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

I am glad you enjoyed that analogy, Senator Mason. Think of a mother working in a retail shop under the Victorian shops award. Under normal circumstances, this working mother would receive at least 14 days notice of a change in her roster—a protection which means that the mother has the time and the certainty to arrange child care when her shifts change. In an emergency the notice period is reduced to 48 hours, which is still enough time for the mother to arrange something. However, if this hardworking mother were offered an AWA today, that standard award protection could be stripped away from her and the government’s test will do nothing to protect her. Indeed, if she is provided with this notice period, it might even be considered to be fair compensation for the loss of other protected award conditions, particularly as the reason may be that it is of benefit to her because of her family responsibilities.

The bill may also jeopardise the job security of those employees whose family circumstances mean that they need to work certain hours. This is set out in section 346M(3) of the bill, which states:

... In considering whether a workplace agreement provides fair compensation to an employee ... the Workplace Authority Director may also have regard to the personal circumstances of the employee ... including in particular the family responsibilities of the employee ...

This is the first time in the nation’s history that our personal circumstances can determine our worth at work. Does that mean that it will be fair for an employee with children who says that they would prefer to work on Saturday, because their partner is home, not to be paid penalty rates but to work side by side with workers who are being paid penalty rates? Who assesses the impact of these personal circumstances?

The bill and the EM suggest that this is solely at the discretion of the Workplace Authority. The authority receives details from the employer or employee, but there is no mechanism outlined in the bill to ensure that this will occur objectively and without prejudice. Furthermore, do Australians really want details of their personal circumstances forwarded to a big, Canberra based bureaucracy and weighed up by bureaucrats who do not even have to talk to them? As we consider more examples like these and introduce more factors into the test, the more the process becomes engulfed in secrecy.

The bill sets up a secretive, unwieldy and unreviewable process for the Workplace Authority to unilaterally determine whether an agreement is fair. The authority is not required to give reasons for how it assesses the monetary value of something provided to an employee, what it thinks of an employee’s work situation or their personal circumstances or how these considerations are relevant. It is not even required to give reasons for how it reached a decision that an agreement is unfair. This deficiency was highlighted before the Senate inquiry, and I sure that some of my colleagues will speak on it.

There is no right of appeal for any of these matters, unless Australian employers and employees want to go to the High Court. Of course, that is beyond the capacity of most employees. Government senators on the committee knew of these concerns and concluded that the need for speedy decision making should overcome amendments to ensure that a so-called fairness test was applied in a fair way. Again, political expediency won out. The bill sets no time limit on the Workplace Authority to tell employers and employees whether the test is going to be applied, what the designated award might be and whether their agreement even passes the test. In effect, it creates a system where employers and employees can be left in the wilderness for weeks or months, not knowing whether their agreements, which are already in operation, are lawful.

Frankly, the bureaucracy and the expenditure that come with this bill are unbelievable. According to the EM, the government will spend an additional $370.3 million on the implementation of the so-called fairness test. The Workplace Ombudsman will receive an additional $64.1 million, and DEWR will receive an additional $2.7 million. From the Senate estimates process, we learnt that, as at the end of May, in excess of 20,000 agreements had been lodged and that these will be subject to the test. We are going to see a massive increase in bureaucracy in order to consider this backlog of agreements, which is a result of the government’s hasty political announcement prior to the bill passing through the Senate.

Let us be clear: under Labor, Work Choices will go—lock, stock and barrel. There is no fixing this legislation; it is rotten to the core. We will build an industrial relations system based on balance and fairness. If by chance this bill helps even one worker exist at the extremity of the operations of the government’s extreme legislation, we will not stand in its way in helping them. These workers need all the help we can give them, but we believe in fairness at work every day and that employees deserve their pay and conditions to be protected every day. We believe those protections should not be stripped back, undermined and lied about by the federal government. When Labor say that we will protect conditions, unlike the Howard government, we actually mean it.

In the time between now and the election, there is no choice for Australian workers. However, at the next election Labor will give Australian working families a clear choice to reject these unfair laws and to support the introduction of an industrial relations system based on balance and fairness—and fairness not just in name but in substance. Today we will give those of you in the Senate a choice. On behalf of the opposition, I move the second reading amendment circulated in my name:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate condemns the Government’s lack of honesty about:

        (a)    its plans for extreme industrial relations laws before the last election;

        (b)    the impact of its inherently unfair Work Choices laws including the way these laws have:

              (i)    caused the pay and conditions of individuals on Australian Workplace Agreements to be cut,

             (ii)    allowed good workers to be dismissed for no reason at all,

            (iii)    placed an unprecedented paperwork burden on small businesses, and

            (iv)    destroyed the independent industrial umpire;

        (c)    the cost of the taxpayer polling research which apparently led the Government to dropping the term ‘Work Choices’ and bringing this bill to the Senate;

        (d)    the magnitude of the taxpayer funded advertising campaign to promote the Government’s political spin on industrial relations;

        (e)    the fact that this bill leaves Australians still overwhelmingly exposed to the harshness of Work Choices; and

         (f)    its intention to legislate even harsher laws if re-elected”.

Later, at the committee stage, we will offer that choice. Labor cares about employees in this country every day, not just in the days leading up to the election. (Time expired)