Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to this motion and indicate I have an amendment. I will move that now and then speak to both the amendment and the motion at the same time. I move:

Omit all words from and including “28 April 2008”, substitute “17 March 2008”.

I think it is very important that we are very clear in this chamber and also externally about precisely what is occurring here. We have an opposition who are ideologically committed to Work Choices, an issue that played extremely large in last year’s election, and who are desperately trying to push out the date on which AWAs are abolished in this country. That is simply what it is: the opposition are refusing to accept the decision of the Australian people at the last election and are desperately clinging on to this Work Choices totemic issue to which they are so bound. They cannot think any other way.

This is an opposition whose position is that they want to continue the unfair Australian workplace agreements which we know have continued over the period of the Howard government, since they were introduced, to strip away wages and conditions from workers, particularly disadvantaged workers. So I place the opposition on notice: the Australian people will know that, for every day that you delay the passage of this bill through putting in place an unduly lengthy Senate inquiry, every AWA that is put in place where a young worker or any worker is asked to strip away conditions they would otherwise have received under Labor’s fairer industrial relations policy will be on your heads. This is after an election where no-one could say that anyone in Australia did not understand the difference between the parties on industrial relations. Leave aside all the colour and movement and smokescreens that Senators Minchin and Abetz and Ellison are trying to put into this debate.

At its core, this debate is about an opposition who are ideologically shackled to Australian workplace agreement, an opposition who cannot bear to let go the hard Right agenda about stripping wages and conditions from workers, an opposition who cannot bear the fact that this was an issue on which they clearly did not win the support of the Australian people at the last election. It is extraordinary, isn’t it, really, when you consider the high profile, the centrality of the issue of industrial relations at the election on 24 November? There is a lot of discussion in this chamber at various times about mandates. From memory, I have had the lecture—and I am sure the crossbenchers have at various times—from the previous government about their mandates. That is an issue that gets debated.

But let us be very clear about this. I do not think there was anybody in this country who paid any attention to the last election campaign who would not have considered industrial relations to have been the key issue, the issue that was most front and centre for the longest period, the issue that was most clearly debated, the issue where there were detailed and clear differences between the parties. This was an issue where Labor clearly have a very detailed mandate. The Australian people knew exactly what we were going to do on industrial relations. And they know exactly what you were doing, and they will know in coming weeks if your motion succeeds—because, as you know, you still have the numbers in this chamber—what you are doing by pushing out this reporting date. They will also know that any Australian workplace agreement that is put in place between when this bill should have been dealt with by the Senate and when you are proposing to deal with it is on your heads.

There are a number of particular issues that Senator Minchin mentioned in his earlier contribution to discussion on the Selection of Bills Committee about scrutiny. Firstly, on the issue of scrutiny, people may recall, as I said, that industrial relations was a central issue in the last election campaign. People may recall that Labor put out not only one but two policies in relation to industrial relations. We put out our Forward with Fairness policy and then we put out a very detailed implementation plan. It was far more detailed than anything we ever got from the former Howard government at the election prior to them introducing these extreme workplace laws that Labor are trying to remove through this legislation. I do not remember the former member for Bennelong ever coming out in the 2004 election and saying, ‘By the way, I am going to put in place contracts which allow you to have conditions stripped away without any no disadvantage test or without any reference to awards, which allow young workers to be exploited.’ I do not remember that being an issue that you campaigned on.

In contrast, we put out our policy in, I believe, April of last year, but I could be corrected on that date. Then we put out a very detailed implementation plan. The bill that is the subject of the referral that we are discussing is true to the implementation plan and the policies that we put out for scrutiny and upon which we were elected. This opposition in this chamber is trying to stop the abolition of Australian workplace agreements. You want the bill pushed out. You want more time for more AWAs. You do not want to abolish them because you still believe, despite the fact that you lost the election, that these are good things.

