want to hear that. They don't want to look at their own budget figures and they certainly don't want to look at the analysis from Professor Wooten from the University of Melbourne, which shows centralised bargaining actually produces lower wage increases than enterprise bargaining does.

There have been tremendous concerns about this bill, particularly in relation to the pattern-bargaining provisions of the bill, right across the business community and, indeed, across the education sector as well—of course I have much to do with that as shadow education spokesperson. I know that the education sector, particularly the higher education sector, is concerned that the impacts of the bill will lead to pattern bargaining across universities. The universities themselves are large organisations that typically have thousands of staff, and sometimes many thousands of staff—130,000 altogether.

Government members interjecting—

And quite rightly! Deputy Speaker Buchholz, I know they're interjecting again over on the other side. They're calling out; they don't want to hear what I have to say. Indeed, they don't want to hear what the higher education sector has to say. They pointed out that the enterprise model, which they have presently, takes into account the financial health of the university, the unique student cohorts, the research profiles and the geographic location, which all helps in aiding an enterprise-bargaining agreement. This is versus an industrywide agreement, which is what this bill would lean towards, where you can't take into account those unique circumstances. It is just purely ridiculous to say that a university in Port Macquarie is exactly the same as a university in Parkville. They're not; there are different circumstances, the cost of living is different, and there are different research priorities, geographies, student cohorts and the like. Quite rightly, those academic staff should be capable enough to bargain with those university leaders themselves rather than being told what to do.

Secondly, I would refer to what the business community more broadly has said. The business community has almost unanimously been critical of this bill. I will just point out a few comments, because I was here at question time and the minister was very proudly saying how he has consulted with everybody. I can tell him that he may have had meetings with them but he certainly didn't listen to them or act on what they said. I will read out what a few of them have said. First up is the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive, Andrew McKellar. He has warned that the compulsory multi-employer bargaining in this bill will lead to a seismic shift in Australia's workplace relations system, reversing decades of tripartite consensus. And he says that it will lead to more strikes, fewer jobs, centralised decision-making and less trust with their enterprises.

Innes Willox from the Australian Industry Group said the proposed changes to Australia's workplaces risk taking the country down a path of more strikes, fewer jobs, centralised decision-making and less trust with their enterprises. The Business Council of Australia said:

Australians deserve a system that delivers higher wages and better jobs, with diverse businesses that can innovate, deliver the best services and products and grow the economy.

This will not achieve those outcomes, instead we are staring down the barrel of a more complex system that runs the risk of stifling innovation and fossilising the economy.

The COSBOA CEO says the legislation is a trojan horse, as emphasised by the CEO of ACCI, for the empowerment of unions in every workplace in Australia. I could just go on and on in relation to the business community sentiment.

There is one stakeholder, though, who has given a positive review of this bill, and I'm sure those opposite will be very pleased about this, because this person is a very big donor to them. It is none other than John Setka from the CFMMEU, the man who's probably been subject to more findings of breaking the law than any other union leader in Australian history. He has said he's very impressed by Tony Burke's bill—incredibly impressed. He's absolutely stoked about the bill, because he knows he'll now get into every single one of those businesses, creeping into those small businesses, into the tradie shops, into all the other smaller construction houses which presently are just getting on with the job, trying to do their job and provide good conditions for their employees.

This is not a good bill. It is being rushed through this parliament. It hasn't had the scrutiny it deserves, and it deserves to be voted down. It will do exactly the opposite of what it presents itself as. It will not secure more jobs. It will not secure better pay. We can be certain of that. To the contrary, we're going to get lower pay, we're going to get less-secure jobs and we're going to get more distrust between business and employees. It's almost a guarantee that we will have more strikes in this country. And it's almost a guarantee that prices are going to increase as well.

The government likes to say that they're doing everything they can to get on top of inflation. Ha! That's a joke. Almost everything they do is exacerbating inflationary pressures, and this will do that equally. So, this is not a good bill. It should be rejected. I haven't even touched on the abolition of the ABCC. In the past, when it was last abolished, that led to an increase of 56 per cent in disputes with the construction sector. For that, as well, the bill should be rejected. But overall it's not a good bill. It sets Australia back. It puts us back decades in terms of our industrial relations system and should be firmly rejected.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand here today very proud to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. We just heard the member for Aston say that this is not a good bill. Well, I believe it is a good bill, and all of us on this side believe that this is the right thing to do. It is a bill that will ensure dignity at the workplace. It's a bill that will ensure that wages keep up with inflation. And it's a bill that will give fairness at work. We've seen 10 years of the lowest wages in this country in terms of keeping up with inflation, under their watch. We saw 10 years of absolutely zero in this area. Those opposite were quite happy to keep wages very, very low while inflation soared through the roof.

This bill addresses many of the problems that were caused because of their watch for the last nine years and many of the problems in Australia's industrial relations systems that were raised at the Jobs and Skills Summit and through proper consultation. We were determined to get wages moving after 10 years of inaction by the former government. And we were determined to address the gender pay gap after 10 years during which this government did nothing at all and we saw that rise. We want to ensure that people who are doing such valuable work in the care economy, for example, are finally valued and paid adequately. And we want businesses and employers to work more closely together to achieve better and fairer terms and good conditions for all Australians. These are the things that we on this side of the House stand for.

As I said, I am proud of this. Yet all we hear from the opposition, as we just heard from the member for Aston, is scaremongering—words like 'Armageddon', 'militant unions', 'endless strikes' and 'the end of the world as we know it'. Anyone would think they're still living in the 1960s, fighting the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis. We've moved on from that era. It's almost as though we're having the same scaremongering as they use over and over again during the climate debate. And we all remember, over the last nine years, the scaremongering that took place there. Australians saw through it then and Australians will see through it again. How can it be a bad thing that women and low-paid workers are paid equally?

How can it be a bad thing that our aged-care workers, early childhood educators, disability carers and cleaners are finally paid a decent wage? It's actually disrespectful to all those hardworking workers out there. It's disrespectful to all Australians, and it's even worse after we have been discussing the Respect@Work report in this place for days.

We on this side of the House are absolutely determined to promote job security, help close that gender pay gap, modernise the workplace bargaining system and get wages moving again. Under the previous government, wages were deliberately kept low and insecure work was encouraged. Labor is taking the opposite approach. We want to help workers get ahead.

Australia's current workplace relations framework is not working. Anyone can tell you that. It's not delivering a fair go to workers or productivity gains to employers. We've seen the lowest productivity this country has seen in the last 10 years. We need a strong economy that delivers for all Australians. We want to see more workers in good jobs, secure jobs, with fair pay and proper protections. We want workers to have a pathway to a better life and businesses to thrive. We know that if workers have more money in their pockets they will spend it on the essentials, which keep businesses going. It's not rocket science. The more money that workers have, the more that's spent in the community.

