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

In closing the debate, there are a number of matters I want to remind the chamber about before we vote on these regulations. The first is that we have the opportunity to consider, when we are voting on these, precisely what some of the known impacts of Work Choices, the government’s extreme industrial relations legislation, have been since it has been enacted. We know, for example, that the majority of Australian workplace agreements entered into since this legislation came into effect abolish penalty rates. I think all of them abolish some of the protected conditions. We know, for example, that Australian workers have been asked to trade away penalty rates, leave loading, shift loadings and rostering certainty for the princely sum of 2c an hour—entirely legal under this government’s legislation. We also know that it is legal, according to advice from the government’s own department in the context of a highly publicised case, that it is legal for an employer to dismiss people and then re-engage others on lower wages and conditions.

We also know that AWAs—I think it is the 2004 or 2005 figures, but I might stand corrected—have demonstrably reduced the wage increases offered to those workers under them. Particularly, we are concerned about working women in this country. On the most recent figures, non-managerial female employees earned on average 11 per cent less when they were on an Australian workplace agreement.

A great many things that a great many people said would come to pass have started to come to pass since this legislation has been in place. We have an opportunity today, when voting on these regulations, to bear in mind exactly what is happening, particularly to lower paid workers and employees with little bargaining power, and, more importantly, just how invasive and intrusive this legislation is and the extent to which it is intended to drive down wages and conditions in Australia.

Senator Siewert raised the issue of the cleaning industry. I want to talk very briefly about a campaign which the LHMU, the union which covers cleaners, is running with its members to try to improve wages and conditions for cleaners. We often do not notice—certainly in Parliament House—who cleans our offices. We do not necessarily think about what their pay and conditions are, nor about the hours they work. The fact is that a great many cleaners in this country do work for extraordinarily low wages. Most of them are on casual arrangements or are precariously employed. A lot of them are not permanently employed and a lot of them do not have access to the entitlements which permanent employment brings.

When I spoke to a group of cleaners in Adelaide not long ago, cleaners from all over the city—almost all of them women, and a lot of them women from non-English-speaking backgrounds—about the Work Choices legislation, I asked them: ‘Do you think you’re going to have a better chance negotiating better pay and conditions by negotiating individually with your employer with fewer minimum statutory conditions and award conditions under the government’s Work Choices?’ Every one of them said no and thought it was ridiculous. They thought it was ridiculous because they know what the reality of their working life is. They already have low wages and conditions which are problematic. But they know that they are not going to get better wages and conditions by negotiating individually with their employer without the protection of the many award conditions and without the involvement of their trade union.

For this group of women, these cleaners, the government’s rhetoric around the choice and opportunity is frankly nothing more than a joke, just as the government’s rhetoric about higher wages is no more than a joke to those employees at Spotlight who were asked to trade away penalty rates, rostering certainty and shift loadings for 2c an hour. That is the reality of Work Choices. We know what some of the effects are. We have the opportunity today to disallow this complex array of regulations that are associated with this legislation, and I urge the Senate to so do.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Wong’s) be agreed to.