Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Workplace Relations Regulations 2006, as contained in Select Legislative Instrument 2006 No. 52 and made under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005, be disallowed.

It will come as no surprise that Labor opposes these regulations just as we oppose the legislation that they sit under. These regulations give effect to much of the government’s extreme industrial relations changes. Over the weeks and months since the government’s extreme changes have been in place, we have started to see the effect on Australian workers and their families. These regulations followed the proclamation of the government’s legislation. They were dropped late in the afternoon of Friday, 17 March. It was only later over the course of that weekend that the government sneakily published these regulations with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations finally publicly drawing attention to them on the Sunday, which happened to be the same afternoon that the Commonwealth Games women’s marathon was determined.

Those regulations and their related explanatory materials bring the government’s so-called single system and simplified legislation to a total of more than 1,800 pages—1,252 pages of legislation and explanatory materials and 592 pages of regulations and supplementary materials. This is their so-called single, simplified system. It is more than 1,800 pages of complexity and complication that Australian business, Australian industry, small business and employees had to come to grips with with less than a week before it came into effect on 27 March. Like everything with this government and industrial relations, the devil is in the detail, and with more than 1,800 pages of complexity and complication there is a lot of detail—and there is a lot that Labor opposes.

I want to first talk about the issue of prohibited content. This is probably the area where the extent to which the government is willing to go to impose its extreme and radical agenda on Australian workers and their families is most clearly shown. The prohibited content provisions, apart from their philosophy being problematic, are extraordinarily complex. They alone are enough to make a sick joke of the claimed simpler, fairer tag line that this government continues to use to promote its radical changes in industrial relations. The regulations in relation to prohibited content are nothing but a crass and overt reduction of the bargaining power of employees in the workplace.

Given that this government trumpets the freedom of the individual and the freedom of contract as the basis of the way they wish to move forward in industrial relations, it is extraordinary that they are imposing through legislation and regulations such powers on a single person, the minister for workplace relations, to intervene in the negotiations between employees and employers so as to ensure certain things cannot be discussed, cannot be included, and that certain rights cannot be agreed to be given to employees. The prohibited content regulations severely restrict legitimate workplace-bargaining activity. They severely restrict what can legitimately be negotiated between employees and employers. In particular, they limit the capacity of trade unions in the workplace to act as the legitimate and chosen representative of employees, even if those employees wish that to be the case.

Let us go through some of the prohibited content in agreements which will be defined as such as a result of the regulations: deductions from wages of union dues or the provision of payroll deduction facilities for union dues; leave to attend training provided by a trade union, even if it is occupational health and safety training; paid leave to attend meetings conducted by or made up of trade union members; the renegotiation of a workplace agreement; the rights of an organisation of employers or employees to participate in or represent an employer or employee bound by the agreement in whole or part of a dispute-settling procedure unless the organisation is the representative of the employer’s or employee’s choice; right of entry; and the provision of information about employees bound by the agreement to a trade union or a member acting in a representative capacity unless provision of that information is required or authorised by law.

However, the prohibited content provisions do not just limit themselves to restricting the activities of unions as representatives in the workplace. They also extend to ensuring that workers in this country do not have access, if they are with an employer of less than 100 employees, to remedies for unfair dismissal, even if, as I indicated, this is agreed between employer and employee. This government is so worried about employees in this country being able to challenge a dismissal that is unfair that not only are they content to remove it from the legislation but they actually want to prohibit such rights being included in an agreement.

Regulation 2.8.5 contains the following:

A term of a workplace agreement is prohibited content to the extent that it confers a right or remedy in relation to the termination of employment of an employee bound by the agreement for a reason that is harsh, unjust or unreasonable.

Just to make sure employers and employees do not seek to have these matters included in an agreement, this government is imposing a penalty for breaching the prohibited content regulations. In effect this means that, if an employer or employee seeks to have an unfair dismissal provision in the agreement, they can be hit with a $6,000 fine. If a union seeks a similar provision, the union can be hit with a $33,000 fine. If this is not bad enough, schedules 4 and 5 of the regulations ensure that the minister will now have a direct role in the oversight of every agreement made in the country. Through schedule 4, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission is required to provide to the minister detailed information, including relevant documents, names of parties, individuals and organisations et cetera, in relation to agreements.

