Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How have the Albanese Labor government's enterprise bargaining reforms helped Australians to earn more and to keep more of what they earn, and what has the response been to these reforms?

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 Solomon for the question. I'm pleased to say the efforts the member for Solomon and others on this side have made in voting for legislation that would make sure people earnt more and kept more of what they earnt I saw live with workers I met with when I was recently up in Darwin, in the electorate of Solomon. Just around the corner from Darwin airport there's a Bunnings. People might not be aware that one of the changes from the secure jobs, better pay bill has been a massive increase in the number of workers who are covered by enterprise agreements. There are now 150,000 additional workers in Australia covered by enterprise agreements who previously weren't, and 40,000 of those are workers at Bunnings.

These reforms have happened because, when that legislation went through, we fixed the better off overall test, we made sure that businesses who'd let agreements lapse were brought back to the table and we made arbitration possible, so that industrial action was not the only way of bringing issues to a head, by having an arbitration process available for intractable bargaining.

What did that mean for those Bunnings workers? They're earning $48 a week more, and on top of that they will get a $1,146 tax cut. The new Bunnings agreement for those 40,000 workers—and everyone here has been to Bunnings—

You should start one! Your slogan could be something like: 'Where lower wages are just the beginning!' That would work for you perfectly!

The new Bunnings agreement covering those 40,000 workers has better rostering flexibility, improved leave entitlements, adult rates of pay at the age of 18 instead of 20—it's all there. Often we just go straight to the pay improvements, but the rostering changes have made a huge difference—arrangements that weren't previously available. I met with one of the workers out the front of the store, near that tool shop section that they have at the front of a Bunnings. The bloke's name is Sonny, and he had switched his roster under a new right within the agreement where you can request it so that your roster gets reorganised and you get three days off in a row. He got it agreed to within a couple of weeks of asking, and I said to him: 'So what are you now doing with the time? Have you picked up another job? Have you taken up a hobby? What have you done?' His face just lit up and he said, 'I'm spending every possible minute with my 11-month-old.'

These changes are possible when you get flexibility that works for workers as well into the industrial relations system. This is only possible because of legal changes that we supported and put through and which those opposite have said they will target deliberately at the next election.