This bill will also ban pay secrecy clauses, expand access to flexible work arrangements and expressly prohibit harassment in the Fair Work Act. The bill will also bolster a worker's ability to recover unpaid entitlements, under the Fair Work small claims system, and ban job ads that advertise for below the relevant minimum pay rate. It will also modernise the bargaining system, which, according to all involved, is too complex and not working.

Now we hear that the legislation is rushed. That's what we're hearing from the other side. To be honest, tell that to the people who are currently struggling to choose between paying their bills, paying their rent and putting food on the table. Too many Australians are struggling with the rising cost of living and stagnant wages. Wages have been stagnant for 10 years in this nation, and we need to do something about it. That's what this bill does. After 10 years of an economic policy that kept wages deliberately low, it's about time we started acting. And that's what we're doing.

We've consulted extensively in the months since we were elected. We've consulted with the committee on industrial relations and with state and territory officials. It was discussed at the Jobs and Skills Summit. It's clear and transparent. Most importantly, we took it to an election. This was discussed before the election. The then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, and the shadow minister for industrial relations, now industrial relations minister, spoke about it extensively. We outlined to the Australian public what we would do in government, and this is what we are doing.

This bill will ensure the Fair Work Commission is properly resourced to assist businesses that want to engage with the enterprise bargaining system but have not been able to do so to date. There will be resources for them. We'll continue to consult, we'll continue to work with workers and businesses, because the times have moved. We're no longer in the era that those on the other side are still stuck in—the 1960s, fighting the Cold War—because we're committed to these reforms. We're committed to secure work and a decent wage that keeps up with the cost of living.

Australian workers have waited for a decade for strong wage growth, and it hasn't come. They've been waiting for 10 years. It was inaction from the government over the last 10 years. Australian workers expect action, and that's what we are doing. They deserve a break, especially given the current economic situation and rampant global inflation. Australians can't wait any longer for a decent increase to their wages. We don't want to waste any time before making improvements to the workplace relations systems—so it can work better for everyone, so it can deliver decent wages, secure work and respect at work.

Australian workers have been waiting for 10 years for pay rises, while, at the same time, the cost of living has been going up. The cost of living has been going up and their wages have remained stagnant because of the inaction. It suited the government. It's their mantra. It's within their DNA to keep wages low. It's within their DNA to attack workers. We've seen it in here. I've been here long enough to have seen many, many speeches, and every time anything comes up about industrial relations, it's about putting a lid on it, it's about keeping them quiet, it's about not allowing the industrial movement to move forward and have good engagement with businesses and with workers so it is able to come up with a solution that ensures that people have a decent wage and decent work conditions.

As I said, we don't want to waste any more time before making these improvements to the workplace relations system. Australian workers have been waiting for a long time for this bill. This bill will ensure that things are put in place that will increase wages and will give them the respect that they deserve at work and the bargaining powers that they require. Surely, if now is not the time, when? The time is now. I commend the bill to the House.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to admit that the name of this bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, caused me to raise my eyebrows. You have to applaud the government for simplifying this legislation down to four words that, without context, sound fantastic. After all, who doesn't want secure jobs and better pay? I'm all for it. If this legislation even remotely delivered on what the name suggested, I'd vote for it. I will always do what I think is right and in the best interests of my community and I consider all legislation carefully and on its merits, and I'm concerned about this.

While there are some positive aspects to the bill, it falls short. It's a large and complex piece of legislation, and we've had it for just a few weeks—not nearly enough time to appropriately scrutinise a 250-page bill that also has a 260-page explanatory memorandum. It also doesn't leave the necessary time for me to consult widely with my community as to what this would mean for them.

There are over 37,000 small businesses in Tasmania, 30,000 of which are employers. They make up more than 96 per cent of all businesses in Tasmania and provide more than half of the private sector employment in our state. In my electorate of Bass alone, there are more than 3,000 small businesses and, as their federal representative, it's my job to ensure that government legislation that best supports them is in place.

Without a doubt, I would say that almost all employers and employees in my northern Tasmanian region would not have the faintest idea what this bill will mean for them. After a tumultuous few years emerging from the pandemic and at a time of growing inflation, businesses are struggling with staff shortages and rapidly increasing power costs. I can't understand why the government wants to thrust these workplace changes upon the hardworking small business owners in my electorate. What work has Labor done to engage the business owners in electorates across the country? Why is there such a rush to push this through, if not just to appease the unions?

This bill creates drastic changes to our industrial relations system, and time needs to be taken to carefully examine what the government is proposing here, and employers need to be given the opportunity to understand what it means for them. I know from talking to small businesses in my electorate, particularly those in the retail or hospitality space, that their focus right now is on ensuring they'll have a solid Christmas period that will help set them up for the quieter winter months. They're wanting to ensure that the demand is there—an increasing challenge, with people worried about the cost of living—while also wanting to meet that demand through the hiring of necessary staff. If I talk to any small business owner right now, what I hear about the most is the struggle to get staff. What they don't need on their plate is a new and onerous workplace relations bill that they don't have the time or resources to wade through. If they don't know what this is or what it means for them, this is concerning.

Just a few weeks ago the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Industry Group joined forces to caution against this legislation, warning that it will have significant ramifications that raise the risk of higher unemployment, increased strike action and damage to our economic security. They also warned the government to slow down and consult more widely and meaningfully. Jennifer Westacott, CEO of the Business Council of Australia, said the following:

We want wages to go up but that won't be achieved by creating more complexity, more strikes and higher unemployment.

Australia is in the midst of a global economic storm and there's no room for error if we want to secure our economic future, we have to tread carefully.

Innes Willox from AiG warned:

The high-risk proposals as they currently stand will create enormous difficulties for business and carry unintended consequences that will cost jobs and cause serious damage to our economy. We need a workplace relations system that is fair for all parties and delivers sustainable benefits to employees. We must avoid extreme changes that risk imposing damaging strikes and harm on the community and businesses. A responsible approach to changes to workplace laws is crucial. We urge the government to take a breath and avoid rushing to introduce such extreme changes to our workplace relations system.

Will Cassidy, the chief executive of the Launceston Chamber of Commerce—one of the oldest and most successful chambers in the country—has also expressed concern over the legislation, telling me, 'We weren't consulted or asked to give feedback on this, and it does feel like it needs wider consultation with the business community.' Robert Mallett, CEO of the Tasmanian Small Business Council, has also expressed his concern on the legislation and the process undertaken by the government, saying, 'We should have had a communitywide conversation to discuss and debate any changes to an amended IR bill—not an election—rather than some rushed attempt to make changes to be seen to be doing something.' He continues: 'There is need for more flexibility, not more complexity. Small-business people are already doing as much as they can to be flexible with their staff because they desperately need to hang onto them. Arrangements between staff and employers are already under fire because of black letter of the legislation, which doesn't account for the personalised nature of small businesses. This opportunity should be about modernising the awards rather than adding another mechanism for negotiating agreements.'

