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

FLETCHER (—) (): I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House notes that:

(1) The Government introduced the 249 page Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill on 27 October and rushed it through the House forcing its passage on 10 November through the use of a gag motion which greatly curtailed debate;

(2) the process was so rushed and chaotic that on 9 November the Government moved a further 34 pages of amendments;

(3) the Bill would make radical changes to Australia's industrial relations system including:

(a) abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission;

(b) introducing compulsory multi-employer bargaining;

(c) expanding the supported bargaining stream enabling businesses to be covered without their actual agreement; and

(d) giving unions new powers including:

        (i) forcing an employer to bargain for a replacement agreement, even if the employer and the majority of its employees do not wish to bargain; and

        (ii) vetoing an agreement reached by an employer and a majority of its employees to remove themselves from coverage by an agreement;

(4) the measures in the Bill, and the chaotic and rushed process, have been criticised by a wide range of stakeholders, including the Australian Industry Group, Business Council of Australia, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, Minerals Council of Australia, National Farmers Federation, Australian Retailers Association, Civic Contractors Federation, Australian Hotels Association, Housing Industry Association, Master Builders Australia, Franchise Council of Australia, Manufacturing and Clubs Australia; and

(5) this Bill puts the narrow sectional interests of union bosses ahead of the interests of all Australians in a prosperous and harmonious society in which businesses of all sizes can grow and prosper, working in alignment with their employees, their suppliers, their shareholders and the broader community; and this House therefore calls on the Government to lay aside this damaging and ill-considered Bill.

Leave not granted.

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

Manager of Opposition Business, before you speak, I note that it is an extremely long motion.

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

I move:

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

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Government introduced the 249 page Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 on 27 October and rushed it through the House forcing its passage on 10 November through the use of a gag motion which greatly curtailed debate;

(b) the process was so rushed and chaotic that on 9 November the Government moved a further 34 pages of amendments;

(c) the Bill would make radical changes to Australia's industrial relations system including:

(i) abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission;

(ii) introducing compulsory multi-employer bargaining;

(iii) expanding the supported bargaining stream enabling businesses to be covered without their actual agreement; and

(iv) giving unions new powers including:

(A) forcing an employer to bargain for a replacement agreement, even if the employer and the majority of its employees do not wish to bargain; and

(B) vetoing an agreement reached by an employer and a majority of its employees to remove themselves from coverage by an agreement;

(d) the measures in the Bill, and the chaotic and rushed process, have been criticised by a wide range of stakeholders; and

(e) this Bill puts the narrow sectional interests of union bosses ahead of the interests of all Australians in a prosperous and harmonious society in which businesses of all sizes can grow and prosper, working in alignment with their employees, their suppliers, their shareholders and the broader community; and

(2) therefore calls on the Government to lay aside this damaging and ill-considered Bill.

Standing orders must be suspended to debate this motion because if this bill is passed as the government proposes it will do real and immediate damage to our economy and in turn employment prospects all around Australia. Standing orders must be suspended so that this parliament can properly debate this important question, given that to date such proper debate and scrutiny has been repeatedly blocked by the government. The government gagged debate on the second reading, voting against the opposition's attempts to allow full and frank debate with support of the crossbench. The government gagged debate on amendments during the consideration-in-detail phase of the bill. The government voted against formation of a select committee inquiry into the bill. And the government rushed the Senate committee inquiry, which had just 22 days to conduct public hearings and report back to the Senate.

The government's efforts to ram through this bill without engaging in proper negotiation and consultation with the opposition and other parties and with the business sector are a portent of what is to come for businesses across the country should this bill become law. Only a few short months ago the Prime Minister was trying to suggest to the Australian people that he was all about building consensus between employers and employees, but the government has now abandoned the facade of promoting unity in the workplace and instead has rushed to make extreme changes to the industrial relations framework.

Standing orders must be suspended so that the House can debate this motion calling on the government to remove this damaging and ill-considered bill. This bill does nothing to increase productivity. The government has consistently said that the aim of this legislation is to get wages moving. Yet no evidence has been provided as to whether it will achieve that objective in relation to wages. What it will certainly do is drive up the cost of living to increased and industry-wide strike action. It will drive up the cost of construction, a very significant sector in our economy, through abolition of both the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission, handing building sites back into the hands of the militant and extremist CFMMEU.

