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

I rise to speak on behalf of the opposition on the Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007. The government announced this legislation because it needed a quick political fix to a problem called Work Choices. We know this legislation is only about a quick political fix because the government drafted its political advertising even before it drafted this bill. The government has admitted this. This legislation is not about fixing the inherent unfairness in Work Choices; it is about fixing what the government calls the ‘perception’ in the Australian community that this government is arrogant and out of touch and that its Work Choices laws are unfair.

The government senators who reviewed this bill agreed in their report. They said, ‘The legislation is aimed at assuaging concerns which have emerged in the community’—about Work Choices. It is because this government needed a quick fix to a political problem called Work Choices that the Senate was forced yet again to hold a one-day token inquiry—a Clayton’s inquiry, the inquiry you have when you do not want an inquiry—into legislation that will affect every employer and employee covered by the government’s Work Choices laws and that again increases the regulatory and red-tape burden on business.

This bill makes an already opaque workplace relations system absolutely muddy and interminable. It adds further complexity, confusion and chaos for Australian employers and employees. The arrogance of this government is breathtaking. It is so intent on making sure it has a quick political fix to the problem of Work Choices that it does not seem to mind yet again adding to the mound of legislation representing its supposedly simpler industrial relations system. In fact, as employers and employees know, this system is anything but simple. And, because this government needed a quick fix to a political problem called Work Choices, here we are again in this place debating yet another round of amendments which the government is rushing through and which were drafted at the last minute, debated at short notice and designed solely for a political fix. But make no mistake: this short-term political fix has long-term consequences for all Australians, workers and businesses. The government has, in effect, manufactured a reason for introducing yet another round of multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded political advertising in the lead-up to the election, which it calls an information campaign about the so-called fairness test but which, so far, has not mentioned a fairness test at all—and the campaign was in fact developed before the fairness test was even announced.

Let us be clear about what we know of the government’s advertising. We know that $55 million was spent on Work Choices mark 1. We also have on the public record $36.5 million having been flagged to be spent on Work Choices mark 2, and I note that the government are yet to come clean on how much will actually be spent and whether the $36.5 million figure, which has been in the public arena, is correct. So far they have not said that it was not. We also know that, over a six- or seven-day period after the Prime Minister’s quick political fix announcement, the government spent about $25,000 an hour in the first week of this campaign advertising this so-called fairness test.

And, as the minister has recently confirmed, not satisfied with wasting taxpayers’ money on political advertising on industrial relations, the government now wants to add amendments to this bill to force employers to hand out government propaganda to every employee within the next three months. Who needs volunteers to help with election campaigning when you are requiring every employer in the country to hand out political propaganda for the Howard government on industrial relations? But, whilst this government can find a quick fix to the political problem called Work Choices, it is a real shame that we will never see the Howard government find a genuine fix to the real problems caused by its extreme Work Choices legislation.

In the six weeks since the government announced this bill, over 30,000 AWAs have been made. Because this government needed a quick fix to a political problem called Work Choices, those 30,000 Australian employers and employees who have made AWAs since 7 May have been left in the dark with no guidance about how to comply with laws, because these laws were not even drafted until a fortnight ago.

It is clear that this is not a government that believes in fairness at work. Those of us who participated in or listened to the first Work Choices debate will well remember that this government in this chamber voted against a range of things which it is now trying to turn around. It voted against the principle of fairness. Let us be clear: time and again amendments were moved by Labor in this place and, I think, also by some of the minor parties, which sought to—