I note that Minister Burke said in question time today that extensive consultation had been done, and he listed all the organisations he had met with regard to the legislation. But I would say to the minister and to the government: consultation isn't just telling people what you're going to do; it's about listening to their response, and that's the part that you've so far failed to do. The role of government is to put in place frameworks that provide the lever by which business and employers can prosper, grow and create more jobs for Australians. What this bill proposes leads to is an unstable environment, creating more strikes and job losses. We all want to see Australians in secure work, should they seek it, and with higher wages, particularly at a time when we're seeing drastic increases in cost-of-living expenses.

I acknowledge that people in my electorate are some of the lowest paid in the country, and they deserve higher pay. Irrespective of those noble aims, what of the unintended consequences? Unlike many here, I can actually speak to what it's like to get by as a casual worker, and I don't mean in high school or while studying at university. I've had casual, contract and insecure employment my whole working life until recently, although I do joke that, while well-paid, being the member for Bass is arguably insecure. At one stage I was juggling casual work, single-motherhood and studying, so I acutely understand the pressures of needing to pay the bills without having solid financial security and certainty. The member for Lalor spoke very passionately about this and said, 'If you don't wave this legislation through, you don't care.' Of course we care, but this isn't the way to do it. I understand and support higher wages, but I've also lived through situations as an employee in the hospitality industry when my employer decided not to open because they couldn't cover the employee costs. It's no good getting a higher hourly rate if you get fewer hours. It's also no good receiving a higher wage only to lose your job if your employer folds. We have to get the balance right.

As I've listened to speeches by this government on the legislation, with much being made about a feminised workplace, I noted there are also many female business owners in my electorate. They're bright, energetic, hardworking employers, many with a majority of female employees. How is this legislation truly creating the necessary framework to help any business owner thrive and employ more staff—particularly in the current environment, where it's a struggle for employers to recruit and retain good employees? The multi-employer bargaining aspect of this bill will not make workplaces more productive or sustain higher wages. In fact, as the Productivity Commission points out, multi-employer bargaining would undermine the productivity benefits of enterprise bargaining by imposing one-size-fits-all agreements on groups of businesses, preventing more productive businesses from attracting more productive workers, and removing the incentive for productivity improvements.

Where's the support for small businesses who don't have the financial means to engage the necessary legal or HR support needed to engage in multi-employer bargaining?

And where's the power for employees if multi-employer agreements cannot be voted on by employees without the permission of bargaining representatives essentially giving unions a right of veto? Small business has often been described as the engine room of the Australian economy, so why is Labor doing everything they can to slow that engine down and cause irretrievable damage at such an uncertain time in the economy?

There are some good aspects of the bill. Who doesn't want to end the gender pay gap? Of course we should be looking to do this, but it needs to be done thoughtfully. On the whole there are serious adverse consequences, as raised not only by our side of the parliament but by the entire crossbench, with all holding concerns over the rush to push this through. I would encourage the government to consider trying to advance the non-contentious parts of the bill and spend some more time consulting with the business community across Australia, including in my electorate of Bass.

(Quorum formed)

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's one thing that people contacting me about how hard it is to pay their bills already know. They know they haven't had a pay rise for a really long time. In fact, the people who are in their 20s and even in their early 30s might never have experienced a significant pay rise except as a result of their own efforts to upskill or take on higher duties or more responsibility. That's particularly the case for people working in highly feminised industries: the caring industries, where people are caring for someone who's old, caring for someone who's sick, caring for someone with a disability or caring for someone who's very young. They might have insecure work, which might be as a casual but could also be someone who's working in the gig economy, someone who's with labour hire or someone with new forms of insecurity as a part-time employee or on a rolling fixed-term contract, which effectively amounts to a permanent probation period. They haven't seen any increases that are sufficient to keep up with the rising cost of living, really just living simply. They're paying a mortgage or rent, covering their bills, paying for their health care, putting food on the table. What we talk about as the cost of living is actually the gap between their income and the prices they're being asked to pay, and we all know prices are going up.

At a time when the pressures of global inflation are hitting every household, our workplace laws simply have not kept up with making sure that wages keep up as well. With inflation running at 7.3 per cent and wage increases at 2.6 per cent there's a gap, and every day the impact of a decade of wage stagnation continues. It's felt by households trying to make ends meet. We all know that supressing wage growth was a deliberate design feature of the previous government's management of the economy. We know that because the previous government's own finance minister Mathias Cormann explained that strategy clearly for everyone to hear. People were also assured by the previous government that, when unemployment went down, wages would go up. In fact, in the previous government's budgets there were predictions of wage increases, and they never came to pass. Despite a near record low unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent, inflation is fast outpacing wages growth, and that's why we have workers falling behind. With some exceptions, such as those who are very well placed to bargain strongly on their own behalf, most workers are caught in the pincer movement of flat wages and price rises.

You can't seriously claim to care about the cost of living without supporting a lift in wages. But what we've heard through the course of the debate on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill because so many of us have been in here for such extended periods are the contradictions coming from the other side and their inability to keep to a single narrative. On the one hand they say, 'This isn't going to do anything to help lift wages,' and on the other hand they say, 'We don't need to lift wages.' It's been a joy to have the opportunity to hear the inconsistency that is coming from those opposite.

I think we recognise that the urgency of getting wages moving is most acute in feminised industries, where that gender pay gap is sitting at 14.1 per cent. The system needs to be recalibrated for all workers. Australia's current workplace relations framework isn't working to deliver a fair go for workers or, quite frankly, productivity gains for employers. This legislation will help with job security. It'll help close the gender pay gap and it will help get wages moving. The title, 'secure jobs, better pay', does sum up the key objectives of the legislation. I don't want to oversell what I think can be achieved. It will take time for this bill to result in improvements in workplaces and pay increases in the pockets of Australians. That's one of the reasons we cannot waste a moment in getting this through our parliament. As the Prime Minister said today, not everyone is going to love everything about it, but we know that this is a great step to getting more secure jobs and better pay for Australians.

Let's look at some of the elements. In the design of these reforms we've deliberately focused on the needs of lower-paid and feminised workforces. Everyone knows workers in feminised sectors are underpaid, overworked, undervalued and often in insecure work. This bill will put job security and gender equality at the heart of the Fair Work Commission's decision-making processes, where they'll be given equal weight to the other objects of the commission in making its decisions. That will lead to real improvements in pay packets. We'll also strengthen access to flexible work arrangements, so workers with caring responsibilities can better balance work and their caring role. The bill will ban pay secrecy clauses so that companies can't stop staff talking about their pay, if they want to. I think we can guess who is going to benefit most from that. Those who will benefit most will be women because these clauses have long been used to conceal gender pay differences.

