Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Chapman must have a definition of what is good for Australian workers that is very different from mine. Certainly, since Work Choices has come in we have seen reduced job security for working families throughout Australia. We have seen thousands of workers being pushed onto AWA individual contracts and we have seen AWA individual contracts cutting workers’ pay and conditions. When we have a Senate estimates process and the relevant government body is forced to reveal that information, what is the government’s solution? Stop collecting the data. That way we will not know what is going on.

But, unfortunately for the government, there are some government instrumentalities that still collect data, like the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which reports that they have had a 60 per cent increase in workplace related complaints since Work Choices came in. There has been a 60 per cent increase in discrimination cases and complaints in the workplace since this single piece of legislation came in. I suppose the government’s solution to that will be to tell them to stop collecting data too. You did not like the data you got from your other government bodies.

Let us recap on what that data was before they were told to stop collecting it. Your own report that you gave us in May last year showed that, of the AWA individual contracts that had been lodged to that point, 100 per cent cut at least one so-called protected award condition; 22 per cent provided workers with no pay rise at all, some for up to five years; 51 per cent cut overtime loadings—that is something to be proud of!; 63 per cent cut penalty rates; 64 per cent cut annual leave loadings; 46 per cent cut public holiday payments; and 52 per cent cut shift work loadings. That is something that was of concern to blue-collar workers in the seat of Goulburn, and Ms Goward might be reflecting on that, because she was certainly reflecting on it on my television last night. I do not know which television station Senator Abetz was watching, but she was very clear about the impact it had on blue-collar workers in Goulburn in the news I was watching last night.

When the government was prepared to release figures, those figures showed that 40 per cent of AWAs cut rest breaks; 46 per cent cut incentive based payments and bonuses; 48 per cent cut monetary allowances for employment expenses, skills, disabilities and the like; 36 per cent cut declared public holidays; and 44 per cent cut days to be substituted for public holidays. What is the government’s solution? Stop collecting the data. That is the only solution that they have had. The only data we get now is the delayed data from ABS and from HREOC, and I suppose you will just tell them not to collect the data either.

Then, of course, there is the impact that AWAs have had on women in the workforce. In November 1996, a date that some people in this place should remember, the gender gap on full-time adult ordinary time earnings was 84.2 per cent. A decade later—a decade-long Howard government—the wages gap has increased and now the gender gap is 83.7 per cent. That is something else that you should be really proud of! There has been no narrowing either of the gender wages gap on the data relating to all employees’ total earnings, which has remained stuck at 65.5 per cent.

Australian women on AWAs now, thanks to this government, who work full time, earn on average $2.30 less per hour or $87.40 less per week than those on collective agreements, and they earn $100 a week less on average than their male equivalents in the workforce. Now that is progressive! That is something you should be very proud of achieving! It has taken you 10 years but you have got there. That is really good!

Australian women on AWAs who work part time earn $3.70 less per hour or $85.10 less per week for an average 23 hours a week than those on collective agreements. This is ABS data, so we cannot accept Minister Hockey saying, ‘It’s very difficult to compare one agreement with another when all of the clauses should be disclosed.’ This is ABS data that every government department relies on to do its planning. It is accepted data. It is robust data. Australian women who work as casuals— (Time expired)