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

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Given the controversial nature of the introduction of the Work Choices legislation, this report has been long awaited. In the development of this report there has been some discussion in the Senate estimates process. I have had a chance to study this report, because it has already been tabled in the House of Representatives, and it is as disappointing as I expected it to be. It is a very bland report and does not really give any support to the government’s position that the unfair agreement-making process under Work Choices has supported any of the outcomes that the government claims.

I am not surprised that the report does not assist the government in any of those cases, because, during Senate estimates, we asked how the department was going to use the data it was collecting from AWAs and other forms of agreement making to prepare this report. Most of this information is gathered from the workplace agreements database, although it does rely on some general information from the ABS and some other departmental sources. The information detailed in the report is from the workplace agreements database. In answer to a question from me at Senate estimates, Mr Kovacic, from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, explained what the workplace relations database was and what it could be used for. He said:

We have replicated a database in respect of AWAs to coincide with the introduction of Work Choices. It is not an analytical tool, in the sense that it does not enable us to analyse, I suppose, the results of bargaining. It really is a tool to assist us in the preparation of the report on agreement making.

Of course, no analysis took place. Further, at the same estimates hearing on 15 February this year, Mr Kovacic said:

The workplace agreements database does not enable us to undertake any analysis of protected award conditions along the lines that I think were referred to by Peter McIlwain at the May estimates of last year.

The estimates hearing of May 2006 was the only time we were actually able to get an analysis of agreement making. That was when Mr McIlwain, the then Employment Advocate, admitted, after an analysis of a sample of AWAs, that 100 per cent of AWAs at that time removed at least one protected award condition; 16 per cent of AWAs removed all protected award conditions; 64 per cent of AWAs removed annual leave loading; 63 per cent of AWAs removed all penalty rates; 52 per cent of AWAs removed loadings for shift work; only 59 per cent of AWAs retained declared public holidays; 22 per cent of AWAs did not provide for any wage increase for the life of the agreement; and 14 per cent of AWAs applying to casual workers provided for a loading of less than the legal minimum—that is, less than 20 per cent.

No analysis has since been done by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations or by the Office of the Employment Advocate—as I understand it, the only two government bodies that have access to forms of agreement making and AWAs. Mr McIlwain, the then Employment Advocate, told the Senate estimates hearing that he was not collecting any data on AWAs after that time—and conveniently the government department decided they would no longer provide any data or any analysis of it. Only later did we find out that Mr McIlwain was lying through his teeth at the Senate estimates hearing about the ongoing collection of data, because it was soon leaked to the media. We got an update of the analysis that was in fact being done by the OEA—even though Mr McIlwain denied that to the Senate estimates process, which was a grave disappointment.

Mr McIlwain is no longer the Employment Advocate; he is the Deputy Employment Advocate. He missed out on the new job. We have all seen Ms Barbara Bennett, the new Employment Advocate. The role has a new name and has been rebadged as part of the government’s attempt to disassociate itself from Work Choices.

This report is probably more significant for what it does not tell us than for what it does tell us because, in the words of the department, it does not provide a basis for any real analysis of what is happening with AWAs. There are other researchers analysing the impact of AWAs on working people, working conditions and wages. A recent report, From awards to work choices in retail and hospitality collective agreements, from a team of over 20 researchers, examined every collective agreement lodged federally between 26 March and 8 December 2006 in two industries where large numbers of workers were previously dependent on awards. Those industries were the retail and hospitality industries, covering enterprises in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. All those AWAs were provided by the government to this research team. They found that the majority of agreements have discarded entitlements or reduced them under Work Choices. Their findings on protected award conditions showed that: 80 per cent of agreements removed annual leave loadings; 79 per cent of agreements removed laundry allowances; 76 per cent of agreements removed Saturday penalty rates; 71 per cent of agreements removed Sunday penalty rates; 68 per cent of agreements removed overtime rates; 60 per cent of agreements removed public holiday penalty rates; and 55 per cent of agreements removed all paid breaks.

Some of the provisions removed and reduced in AWAs were not protected award conditions but were very important to people, particularly in these specific industries. Seventy-four per cent of agreements removed casual loading; 65 per cent of agreements removed severance pay; 63 per cent of agreements removed rostered days off; 62 per cent of agreements put limits on part-time hours; 62 per cent of agreements removed the right to average hours over a one- to four-week period; 56 per cent of agreements only provided for minimum part-time daily hours; and 54 per cent of agreements removed time off between overtime and the next working day.

In the retail industry, this study found that on average the wages lost in these AWAs were between two per cent and 18 per cent, and the potential average gains were never more than 0.5 per cent. Casual part-time sales assistants working a 12-hour week in retail lost on average 12 per cent of their earnings. Permanent part-time workers on the same hours lost 18 per cent. In hospitality, the losses were between six per cent and 12 per cent. The only gains were in union agreements and, at most, these were just over three per cent. Permanent part-time waiting and bar staff in the hospitality industry working a 21-hour week of split shifts lost 12 per cent on average under these AWAs. These averages conceal some of the very significant falls in earnings. The worst of those, with losses greater than 10 per cent, included the following. In liquor stores, workers on AWAs suffered losses of between 11.9 per cent and 31.1 per cent. In the fast food industry, workers on AWAs suffered losses of between 12.5 per cent and 21.3 per cent. In bakeries, workers on AWAs suffered losses of between 17.9 per cent and 24.5 per cent. In restaurants, workers on AWAs suffered losses of between 10 per cent and 12.8 per cent. In cafes, workers on AWAs suffered losses of between 10 per cent and 15.7 per cent.

It is no wonder that the government report does not analyse the impact of AWAs on Australian workers, because every study that it has commissioned anywhere in this country that has looked at the conditions of AWAs and made any analysis only shows that workers are having their wages and conditions completely gouged under the unfair and extreme industrial relations system of Work Choices that this government has introduced. We hear the government, time after time, trying to discredit the authors of these reports, but never do you hear the government going into the methodology or challenging the results of the reports. They simply want to discredit people who have worked on reports previously, because of the fact that different governments may have commissioned these reports. (Time expired)