The bill also implements one of the Respect@Work recommendations by prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace and providing a new dispute resolution mechanism so that all workers have access to quick, informal dispute resolution before the specialist workplace relations tribunal. It's a process that we could have seen in place years ago, had the previous government bothered. There's also strengthened protection against discrimination—for instance, breastfeeding mums—to align the Fair Work Act with existing Commonwealth antidiscrimination law. So it really does start to shift the dial a little bit further for women.

Another key change that will help women, particularly, but not limited to women, is putting a limit on fixed-term contracts for the same role. The number of workers on fixed-term contracts has gone up by more than 50 per cent since 1998. More than half of all employees on fixed-term contracts are women, and more than 40 per cent of fixed-term employees have been with their employer for two years or more.

Under this bill there's a limit on the use of those fixed-term contracts, for the same role, beyond two years or two consecutive contracts, whichever's shorter. If these rules are breached, the contract will remain valid but its expiry date will not. I want to be really clear. There are exemptions that allow employers to use fixed-term contracts for legitimate purposes. I think what we're seeing, though, is that many of these changes create a level playing field so the good employers are not undercut by the not so good.

In order to do that, another element is that this bill gives immediate effect to recommendations of the 2019 Migrant Workers' Taskforce. Yes, that was brought down three years ago. I want to thank the advocacy of migrant workers and their unions who I met with in his place. It will now be unlawful to advertise a job for less than the applicable minimum rate. That shouldn't be revolutionary. That is something that provides fairness across the board, and this whole parliament should be supportive. It will also provide greater ability to recover unpaid entitlements by increasing the cap on small claims under the Fair Work Act. The current threshold forces many workers to pursue pay claims through a more complex court process. Again, this is a reasonable and fair change that fair-minded people will not hesitate to support.

I want to touch on the issue of the impact of this on business, particularly small business. As someone who was in business for 25 years before coming to this place—I grew up in my dad's small business—the ability of our local small and micro businesses to thrive is really important to me but also to my local economy and community. I have no doubt of the ability of those opposite to spread fear amongst small businesses, and I've heard ill-informed commentary in this place about how we'll all be ruined.

Small business is facing tough times, and we're well aware of that. Finding and keeping great people is one of the challenges. But this contains specific rules that mean small businesses' circumstances will be taken into account. We know they will be relevant to determinations. It recognises that small business is different from big business and can't always have the same conditions as big business. There is also support for small business to really get their head around this. This is a criticism I've heard from those opposite but, in fact, we've provided an additional $7.9 million to help the Fair Work Ombudsman's employer advisory service. We care about small business. This is going to work for everybody.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this legislation. The reason I do that is I believe very strongly that this is not in the best interests of either workers or employers. I have taken every opportunity to listen to the contributions that have been made in this debate, and I've listened very closely to the contributions that have been made by my colleagues. There have been some excellent contributions, but I particularly noticed the contribution made by the member for Bass, the coalition member who spoke directly before me on this bill.

She made some excellent points. I would encourage members in this place to read, through the Hansard, her contribution and the point that she was making, at one stage during her speech, in relation to her time working as a casual in the hospitality sector. She spoke about the time that her boss was unable to open simply because he couldn't afford to pay the wages on that day. The point that the member for Bass made is that there's very little point in having an increase in your hourly rate if you are working fewer hours. It is a very valid point that she has made.

I've also listened very closely to the contributions of the government members. I've listened to them. I've read them. I've watched the speeches. I'm very concerned about the assertions that have been made in what is clearly a significant industrial relations reform—probably bigger than anything that we have seen in decades. What concerns me the most at this point is the haste in which Labor is moving to implement such wide-ranging and wide-reaching changes that are, quite frankly, just going to upend the industrial relations systems in this country.

This legislation is, in fact, the very last thing that we need at a time of significant economic challenges and the rising pressures that exist on household budgets. Clearly, the changes that are being proposed are very ideologically driven, and I don't believe they are in the national interest. At a time of growing inflation, of businesses struggling with staff shortages and rapidly increasing power costs, this legislation, in my very strong view, will make a bad situation worse.

As Innes Willox, the Chief Executive of the national employer association Ai Group, said in his statement on the bill, 'The legislation is fundamentally flawed and needs to be rethought and reworked.' The coalition firmly believes that the government needs to go back to the drawing board. Despite the government's claims, there seems to be no evidence that the reforms that they are proposing will deliver higher wages. In fact, based on feedback from employers, it would have the exact opposite effect. Employers are warning that it will lead to more strikes and potentially more job losses. In fact, business groups across Australia—small, medium and large—have been united in their opposition to this bill, and particularly to multi-employer bargaining. It is a return to the old-fashioned collective bargaining which modern economies have been progressing away from. It is essentially a gift to the union movement. Many people see it as payback for the steadfast support Labor has received from militant unions over many years, and especially during the election campaign. I can see why people draw that conclusion, because it's hard to see why else the government is making these retrograde changes.

The reality of this bill, if it goes forward in its current form, would be more strikes and job losses, small businesses having to deal with unions when they never before and potential delays in wage rises because of increased complexity. By undermining competition, this bill means Australians will have fewer choices but face higher costs. It sets Australia back decades. The ultimate effect will be to force prices even higher and further increase the cost of living. As one of my local Chamber of Commerce presidents described it, 'There's plenty that they need to do out there without crippling business with archaic rules that will see only the rich employers able to survive.' Making an already complex system more complex is never a good idea, especially for small- and medium-business owners that are under-resourced and struggling to keep their heads above water.

I'm acutely aware of the challenges the system can present for different sectors. As a strong advocate for small business—and I've staked the claim before in this place that the Gold Coast is the small business capital of Australia—I'm deeply concerned about the impact of this legislation. On the coast we have a diverse range of businesses and that includes tourism and hospitality, retail, building and construction, and a strong manufacturing base. The majority are small to medium and many are family owned and they stand to be the hardest hit by this legislation. As Mark McKenzie of the Australasian Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association said when talking about the impacts on the variety of businesses within his industry:

Any action that results in applying identical workplace changes across all these businesses reduces business diversity and potentially weakens the capacity of small businesses to compete with larger businesses. The resultant marginalisation of small family-owned businesses risks ceding competition to a smaller number of large businesses and a reduction of price competition intensity in the national fuel retail market.

He went on to point out that the legislation:

appears to fail the core objective of the National Jobs and Skills Summit in that it prioritises the goal of lifting wages above the equally important goal of delivering the business productivity gains needed to fund such wage increases.

I think that is a really concerning point.

