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

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation (Senator Abetz) to questions without notice asked by Senators Wong, Forshaw and Hogg today relating to employment and workplace agreements.

Today we had Senator Abetz spruiking yet again in response to opposition questions what he regards as the ‘wonderful impact of the government’s workplace laws’. The wonderful impact includes an employer being able to give you a take it or leave it contract. The wonderful impact includes jurors being able to be sacked for doing jury service because they have lost their jury service leave and people not being able to serve on juries because they are not entitled anymore to make-up pay. The wonderful impact includes employees being offered AWAs at the Commonwealth Bank which remove no less than 46 entitlements they would otherwise have got, including penalty rates, overtime rates, rostered days off and leave loading. These are some of the wonderful impacts of the government’s workplace laws. The fact is that Senator Abetz is completely unable in his answers to explain why this is good for Australian families.

Why is it good for Australian families to be in the situation where they are told, ‘You can have this job but only if you sign up to an AWA which removes 46 conditions, including your overtime rates, your penalty rates and your leave loading’? Why is it good for Australian families to be in a situation such as that of Mr Goodwin, an employee of Mr Corish, where he worked under an AWA which apparently was not even registered and under which he is claiming around about $70,000 of underpayment? This is hardly an advertisement for the wonderful impact of the government’s Work Choices laws.

The minister made this point. He said, ‘People have a choice.’ The reality is that if you go and talk to most employees they understand what sort of choice they have. They understand what it means. They know what happens if their employer says to them: ‘Look, I’m offering you this job on the basis of this contract. It doesn’t have leave loading, penalty rates, overtime rates and, by the way, because I’ve got under 100 employees, you actually do not get any access to unfair dismissal rights, but that’s the job, take it or leave it.’ That is the sort of choice that the Howard government’s workplace laws give. That is the sort of choice they give Australian workers and their families. Here is a contract which takes away all your overtime rates, penalty rates, rostered days off and leave loading. It does not have an entitlement to paid maternity leave or family friendly workplace provisions—none of those things—but you have to sign it if you want the job. Perhaps the worst thing is that they talk about choice but under their laws all those things can be taken away without anything being given back.

This is the big difference between now and what the minister was spruiking when he talked about the history of the Commonwealth Bank and other employers having previously offered AWAs: previously at least employers actually had to give something back. That is pretty logical: you take something away, you have to give something back. They no longer have to do that. Employees can be handed a contract that says, ‘We take away all these longstanding historic entitlements and we don’t have to give you one cent extra.’ I think one cent was what they got, or was it two cents—