Schedule 5 is similarly heavy-handed. It provides that the Office of the Employment Advocate provide to the minister information and copies of documents that relate to employment relationships. According to schedule 5, the minister is now to receive copies of agreements, variations to agreements and orders terminating agreements, all within three weeks of the making of the variation or the making of the agreement. As well, detailed information about agreements, including the title, number of the agreement, date of lodgment, description of the work undertaken and the names and addresses of the business to which the agreement applies, are now all to be supplied to the minister. Just what this is trying to achieve on a practical level is unclear. But one thing is clear—that is, that the government wants a direct and interventionist role by the minister in the operation of each and every workplace across the nation. This is direct interference by the minister and his office, and such direct interference by the minister and his office into the content of individual agreements is an appallingly bad example of public policy. The decision to give this minister or any minister executive power over what can and cannot be included in the agreements through prohibited content is extraordinarily bad policy.

I want to return to the issue of transitional arrangements. This is an area where the complexity of the government’s legislation, frankly, is quite breathtaking. This government has made a complete jurisdictional dog’s breakfast of its so-called single industrial relations system. Whilst the High Court will clearly determine the jurisdictional coverage of Work Choices, even by the government’s own admission only up to 85 per cent of the country’s workforce will potentially be covered by the government’s changes. That will mean that around 1.5 million employees will remain outside the jurisdictional coverage of the government’s changes. Irrespective of the High Court’s outcome, which could in fact reduce the number of people potentially covered by the government’s changes, all this will mean is more incomplete and more inconsistent coverage across the nation’s workplaces. The process of moving state awards and agreements to the federal jurisdiction is so complex that, frankly, many employers and employees will be unsure precisely what their rights and responsibilities are. But that is not stopping this government. The regulations confirm this government is intent on overturning the states’ recent attempts to preserve the pay and conditions of employees under state industrial relations systems.

The issue of part heard matters, which was an issue raised by Labor on a number of occasions in the committee discussion on this bill, is no clearer either. The transitional provisions provide that part heard dispute matters before the commission either lapse entirely or at least lapse in relation to employers defined under the act as corporations. However, appeals against awards and orders can continue as per the old state industrial system, while part heard equal remuneration applications are to be heard under the government’s new provisions. This will be a field day for the lawyers.

Despite all this complexity and confusion, the government simply keeps claiming that all these changes—all 1,800 pages of complete legislation and associated explanations—are necessary for the continued economic health of our nation. Let us look at precisely what we do know about Work Choices. Let us look at what the Office of the Employment Advocate has told us. Of the 6,263 Australian workplace agreements lodged since Work Choices commenced on 27 March, this is what it can tell us about what is contained in them: 100 per cent excluded at least one protected award condition, 64 per cent removed leave loadings, 63 per cent removed penalty rates, 52 per cent removed shift work loadings, 40 per cent lost gazetted public holidays and 16 per cent excluded all award conditions and replaced them with the government’s legislated minimum standards. We already know what the impact of Work Choices is. It is clear from the government’s own figures and its own data from the Office of the Employment Advocate. These are figures and statistics which confirm exactly what Labor has been saying all along: that the agenda behind this so-called Work Choices, this radical industrial relations agenda, is the driving down of the wages and conditions of Australian workers and their families.

Sixty-three per cent of AWAs removed penalty rates. This government may be so out of touch it does not realise this: there are a great many families which rely on penalty rates, overtime and shift loadings in order to meet their financial requirements. That is what many people rely on to make sure ends meet. Under your system, the vast majority so far of Australian workplace agreements exclude penalty rates and remove leave loadings. We heard the minister today in question time using some very dodgy statistics in which he included managerial employees. I invite him to correct the record and tell us what the ABS actually says about the experience of non-managerial employees. Take managerial employees out of the equation and have a look at what the AWAs deliver. Have a look at what Australian workplace agreements deliver for women. Women on AWAs will receive 11 per cent less than those women on registered agreements. That is how much less Australian women are going to be paid as a result of this government’s extreme agenda.

You do not have to believe me and you do not have to believe your own figures from the Office of the Employment Advocate. Let us look at what Freehills have said. Anybody who has hung around the Senate estimates knows that this is a law firm that this government uses a lot. It is certainly not a law firm you would regard as a Labor law firm. What do Freehills say? This is their snapshot of the current arrangements: average annual wage increases in June 2004-05 in agreements generally, four per cent; union collective agreements, 4.3 per cent; and AWAs, 2.5 per cent. Looking at the 2004-05 figures, which is before this government’s extreme agenda actually got going, you will see that even Freehills say that essentially workers are better off when they are on collective agreements, much better off when they are on union collective agreements and far worse off when they are on AWAs.