The overwhelming number of issues in Labor's bill relate to bargaining and particularly the provisions relating to multi-employer bargaining. Labor's bill expands the single-interest stream by allowing the Fair Work Commission to authorise workers with common interests to bargain together where it is in the public interest for them to do so. Businesses are rightly concerned about the common-interest provision being so broad as to be ridiculous. This will allow unions to apply to compel employers to bargain together if the move has the support of the majority of employees. This is backed by the right to strike. Being coerced into bargaining based on some vague common-interest test is fundamentally unfair. This is not bargaining; it is compulsion and it is fundamentally unfair. It means that once an employer becomes part of a multi-employer agreement it can no longer pursue a single-enterprise bargain.

So, instead of improving choice and flexibility for employers and employees, this legislation actually limits choices and compels businesses. How is that an improvement for anyone?—except, of course, the unions who want more power and more say over businesses and the private sector employees, who have overwhelmingly chosen not to be members of a union.

Given that the building and construction industry is one of the Gold Coast's largest employers, I'm also deeply concerned that this bill effectively hands this sector to the CFMMEU. The damaging move to abolish the industry watchdog, the ABCC, has the potential to lead to economic loss of around $47.5 billion by 2030, according to a report by Ernst & Young in April this year. I have spoken in this place before about the importance of the ABCC. Once again, it is being abolished for purely ideological reasons, and that is clearly not in the national interest. I'm concerned that, by the deliberate abolition of the last line of defence between construction employers and a militant union, we will see building costs skyrocket, businesses fold and jobs lost.

For these and for many other reasons, I join with my colleagues on this side of the House in opposing this legislation. And I do implore the government to go back to the drawing board and to rewrite this unfair bill, which will only compound and worsen the serious economic issues our nation is facing.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to stand this evening to speak in support of the government's Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. We all know, on this side of the House, that good secure work should be able to pay your bills. It seems like a fundamental principle that we should all be able to support and want citizens to be able to enjoy.

Labor's been the voice of workers for over 130 years, so it should come as no surprise that we might want to pursue legislation that delivers fair pay for people. Indeed, the Labor Party, as anyone who's read our history would know, was formed originally to represent the interests of workers, and that's exactly what we're doing again in this chamber today. It's a part of our DNA. Decades of struggle and suppression in the 19th century motivated workers to establish the Labor electoral leads and to ensure that they had political representation, and that is all for the betterment of Australian working men and women.

Now, here we are again in 2022, and it's a Labor government that is undertaking that important work of being a voice for Australian working men and women after the Liberals' deliberate plan to keep wages down for almost a decade now. It's extraordinary, listening to some of the contributions and the faux outrage on a bill that seeks to deliver both secure employment for people and better wages and conditions. It seems hard to fathom, really, that you wouldn't support this. But if you have lived with an ideology that says trickle-down economics is a truth then perhaps you might have some difficulty with the concept—and with reflecting back on the last 10 years of history here, where increases in productivity, and all of the things that workers were asked to do, have not resulted at the end of the day in any kind of benefit in terms of delivering a better pay packet for those going home at the end of a shift or the working week.

There has been an insistence of Liberal ideology around the notion that low unemployment rates would push up wages. We have a lot of evidence to suggest that was not true—a lot of evidence. We know that the idea of trickle-down economics, that businesses and people doing well at the top would somehow deliver great benefits to the workers, alongside increased productivity and boosting of wages, didn't work either. These are not truths. Shamefully, all of those promises resulted in nothing but a wasted decade, and wages growth remained unacceptably low. Workers really can't afford to wait any longer, and nor should they. That's why this bill is delivering on more secure jobs, better pay and a fairer workplace relations system. It's a commitment we made to the Australian people throughout the campaign. There are no surprises in this bill; we're honouring our word. I think the Australian people will be somewhat relieved to have a government that is honouring its word.

This secure jobs, better pay bill is going to fix what has become a very broken bargaining system in Australia. It will get wages moving again by expanding access to enterprise bargaining and multi-employer bargaining systems. It will abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission. Again, Labor has long been on the record seeking to abolish both of those organisations. It's a bill that will protect workers by banning job ads that advertise for below the relevant minimum wage. It's astonishing that anyone in this parliament would object to a guarantee that you don't go out trying to seek workers on the basis of paying them less then what they are entitled to receive. There is a minimum wage for a very good reason. As I said, this bill will help protect workers by banning job ads that advertise for below minimum pay rates. It will ban secrecy clauses and expand access to flexible work arrangements, because workers that want to discuss pay equity in their workplace should not be prohibited from doing so by their employment contracts.

Transparency is essential to reform—but, you know what? It's absolute essential to delivering a gender pay equity outcome in this nation as well. In addition to all of those measures that I've just referred to, the bill is designed to ensure that some of the most undervalued workers in this country, workers in female dominated professions like health care, aged care, disability support and early childhood education get the pay rises and the support that they deserve. These are the workers, and mostly women workers, who've long been forgotten, who have been missed out in so much of the discussion around increased productivity measures and delivering for the nation. They've worked their guts out for a very long time and got us all through the pandemic, and they deserve more than thanks at this moment. They deserve secure jobs and better pay. Australia's national gender pay gap is currently at a very unacceptable 14.1 per cent.

I don't think anybody in this House would be proud of this figure. I'm sure even members opposite, who have ideological opposition to some aspects of this bill, as I understand it, would be hard pressed to suggest that a stubborn, persistent gender pay gap of 14.1 per cent is okay. On average, a woman working full time is earning $263.90 less than a man working full time in Australia. Again, who says that's an acceptable outcome? Certainly not anybody on this side of the House. Let's be very clear. This is not a choice that women make. We don't choose to enter into undervalued, underpaid professions. It's not a conscious decision women are making. It's just that women have been fighting for decades now, I think it would be very fair to say, for equal pay and conditions. It's a very long history in our nation.

This bill joins a long line of vital reform work, including the national minimum wage and equal pay cases of 1969 and 1972, the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1984, the establishment of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency in 1986 and improvements in the Fair Work Act in 2009, just to name a few. This bill is a combination of relentless advocacy and campaigning by women workers, their unions, gender equity advocates, academics and countless women in this very building. And a big shout-out to the Hunter workers in my electorate of Newcastle who have been at the forefront of this campaign every step of the way.

I am proud to be part of a Labor government where 52 per cent of our party room is comprised of women, and that's a government party room. Women aren't an afterthought for the Australian Labor Party; we are part of every decision and every policy. That's why our policies create a better future for all Australians, not just a select few. Being a voice for workers is core business for Labor, and secure jobs and better pay is good for working people, it's good for business and it's good for our nation.

