Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Office of the Employment Advocate annual report 2004-05 states that small business employers agreed that the introduction of AWAs had improved the flexibility of their business and had improved competitiveness. What the report does not say, however, is how these so-called Australian workplace agreements impact on Australian workers and their families. In the past two weeks in my home state of South Australia we have had an example of where this government’s extreme changes to industrial relations legislation are really taking us and, unfortunately for many working Australians and their families, the future is not secure, nor is it bright.

Workers at a Naracoorte meatworks in the state’s south-east wanted to negotiate an enterprise agreement to replace the Australian workplace agreement that they had been on—a workplace agreement that many of the workers were not happy with. But the company liked the agreement and they did not want to make the changes, so they refused to meet with the workers and their nominated representative, the Australian Meat Industry Union, to discuss the changes to the existing arrangements—the existing AWAs. Instead, the workers were given a deadline to sign a new AWA without the employer listening to their concerns, without changes and without the conditions outlined in the report. Many of the workers signed the AWAs for fear of losing their jobs or of being locked out. They had mortgages to pay and they had families to feed. But approximately 20 of these workers stood their ground and they refused to sign, and so their fears were met—they were locked out.

The dispute was further complicated by the presence of approximately 30 Chinese workers believed to be working under the visa 457. These visas are supposed to be issued when the labour supply has been exhausted in a region and only to workers for designated skilled jobs. The problem is that these workers are allegedly doing packing and other labouring jobs—not the designated skilled jobs the company says they have been employed to do. If they are not carrying out work for which they gained their visas, one would have to ask the question as to whether these workers, brought out to do a designated skilled job, are in fact being paid the proper rate in accordance with the issuing of the visa. The abuse of visa 457 is seeing skilled people in Australia being overlooked for work because the visa’s abuses allow working conditions to be undercut.

Approximately 260 kilometres down the road we have the meatworks at Murray Bridge, a town where recently 150 local workers lost their jobs when a local factory closed down. Again at this meatworks we have workers employed on AWAs and again there are nearly 200 workers from overseas, allegedly working on visa 457 for designated skilled jobs. The changes to the industrial relations laws that this government has forced through mean workers in my state and in the rest of Australia are being forced onto Australian workplace agreements.

The Howard government spent millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on trying to convince the people of Australia that the Work Choices bill was a good thing. I am hearing from workplaces that there is no choice: sign the Australian workplace agreement or you are locked out; sign the AWA if you want the job. The Howard government has let Australian workers down. AWAs—thrust upon workers without negotiation, without proper representation, without choice—are hurting Australian families. Their freedom of choice has been removed. The current situation in South Australia, and I understand at other sites elsewhere in Australia, is a sad reflection on this government and is one that the workers and their families will not quickly forget because the impact and the effects may well prove to be generational.

Question agreed to.