Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

After that contribution, I am not surprised that this government is really struggling with the issue of industrial relations, because there was only one thing that Senator Barnett was right about—and that is that the Labor Party will abolish AWAs. We do not make any apology for that, because AWAs are unfair. Under this government’s legislation, there is no choice. Work Choices in itself is a lie. The name is a lie because there is no choice. The only choice that is ever given to people under an AWA is: take it or leave it. People do not have the ability to sit down and negotiate with large or even small employers on an equal basis. It is based on a lie. It is a false premise. The employer always has the superior bargaining position and the bargaining power, and employees as individuals do not have the same ability to negotiate reasonable wage outcomes.

The cracks are showing. Senator Barnett really should have updated his own figures before he started talking about wages. Just before I get on to that, the main mantra the government now throws at us is that Work Choices has created jobs. Let me tell the chamber the problem the government has with that argument. The first month after Work Choices, employment actually reduced by 3,000. There has been growth over the period of time that Work Choices has been in place, but we are in a growing economy. Just understand the logic of this: this government would have us believe that, since the introduction of Work Choices, every single new job is a result of Work Choices. Where did the jobs come from before Work Choices? You cannot have it both ways.

We have been in a growing economy for a 15-year period—and what happens in a growing economy? Jobs increase. Jobs will fluctuate up and down, the statistics will bounce around and we will see that Work Choices will actually cost jobs at the end of the day. These are not statistics that any of us can rely on at the moment, because the statistics over a period of time are not there. But for this government to say that every job that has been created since Work Choices is a result of Work Choices is simply dishonest. It is a dishonest argument.

The other thing the government says is that there has been wages growth. What did we see in the last ABS statistics? We actually saw real wages reducing. And where do we see them reducing? We see them reducing in some of the most exploited sectors. We see wages being reduced in the retail and hospitality industries. What have we seen over the last 12 months? With the underlying inflation rate of 3.9 per cent, we saw retail wages grow by only 2.8 per cent—much less than the inflation rate. The real value of those wages is now going backwards. And what did we see in the hospitality industry? With the inflation rate of 3.9 per cent, hospitality wages grew by only 2.4 per cent—again, a reduction in real terms in wages.

Do you know when the biggest reduction has been? It has been in the last two quarters since Work Choices was introduced. We are now seeing people in the hospitality and retail industries who have no bargaining power having their wages driven down. And why wouldn’t that happen? We know from the sample of AWAs taken since the introduction of Work Choices that every AWA has removed at least one protected award condition—or so-called protected award condition.