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

This is a very bad bill, which will lead to more strikes and job losses, as we saw in the 1970s, and which will allow unions into small businesses that have never had to deal with them before. It will undermine competition so Australians have fewer choices but face higher costs or will force up prices and increase the cost of living and unfairly target small businesses because these changes will be complicated and expensive, and small businesses don't have human resources departments that can wade through complex changes. Business groups—small, medium and large—across Australia are united in their opposition to the changes, particularly to multi-employer bargaining. I want to highlight, in my contribution, several troubling aspects of this bill.

The first is multi-employer bargaining. Today, the single-interest employer authorisation bargaining stream is a voluntary process under which employers with a single interest, which is very tightly defined, can opt to make an application to the minister and the Fair Work Commission to bargain together. Labor's bill substantially changes this by making it compulsory and by significantly broadening the types of employers who fall under this stream and who may now be compelled to bargain together. Because Labor's bill retains the ability of employees to take industrial action, at the same time as allowing a broader range of employers to be compelled to bargain together, the bill significantly increases the risk of multisector industrial action.

Compelling a broad range of employers to bargain together will have a particularly devastating impact on small and medium businesses. It will require small-business owners, who almost always work in the business themselves, to spend a significant amount of time away from their work negotiating a joint bargaining position with the other employers, including those with fundamentally different businesses, and then negotiating with employee and union representatives, all of whom will have significantly more time to dedicate to this processes.

The outcome of the bargaining process will be a multi-employer agreement that will undoubtedly take a one-size-fits-all approach. It will not be relevant to the particular requirements of the business and will, therefore, cause operational difficulties in the future—for example, because of working hours or rosters that do not suit all businesses. A collective agreement which is ill-suited to the circumstances of a particular business will significantly constrain how the business owner can manage the business and, in turn, may very well threaten the viability of the business.

The bill also involves the imposition of significantly more red tape and regulatory burden on business, including small businesses. The changes to the rules regarding flexible working arrangements will be particularly burdensome. Under the Fair Work Act as it stands today, under section 65, an employee has the right to request flexible working arrangements. That's a perfectly sensible and desirable thing. The employer can only refuse if there are reasonable business grounds to do so. The employer must provide written reasons for the refusal and must respond within 21 days. There is no ability for an employee to contest the basis for the employer's refusal, but, of course, the employer must demonstrate reasonable business grounds.

Under the bill disputes over flexible work arrangement requests will be dealt with by the Fair Work Commission, which may resolve the dispute by arbitration and may make orders that an employer grant the employee's original request, or make other specified changes to the employee's working arrangements. This is a significant change and one that is unprecedented in Australia's workplace relations history. It effectively makes the Fair Work Commission the final decision-maker in how an employer manages their own workplace arrangements. This means that if an eligible worker requests flexible working hours or other arrangements, such as working from home, the employer will be legally bound to try to reach an agreement. The impact on all businesses—but in particular on small businesses which do not have the time, money or resources to deal with the change—is that employers are now going to have their working arrangements determined by a third party, the Fair Work Commission.

By giving the Fair Work Commission the power to make a binding decision, Labor is effectively making the Fair Work Commission a co-manager of any business which is subject to these provisions. This stands in sharp contrast to the much more sensible arrangements which apply today, under which the Fair Work Commission sets a safety net of minimum standards and ensures that parties comply with their obligations. The Fair Work Commission, under the arrangements that apply today, only acts as a final decision-maker when the parties have requested it to do so.

There are numerous other aspects of this bill that hand excessive powers to the unions and to the Fair Work Commission. Firstly, under this bill unions are able to compel employers to bargain. Today, unions cannot initiate bargaining without the agreement of the employer or after obtaining a majority support determination which proves that the majority of employees wish to commence bargaining. Under this bill, unions will be able to initiate bargaining automatically once a request to bargain has been sent to the employer, provided that the employer had been covered by an enterprise agreement that expired within the past five years, and the proposed agreement will replace the expired agreement; the making of the earlier agreement did not cause a single-interest employer authorisation to cease to operate; and the proposed agreement will cover the same or substantially the same group of employees as the earlier agreement.

Once a request has been made by the union, three important consequences flow. First, the employer is compelled to comply with good-faith bargaining obligations, which include, amongst other things, attending meetings at reasonable times, considering and responding to bargaining proposals in a timely manner and disclosing relevant information in a timely manner. No matter that the business may be pitching for the biggest contract it has ever had the opportunity to win, no matter that there may be significant sales opportunities which the business is seeking to win to build its prosperity and provide additional employment opportunities—you must now comply with the timetable set by the Fair Work Commission, which is not interested in any of those matters. And, as is characteristic of much of the rhetoric we hear from the Labor Party, the profitability of the business is just taken for granted. It's just assumed. It's not something that has to be worried about! All of the focus is on how the boundlessly deep pockets of employers should be opened and shaken out. It's perhaps not surprising that that is the perspective of most on the opposite side of this chamber, because most of their careers have been spent as union officials or shakedown merchants. That's the grim reality that underpins the Labor Party's approach to these matters.

The second consequence of one of these requests being made by a union is that compulsory arbitration is then available and that the employees can take protected industrial action. This change gives more power to the unions, including the power to initiate bargaining without demonstrating that the majority of employees wish to bargain, and that is a very troubling development.

Third, the way that things work today, parties cannot ordinarily apply to the commission seeking a binding decision on what terms should or should not be included in a collective agreement. But all that changes under Labor's bill. Under this bill, where there is 'no reasonable prospect of an agreement being reached', a bargaining representative—read 'union official'—is able to apply to the Fair Work Commission for an intractable bargaining declaration. Once such a declaration is made, the Fair Work Commission must either arbitrate the outstanding matters between the parties or provide the parties with a postdeclaration negotiating period to agree on terms, after which the Fair Work Commission must arbitrate the outstanding matters between the parties. So, for the first time under the Fair Work Act, we have the introduction of unilateral arbitration into enterprise bargaining—that is, a scenario where one party can effectively disagree to the claims made in bargaining and seek to have terms imposed on all parties by way of arbitration.

In the remaining time, I should also note that this bill abolishes the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which will expose many more businesses to the tender mercies of the CFMEU coming round with a few blokes who, when they're not involved in union matters, are enthusiastic bikies, carrying baseball bats and other means of persuasion which they are notorious for using. That is the grim reality. Sadly—it's no laughing matter—businesses around this country can expect the kind of thuggery and intimidation that the CFMEU is notorious for and this government is wilfully turning a blind eye to. This is a very bad bill, it is a retrograde step and it will take our economy backwards.

Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The golden thread that unites the very first conservatives, those who were elected to the first parliament in this federation, to those who occupy the opposition benches in this parliament is their complete contempt for unions, for organised labour for any attempt to bring into this House legislation which improves the organising power, the bargaining power or the substantive rights of Australian workers. Much has changed in conservative politics since the very first conservatives were elected to represent people in this House. But the thing that unites the very first conservatives and this sorry lot over there is their contempt for organised labour, their contempt for unions and their contempt for the labour movement.