It will impose damaging union-driven imposts on businesses, including compulsory multi-employer bargaining, enabling businesses to be covered through bargaining without their actual agreement. It will give unions new powers, including forcing an employer to bargain for a replacement agreement even if the employer and a majority of its employees do not wish to bargain. It will give unions new powers to veto an agreement reached by an employer and a majority of that employer's employees to remove themselves from coverage by an agreement. This bill invites the big unions into the premises and operations of small businesses all around Australia. This bill is a covert effort to increase trade union membership under the guise of sustainable wage growth.

Standing orders must be suspended because the chaotic process around this government's extreme industrial relations bill is making a bad situation worse. The minister has conspicuously failed to make himself available to explain publicly and in detail the very extensive changes he is making. He is not somebody who is normally shy, but he hasn't made himself available for detailed press conferences on this matter. And this bill, at 243 pages, was only introduced on 27 October—less than four weeks ago—and its passage through this House was forced just four sitting days later. Included within that was a further 34 pages of amendments, with the minister making no effort to explain them to the media at the time, let alone to members of this House.

This chaotic and rushed process has been criticised not just by the opposition but by virtually every business stakeholder group and employer organisation. Manufacturing Australia said: 'Opportunities for consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of this substantial change to employment law have been entirely insufficient.' The Law Council of Australia said:

The limited consultation period has constrained the Law Council's ability to engage at a detailed level with the legislative and explanatory materials.

The National Retail Association said:

… we hold grave concerns about the Government's attempts to rush these significant industrial relations reforms quickly through parliament without proper opportunity to scrutinise …

Disability Intermediaries Australia said:

… we are alarmed about the lack of consultation and potential unintended consequences of rushing reforms to Australia's workplace relations framework of this magnitude through …

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia said:

The Government has not developed the policy and associated bill in good faith and has done so largely behind closed doors.

And, in a joint statement, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia, the confederation of small business organisations of Australia, the Minerals Council and the National Farmers Federation said:

We jointly call on the Government to permit time for a thorough consideration of the content and implications of the Bill.

It is urgent that standing orders be suspended to debate this because it is very clear that there is widespread disquiet across the economy about not only the content of this bill but the rushed and chaotic process which this government is adopting to seek to force it through the parliament. Those who have spoken out about aspects of this bill, about the process which has occurred, include the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Business Council of Australia, Manufacturing Australia, the National Retail Association, Master Builders Australia, the confederation of small business organisations of Australia, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Australian Hotels Association, the Minerals Council, the National Farmers Federation, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia, the Master Grocers Association, the Australian Meat Industry Council, Laundry Association Australia, the Franchise Council of Australia, Print And Visual Communication Australia, the National Electrical And Communications Association, the Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association and leading businesses, including Qantas and Rio Tinto.

There are significant elements of this bill which were not taken to the Australian people before the election. In fact, we see in this bill yet another example of a broken promise from the Labor Party and the Albanese Labor government. In fact, quite to the contrary of what is being done in this bill the government is seeking to ram through both this House and the other place, senior figures in the then opposition reassured Australians that the extreme measures in this bill were not something the Labor Party were contemplating. In November last year the now Treasurer was asked specifically if industry-wide bargaining was on the agenda, and the now Treasurer had this to say: 'It's not part of our policy.'

This is a bill which has raised enormous disquiet across the economy all around Australia not just for its substance but for its shambolic and chaotic process. That is why it is urgent that standing orders be suspended. That is why it is urgent that we debate what this motion calls for: that the government should lay aside this damaging bill. The sentiments right across the economy go to the grave concerns that are held with this bill, and the government should abandon this effort. (Time expired)

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

Before I call the seconder, I just want to remind all members of what Practice says on page 297. The motion is in order, but it is close to the wind. Motions are not to be that long. Practice indicates:

A motion to suspend standing orders has been ruled out of order on the grounds that it was unnecessarily long and not a concise proposition for determination by the House.

I'm not going to detain the House but I want to advise members that there was a lot of argument and a lot of contentious debating points in that motion. Moving forward, I remind all members to remind themselves of page 297 of Practice so that the House will not be unnecessarily detained. Is the motion seconded?

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion, and I outline that Australian small and family businesses are simply not aware of the impacts of this bill. Why is that? Well, because this Labor government has not spoken to one small business about its impacts, particularly about industry-wide or patenting bargaining, as it was known during the upheaval of the 1970s and 1980s. It is a throwback for Australian industrial relations laws and it risks our economy to industry-wide strikes and sympathy strikes by other industries.