What we know about this government’s extreme agenda is this: workers in Australia are being asked to trade away shift penalties, overtime rates and rostering certainty for the princely sum of 2c an hour. That is this government’s great economic contribution through the Work Choices legislation. The choice for Australian workers is that they have to give up their penalty rates, their overtime, their shift loadings and rostering certainty for the princely sum of 2c an hour. We will see between now and the next election how many more Australian workers will be put in that position and will face the fate of the Spotlight employees, which has been publicised in recent times.

The fact is this government has long held an ambition to reduce the minimum wage. It appears to be the government’s view—and this is consistent with the position that the Prime Minister and his ministers have been taking—that, if you reduce the minimum wage in real terms, this will lead to an increase in employment, particularly at the lower end of the scale. The reality is, had the government got its way and had each of its submissions to the Industrial Relations Commission from 1997 to 2005 accepted, there would have been a cut in real terms of over 1½ per cent to the minimum wage: $50 a week, or over $2,500 a year, less than the current minimum wage. That is the government’s actual position when it comes to those Australians who struggle on minimum wages.

The government has not been content with simply making submissions to the Industrial Relations Commission. Through its Work Choices legislation, it is imposing the so-called Fair Pay Commission—probably better known as the low-pay commission—which will have legislative parameters that are clearly designed to keep downward pressure on the minimum wage. Unlike the Industrial Relations Commission, this new unfair pay commission is not required to take into account ‘the need to provide fair minimum standards for employees in the context of living standards generally prevailing in the Australian community’. Who can forget the government voting against an amendment moved by the opposition during the Work Choices debate because they did not want the word ‘fair’ in the legislative parameters for the Fair Pay Commission. They voted against making sure that the Fair Pay Commission’s job was governed, at least in part, by a notion of fairness.

How can you have a Fair Pay Commission when you do not even have the courage to include fairness in the legislative parameters? You voted against Work Choices having fairness in the legislative parameters because you do not want a fair minimum wage—that is not what you want. If you did want it, you would not have voted against fairness being one of the criteria that this commission has to have regard to when setting the minimum wage. Essentially, the principle of fairness has been stripped from consideration of the level of the minimum wage, as has the question of living standards generally.

I want to briefly talk, in the time remaining, about the government’s assertion that this is the way forward for the Australian economy. The way forward is the 2c an hour that a number of Australians have already faced. The way forward is no rights with regard to unfair dismissal for many millions of Australian workers. The government’s assertion that higher minimum wage levels inevitably lead to higher levels of unemployment simply does not stack up.

Let us have a look at some of the overseas examples: Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden all have lower levels of unemployment than Australia despite the fact they have so-called high levels of employment protection. They are also ranked as more competitive than Australia by the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness ranking and, on OECD figures, they all have higher productivity levels compared to Australia. And in the United States, the economic pin-up model of the government, the experience over the past five years has seen jobs growth rise by only 2.9 per cent while the minimum wage, in real terms, has fallen by 12 per cent.

If we now look to the budget papers, it is pretty clear that the government is even expecting employment growth to fall over the forward estimates period. These regulations are just more bad news for Australian employees and Australian workplaces. The government’s approach underlines the true nature of its agenda and its legislation—an ideological removal of choice. The government simply does not trust employers and employees to reach the most appropriate agreement for their circumstances. The government only wants them to reach an agreement with which the government is happy. That is what this legislation does: it is all about ministerial intervention; it is all about prohibited content; and it is all about the government imposing its view and its will on Australian employees and Australian workplaces. The government only wants people to reach the agreement that the government is happy with.

The government’s assertion that these changes will fix all the economic problems Australia faces is not just simplistic; it ignores the real drivers of productivity in our economy: the knowledge and skills of our workforce, the adequacy of our infrastructure and the ability of industry to meet emerging pressures through innovation. As a nation, we will not be internationally competitive and achieve sustained high levels of growth off the back of reducing wages and stripping conditions. Two cents an hour is not the way forward for the Australian economy. Unfortunately, the government simply does not get this. The government simply does not comprehend that down the path they choose lies a low-skill, low-pay and low-productivity economy that ignores the long-term requirements for a prosperous Australia.

What Australia needs is policies which are about building an economy that is productive and internationally competitive. And Australia needs a government that will do that while ensuring that the working conditions of Australian employees are fair. Everybody knows what this government wants. It wants Australian employers to be able to require their employees to give away all of their entitlements: give away your leave loading, give away your rostering certainty, give away your penalty rates, give away your overtime for 2c an hour. (Time expired)