Because this debate concerns industrial relations, the instinctive reaction of every coalition conservative speaker is to demonise unions and their role in society. Well, I want to do something different. I just want to tell a story about a man—my friend, mentor—a gentlemen by the name of Nando Lelli. He was a bloody legend, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of men and women who are alive in the Illawarra today because of his work. Sadly, he passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, but his legacy lives on. He was born in Ascoli in Italy in 1931. He came to this country in 1957 with nothing, but he leaves behind a rich legacy. He led the Port Kembla branch of the Federated Ironworkers Union through the turbulence and turmoil of the 1970s and 1980s. Whether he was a delegate on the site or at the bargaining table or in a tribunal, he held a commanding presence.

He's been described as a man who was impossible to ignore and difficult to dislike—very true. Dan Walton, the current secretary of the Australian Workers Union, successor to the Federated Ironworkers Association, remembers him as 'a shining example to all the union movement', and that is so true. He was a formidable negotiator. He was a clever industrial strategist. He was a genuine people person. I'd heard Nando long before I knew him. When I was a kid growing up in the Illawarra he was a regular voice on radio and on television. You could wake up in the morning to a community service notice, the voice of Nando Lelli advising people there was a meeting at the north gate. I didn't even know where the north gate was. I'd have been a preschool kid. There would be a notice on the radio in Nando's voice, or authorised by Nando, advising people that there was a prework meeting or a stop-work meeting at this gate or that gate at the steelworks.

He was principled, he was kind, he was generous and he was resolute. I first met him in the early 1980s, and he was a legend even in those days. He was very patient with this impertinent young activist and he answered questions and was generous with his time, providing mentorship and patient example. His call to action was the safety standards that existed in the then BHP steelworks in the Illawarra in the mid-1970s. It was a dangerous place to work. Too often men went to work and didn't come home—a very dangerous place to work. This motivated Nando, who'd seen too many of his work colleagues fail to return home from work, and on too many occasions he and his colleagues had to knock on the door of a widow and a family and explain that their husband had passed away at work.

So he organised the workforce. In fact, he took over the then branch of the union because he thought they were not doing enough to look after workers in the workplace. Because it was such a multicultural workplace he ensured that there was a representative on his branch committee of every ethnicity in the workplace, and that was quite a task; it looked like the United Nations. Steadily, through industrial action, through steadfast negotiations and through their own direct action they raised the standards of occupational health and safety in the Illawarra steelworks to a point where today they are actually an example not just to the country but to the rest of the world. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of workers who are alive today because of the animating force of Nando Lelli.

And it wasn't just in work health and safety. In the early 1980s the steel industry throughout the country and around the world went through a massive change. In fact, the year before I left school around 13,000 people from the Port Kembla steelworks were made redundant. It's the reason I became a lawyer and not a boilermaker. My career path would have been into the steelworks. It was Nando's job to negotiate on behalf of this disrupted workforce an arrangement with both the employers and the government to ensure that there was an industry and a regional transition for those workers whose jobs were lost. And 13,000, in a small community of less than 200,000 back in the mid 1980s, was a significant blow to the workforce. Nando knew that you could not hold back time. So the best thing that he could do was to negotiate generous separation payments and new restructuring and training programs for those who left the steelworks.

There were many people sitting alongside me in class at university who were former steelworkers, because the genius of the arrangement they put in place was that you could take the redundancy package or you could take an employer and government supported pathway into university and have a wage paid and your university and your tuition paid, and you could convert yourself and provide a new career path for yourself. This was the genius of Nando and his colleagues, ensuring that there were not only redundancy payments but a new life and a new opportunity and new pathways for those workers. They were heady days. We look back at it now and think it was all obvious. It was leadership and principle of men like Nando Lelli that led to that occurring.

I listen to debates like the one I have just heard, and I hear people stand at this dispatch box, and their instinctive reaction is to say, 'Labor's bringing a bill about workplace relations and it's about union rights and workers' rights and about creating power in the workplace.' All they can muster up is an impassioned speech based on untruths—based on a perception which is, at best, 30 to 40 years out of date—that have absolutely no bearing on needs or what's going on in a workplace today.

Less than 30 metres from where I'm standing now, there are gathered in the government caucus room 30 or 40 early childhood educators. They have come to bring their message to parliament. These are the people we entrust with the job of ensuring that our kids get a good start in life. It's education not child care. They can't afford to stay in their jobs. I visited a great early childhood education organisation, in my electorate, a couple of days ago. I spoke to the manager. She said that at any one point in time she has a 10 per cent vacancy. I asked her where people go after they leave, whether they go to another early childhood education centre. She said, 'No, they can't afford to stay in the industry. They go to Bunnings, they go to Woolworths, they go to retail, they go to some other industry. They cannot afford to stay in their jobs.'

So when I hear the overheated rhetoric of those on the other side about, 'What's this multi-employer bargaining thing all about?' it's about them. It's about ensuring that these low-paid workers who we entrust with an incredibly important job have the capacity—they're never going to be able to get ahead bargaining directly with their employer, one worksite by another worksite. In fact, their employers support them. They know the only solution is a multi-employer solution, whether it be regional, state based or national based. That's what this is all about, not this other crap that you're going on about. It's animated by the spirit of man like Nando Lelli and the needs of the people 30 metres away from us here.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know what multi-employer bargaining is all about. It's about the Labor Party paying its masters. That's what it is about. Nothing else. Let's look at the facts. There was no election mandate, and there is no election mandate, when it comes to multi-employer bargaining. There was no mention of it—none; not one mention of it—before the election, apart from the Treasurer saying that they would not introduce multi-employer bargaining and that it was not part of the government's agenda. That was the only mention of multi-employer bargaining.

So let's be very clear: there's no election mandate for it, there is no evidence in any way that it will benefit the economy, and there has not been one skerrick of evidence produced by the government as to why it needs to be introduced. Why isn't there economic modelling which says there is a need for multi-employer bargaining? We know why. It's because they don't want to do it. If the government were serious about trying to address real wages, then they would take the time to ensure that the policies that they're putting in place were evidence based and were going to do the exact thing that they want them to do. Yet there is no economic modelling on these changes. Why not? They're too scared to do the modelling and to see the results or the outcome that this might produce.

The one piece of economic modelling which has been done was done on real wages in the budget. And what happens to real wages in the budget? They continue to go down. And what will happen as a result of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill? Well, we don't know whether it will further exacerbate real wages going down, because no modelling has been done. Do we know whether this reform will be productivity enhancing? No, we don't. As a matter of fact, every single indication is that it will not be productivity enhancing and that it will do the complete opposite.

