Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Workplace Relations. Since passing the secure jobs, better pay bill last year, how has the Albanese Labor government delivered on its commitment to get wages moving again by reinvigorating enterprise bargaining?

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

I thank the member for Parramatta for the question. It's surprising that we're able to have this conversation, because we were all assured last year by Senator Cash that we are about to close down Australia! But we apparently are still all here. We said we would get wages moving and we said we would get bargaining moving, and it's happening. It is happening.

Some changes have already taken effect, with that in mind, from the secure jobs, better pay bill. The highly politicised ABCC is no more. Gender equality and job security are now objects of the Fair Work Act. The reforms to the equal remuneration provisions, which support the commission to order wage increases to address unequal pay and undervalued work—in particular, to address the gender pay gap—are now law, fully proclaimed. Pay secrecy provisions have now been prohibited, so that people on new contracts can find out whether they're allowed to say how much they earn. The amendments to the antidiscrimination provisions have taken effect. The provisions on the termination of enterprise agreements, which used to just be able to go on forever, have taken effect. Making it easier to initiate bargaining has started. Dealing with errors in enterprise agreements can now be done sensibly without a mountain of red tape. And communications and materials from the Fair Work Commission, as was moved in one of the amendments, now have to be available in multiple languages. Importantly, as well as that, only last week the provisions for family and domestic violence leave became law in Australia, in what is world-leading legislation.

But some of the provisions that have not yet taken effect have already had an impact. I refer specifically to the multi-employer bargaining provisions, which start in a few months. There are a number of businesses that made it clear that they didn't want to be involved in multi-employer bargaining, and, of course, we said the likely behaviour that would happen would be that single-enterprise agreements would start to take off as a result of secure jobs, better pay being law. That's exactly what's happened. So, Coles, for example, who had refused to bargain and had not been at the bargaining table for some time, have said that they are:

… committed to working collaboratively ... throughout the process of renewing our agreements this year.

That's nearly three years after the last enterprise agreement had nominally expired. Similarly, the ANZ, after seven years of not being at the bargaining table, is at the bargaining table again. I welcome positive engagement from those businesses. I welcome the fact that we said we'd bring people to the table, and they are at the table negotiating and bargaining again. We said we'd get wages moving, and it's happening.