In question time yesterday the Minister for Small Business was asked to name just one small business that this Labor government has spoken to that supports this bill. She wasn't asked about a peak body or a representative group like COSBOA or the ombudsman, but an actual small business that this minister has consulted with. The minister ducked and weaved, did the dance with her one-minute answer and avoided responding to the question. Coming to her aid was not only the minister for industrial relations—who has now existed the chamber—who tried to answer the question for her, but also the Minister for Social Services, who yelled out across the chamber that certain large supermarket chains have been consulted. It's a joke. I have a news flash for those opposite: large supermarket chains are not small businesses. The Minister for Small Business is supposed to be looking out for small business. She is supposed to be their champion, but of course she can't be their champion, because the Australian Labor Party despises small and family business.

The Labor Party look out for union bosses who put them there, not small businesses who create jobs for Australians and livelihoods for families. They want to break the small and family business model. Those opposite are ramming through this legislation that will break the small business model. This bill is 243 pages long and has been rushed with a chaotic process, such that on 9 November the government moved a further 34 pages of their own—

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, the motion before the House is on a suspension of standing sessional orders and the member is yet to refer to that fact.

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

The member is in order. I give her the call.

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[inaudible] orders need to be suspended. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much—I have the call now—to those opposite. There are over 150 amendments—150 amendments to their own bill! It's a laugh. It's a joke. It's pretty obvious that it's deeply, deeply flawed. There's a long list of organisations who don't support this: the Australian Industry Group, the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Council of Small Business Organisations, the Minerals Council, the National Farmers Federation, the Australian Retailers Association, the National Retail Association, the Civil Contractors Federation. And I will add my two local chambers of commerce to that, thanks very much. Through this bill the government wants to make radical changes to industrial relations in our country with no mandate. There was no mandate before the election. This was not taken to the election for the Australian people to decide on.

The abolishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission simply gets Labor off the leash with no watchdog to rein in their bad behaviour. When Labor last abolished the ABCC two-thirds of working days lost to industrial action were in the construction industry, and the average rate of industrial action was nearly five times the average of every other industry. It caused the rate of disputes in the construction sector to be increased by 46 per cent, compared with a 31 per cent decline across all other industries. Australians might remember that schools and hospitals cost taxpayers up to 30 per cent more, because of the huge amount of working days lost due to industrial action on building sites. Further, the role of the Registered Organisations Commission is also crucial to ensure that their organisations and their officers are accountable to their members.

We've had more than 30 years of prosperity and stability under enterprise bargaining in this country and Labor want to upend all of that into chaos with the reintroduction of compulsory multi-employer bargaining. The Productivity Commission's recent interim report warned that a hit to productivity and wages and conditions is set for a group of firms in one-size-fits-all approach to business practices. It's just not good enough. This bill is bad for the economy, it's bad for employers, it's bad for Australian families and it's bad for small Australian businesses. We call on the Labor government to withdraw this bill.

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

First of all, we're obviously opposed to suspending standing orders and we're surprised they've done this immediately before a ministerial statement on Northern Australia. I'm surprised that they have actually decided that the Northern Australia debate isn't the one they want to have.

I am also quite astonished, just in terms of the tactics of those opposite, that they've waited until the bill is no longer before the House before they come in here to suspend standing orders to prevent the House from dealing with the bill. The bill's not here. It's gone. There's a red room on the other side of the water feature in the middle there, and that's where the bill has gone to.

Had this suspension been moved while the bill was here—we still would have opposed it, but procedurally I would have somehow understood what they were trying to do. But now we're being asked, as a house, to lay aside a piece of legislation that ain't here. It's not here. It's just not here. In the same way as when I was accused of being outside the room and I was here, the members opposite are saying that we need to 'do something about the bill that's in the House' except it isn't. It simply isn't here.

That's not the only detail that they're getting wrong, but I just want to start with this point: they went through all the things where they said, 'It's bad for this, it's bad for that,' but they never once said it was bad for people needing a pay rise. Even within their own rhetoric they know, deep down, that this legislation will get wages moving. And it's the fact that they know that that they oppose it so vehemently. You only had to look at Senator Birmingham's interview on Insiders on the weekend. He was asked by David Speers, 'What do you need to do to get wages moving?' He said you needed to do all the things that they were doing as the previous government. Well that was when wages were stagnant. What they have asked for is for exactly that approach to continue. We've seen that wages won't move unless we change the law. It is a simple fact.