It is in the non-traded parts of our economy where we need to see productivity lifting, yet this bill will do nothing to address that. As a matter of fact, it will more than likely lead to that non-tradeable part of our economy seeing more damage being done to its productivity rather than it being enhanced. If the government is serious about this bill, it needs to pull it. It needs to go back to the start. It needs to start by saying: what do we need to improve productivity in this nation, especially in the non-tradeable parts of this economy, and what are the reforms that we need to put in place to make sure that we lift productivity? This bill does not do this. Why? It is because there has been no consultation.

We had the minister today in question time trying to argue that he had consulted. He ran off this list of organisations that he said he had consulted with, yet every single one of the organisations he said he'd consulted with is opposed to the bill. So how have you consulted, when every single organisation that you've consulted with is opposed to the bill? It shows that your consultation has been a complete farce. And we know it has been a complete farce, because this bill hasn't been cooked up to try to enhance productivity in this nation; it hasn't been cooked up by bringing business and the unions together to try to make sure that productivity-enhancing laws are put in place in this nation. It was cooked up at that so-called jobs summit to keep the unions quiet. They were told, 'Come along. Be part of the gabfest and you'll be looked after.' And have they been looked after! Absolutely, they have been.

It goes to the heart of it that John Setka is the greatest supporter of this new government. This is what he had to say, and you can see the smile on his face as he said it:

Without going the early crow, I'm hoping that this government is going to be different (from the Rudd-Gillard governments) and from what I've seen so far I'm quietly confident.

Our next EBA negotiations are now not going to be restricted to shit clauses and we will have the power to go after the non-union sites …

He summed it up pretty well, John Setka, and that is exactly what this bill is going do. It is not only going to allow the CFMMEU to do all that but enable unions right across economy to do so too. And that will not enhance productivity in one way in this nation. One of the groups that the minister said he consulted with was Ai Group. Here's what Ai Group said about this bill: they said it would result in 'more strikes, fewer jobs, centralised decision-making and less trust within our enterprises'. That's completely and utterly damning, yet the minister says that he consulted—what an absolute farce.

What will this legislation do in a nutshell? It's going to lead to more strikes and job losses. Why would the government want to do this when their budget already points to the fact that we're going to see more job losses? This bill will mean that there will be more job losses on top of the job losses that will be occurring over the next 12 to 24 months. It will allow unions into small businesses, which have never had to deal with them before. Small businesses right across our economy who've never had to worry about unions and who are dealing, let's be fair, with enough red tape and regulation from local, state and federal government are now going to have to deal with the union movement coming in their front doors on top of all that. We are going to see more strikes and job losses and small businesses having to deal with unions coming through their front doors. We're going to see wages rises actually held up because of increased complexities and delays. And everyone right across the board—all the business organisations who've been consulted—clearly state that these laws are complex.

This legislation is going to undermine competition, so Australians will have fewer choices but face higher costs. And it's going to turn on its head the whole way that enterprise bargaining works in this nation. This is a bad bill which is going to make a tough situation for all Australians, which this government has done nothing to address, even worse. And let's be very clear: it is flawed legislation based on deception before the election, when the government made very clear it would not look at going anywhere near the type of multi-employer bargaining that the government is now introducing. And there is no economic modelling whatsoever that shows that this in any way is going to be productive— (Time expired)

Tracey Roberts (Pearce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill. It is nothing short of unconscionable that in 2022 we are here in this place to justify this important legislation to get wages moving, while those opposite are trying to stop pay rises. This bill is about fighting for fair pay and fair work rights for everyone so that no one is left behind. This is a no-brainer. This, first and foremost, is about job security. It is about powering up our economy to get stagnant wages moving. It is about modernising a workplace relations system that has been lagging behind where it should be in 2022. It is about removing elements that hinder, such as built-in secrecy provisions, and bringing those systems up to standards Australians expect and deserve. It is also about gender equality. We talk about the gender pay gap, but really it is more of a cavern. It is currently sitting at 14.1 per cent. Men continue to earn more than women—on average, $263 more a week. To earn the same average annual salary earned by men, women would need to work 60 more days after the end of the financial year. We are working through the secure jobs, better pay bill to close the gender pay gap.

This bill is so long overdue—we have just experienced almost a decade of neglect from those opposite. We must use the opportunity we have here in this place to make real and positive changes and to enact desperately needed transformations to support Australian workers, rights and employment protections. Not only is this bill needed right now, at this time, but also, importantly, it is necessary to build positive foundations for the future and for our growing electorates, to strengthen communities and to contribute to Australia's broad prosperity. It will provide better and fairer work places for Australians in the decades ahead. That is important to residents in my electorate of Pearce, many of whom are young workers or young families with a mortgage, living in outer-metropolitan growth areas. Many have long distances to travel to their place of employment. Many have insecure jobs and rely on child care in order to work and earn a living to support their families. Our fellow Australians, who vote for us and who have given us the great privilege of being part of this parliament's decision-making process, should be able to count on all of us to deliver and to enable financial independence for those within our communities.

Two new Fair Work Commission expert panels on pay equality will be established for the female dominated care and community sector—an often undervalued, underpaid and insecure sector. We should not have to be reminded how crucial carers are for our society to function and how they provide a decent standard of care and dignity when we have elderly parents, children, and family members living with a disability. The work of those carers and early educators should not and must never be underestimated nor undervalued. These panels will ensure the necessary expertise is available in the commission.

I remind you all that the point of this legislation is: to provide improved job security; to provide better workplace conditions, including fair and equal pay; to create the appropriate circumstances to enable gender equity; and to ensure workers and employers have better frameworks in which to work together to improve our workplace relations protections. For too long, the previous government failed—and failed miserably—to act to improve our economy and industrial relations systems. What the previous government did was make decisions and choose to actively suppress wages, so it is vitally important that we now support change that will allow pay rises for those who need it the most. We can do this by ensuring our workers can bargain for better pay and conditions, and for increased job security, so that they have more money for living healthily and well—not just fighting to pay bills and trying to make ends meet.

This bill will ban secrecy clauses that currently allow companies to prohibit staff from talking about their pay. That secrecy can serve to cover up the inequity of wages between workers, and the disparity of wages between men and women. If you don't know you're being paid less because you and your colleagues can't talk legally, how can you talk about it? This bill will promote and improve transparency. We should all welcome that. It will reduce the very real risk of gender pay discrimination. It will empower women to ask their employers for a pay rise for just and deserved better pay.

This government is committed to job security becoming an important part of the workplace relations system. A new dispute resolution system at the Fair Work Commission will also provide a welcome mechanism for all workers to access fast and informal opportunities to resolve what can be stressful workplaces. I have got to say: how can anyone argue against a much-needed increase in job security, fairness and integrity?

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted. The member for Pearce can, if she wishes, continue her speech after the adjournment debate.