And it's not surprising that whenever you try to get wages moving you will have a good number of industry groups, who are paid to represent their members, argue, 'We'd rather do this more slowly.' I get it. This legislation does mean that wages budgets will be higher, it does mean that, but it's off the back of wages hardly moving for a decade—in fact, to the point where, right now, workers are worse off than they were 10 years ago in real terms.

Now, those opposite—I've seen the MPI for later today; they're wanting to talk about the cost of living. How do you deal with the cost of living if wages are going backwards? How do you deal with the cost of living if wages are not moving for people—in fact, if real wages are going backwards? This is why those opposite have no credibility when it comes to arguing anything about cost of living when their determination is to prevent wages from moving.

I'm also amused with their whole argument about somehow all this is rushed. I know what it looks like when legislation is rushed. I remember ministers from the previous government coming in here with legislation and it going through that day. They would even come in without a copy for every member of the parliament to be able to read the legislation, and it would go through the House that day. If anyone opposite wants to indicate that they were denied a chance to speak in the debate on the bill, I'd really like them to indicate. I was up here, right up until the final moment, and no-one else rose to speak. That's when I gave the right-of-reply. No-one was denied a chance to speak in the House, no-one. Not one person was denied a chance to speak in the House. Not one.

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

For five minutes.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business says, 'Well it wasn't long enough.' When the bills used to be introduced here to go through that day, no-one other than the minister made a speech. It's not a situation where you're members of parliament in the seventies and eighties and standing up and speaking. And in terms of the Senate committee process that has been continuing today, there has not been an industrial relations or workplace relations law in the last 10 years which has had more days of Senate hearings than this one—not one. So they're wanting to claim that the process is outrageous, and they're wanting to claim that things are somehow rushed. But, in terms of the debate here, not one member has been denied the chance to speak. In terms of the processes that are going on in the Senate, there have been more committee hearing days than for any other bill in this portfolio for the last decade.

In terms of consultation with stakeholders, there have been meetings with the BCA, with ACCI, with the Ai Group, with COSBOA, on multiple occasions—yes, as well as with the ACTU. The vast majority of meetings have been with business organisations, including single-interest business groups: Clubs Australia, Master Builders, National Farmers Federation, ARIA, the Convenience and Petroleum Marketers Association, HVAC—the manufacturing installation association. They're the business group, by the way, that install, in large buildings, the air-conditioning and ventilation services. They're one of the businesses that have been crying out for multi-employer bargaining to occur. Why? Because they're against the race to the bottom in wages. They're against the race to the bottom, which is exactly what those opposite are so eager to defend. You don't get wages moving if, every time an employer comes forward doing the right thing and paying a higher rate, they get undercut and lose their business.

I'll tell you: I am all for competition in the market, but I want that competition to be on better quality, I want that competition to be on better trained staff, and I want that competition to be on the different brands and different ways that people market themselves. I don't want the competition in Australia to be on the race to the bottom on wages. If you refuse to have systems that work for multi-employer bargaining—and at the moment multi-employer bargaining is already in the act, but it doesn't work. It's a complete failure, for the simple reason that it's been so complex, so difficult to get into, that businesses have not been able to effectively use it.

Those opposite, if it's about environmental protection or about consumer protection, will talk about red tape. They'll talk about all the difficulties with complexity. But, when it comes to a system about getting wages moving, they love red tape. They want as much red tape as they can possibly have. They want to make sure that every barrier is put in the way of people getting their wages moving. When inflation is looking at reaching eight per cent and wages have moved a bit but are still at 3.1, people are going backwards every day. When the pressure starts to come off inflation, you want that crossover point for wages to start getting in front so that people can start getting in front again in a way that was denied to them for a decade.

Be in no doubt about what this motion calls for. (1) What it calls for is a bit impossible, because the bill's not here, but let's just humour those opposite for a minute and just pretend that this is possible to do. It says that 10 years of keeping wages low wasn't long enough. That's their view. They had 10 years of holding back wages and it just wasn't long enough for them. And what they're saying now is, 'Can't we just have a few more months?' What do you reckon they'll say in February? It will be 'a few months more'; it will be 'a little bit longer'. They'll say, 'These business groups oppose it.' Well, I tell you what, I say to those opposite: can you name the worker who doesn't need for their pay to go up? Name the workers who are not affected by inflation. Name the workers who are not affected by what's happening to their mortgage or by what's happening to their rent. Name the workers who are not affected by these price increases. We need to get wages moving, and we're opposed to the motion.

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

The time for this debate has concluded. The question is that the motion be disagreed to. In accordance with standing order 133 the division is deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance. The debate on this item is therefore adjourned until that time.