In terms of the time frame—and we have had some discussion about that and I think Senator Siewert has also made this point—we can look at some of the time frames around the legislation introduced by the previous government when it announced it was going to change the law to introduce a fairness test, and the scrutiny that this chamber was allowed to give that legislation. The former government’s Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007 was introduced in the House on 28 May and passed on 30 May and the Senate committee commenced its inquiries as soon as the bill was introduced in the House. The bill was introduced in the Senate on 13 June. The Senate committee report was tabled on 14 June and the bill passed on 20 June. So, when you were in government, for your safety net bill there were fewer than four weeks between its introduction into the House and its passage by the Senate, including the Senate committee inquiry.

The Australian people gave us a very clear mandate to implement this legislation. They understood very clearly what Labor’s policy was on these issues. We put out publicly our policy and our implementation plan. What those opposite are arguing for is a time frame far longer for consideration of this bill than they demanded of themselves in government. It is interesting, isn’t it? The shoe is on the other foot now. They are on the other side of the chamber now, but when the opposition were in government and retained control of this chamber they were very happy to rush things through and to have short inquires to suit their political purposes. They are now arguing for longer debate and longer consideration of this bill, which very clearly implements the policies that we articulated in detail prior to the election. If you want to talk in terms of a mandate, we have far more of a mandate for this legislation—given the detail, the discussion and the political focus on this issue prior to the election—than you ever had, when you were the government, for the safety net bill, as I have outlined.

Isn’t it amazing how things change when you cross over? There is only one explanation, and it is the one I started with: this is an opposition that cannot bear the fact that this legislation will remove Australian workplace agreements. I should not say that this is an opposition that cannot bear that fact. I think that is the position of most of the opposition, but we have had a fair bit of toing and froing on their side, with some people suggesting they should fold on this issue and others suggesting they should not—not because those who want to allow passage of this legislation or have a different view on the legislation have had a change of heart or have a different philosophical view; they just recognise the politics of this. Anybody who campaigned during this election—and I assume other senators also campaigned—knows that this was front and centre. For Senator Webber, who I know worked very hard in WA, it was a front and centre issue—as it was across the country. No-one could say that they did not understand that Kevin Rudd and Labor were standing for the abolition of AWAs.

So let us understand what is happening. The opposition is saying: ‘We don’t want to abolish AWAs. We don’t care that this was an issue in the election campaign. We don’t care that we lost the election. We don’t care that the government has got a mandate. We don’t care that the Australian people elected a government that was committed to doing this. We want to delay this as long as possible.’ Let us understand that that is what the motion will do. It will push this out to 28 April and we all know, given the sitting schedule, what that will mean.

The government is absolutely determined to press on with our amendments to these unfair laws. We absolutely will keep faith with the commitment we gave to the Australian people to remove Australian workplace agreements. We absolutely will keep faith with the policies and plans that we put forward and, in this area, the transitional arrangements that we articulated. We will push forward on that and Australians will know, if those on the other side continue to stonewall, who is responsible for the continuation of Australian workplace agreements in this country.

There was some discussion in the earlier debate about sitting hours. I want to make it very clear what the government’s position is. I have moved an amendment that requires a reporting date of 17 March. If that is passed, we will ensure that the bill is passed as expeditiously as possible. I flag to the chamber and to the Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate that, if additional sitting hours or days are required in order to pass this bill, the government will put those in place. We are committed to the passage of this legislation. So the challenge to the opposition is this: are you going to accept the fact that Australian workplace agreements are clearly something that the Australian people have rejected, or are you going to try to use the Senate processes to delay as long as possible the dismantling of these laws, which were soundly rejected at the most recent election?

I want to make it clear also that not only is this a bill in which this government is meeting its clear election commitments to the Australian people; it is a bill which is a product of genuine consultation. This may not be something those opposite understand. Not only was this bill put to the Australian people, who overwhelmingly endorsed it in effect at the last election, but the policy and detail of this bill went to the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council and its subcommittee on industrial relations. So this is a bill that has been worked on by experts from employer and employee organisations sitting around a table and, as a result of that consultation process, I understand the bill has been improved. We have also held consultations with state workplace relations ministers.

Because there has been a lot of discussion about scrutiny from the other side, I again want to make it clear that the government is not opposed to proper scrutiny of the bill. However, the government wants to ensure that this opposition does not unduly delay or frustrate the will of the Australian people being implemented into law. I again remind the chamber that the last time this parliament dealt with a piece of industrial relations legislation we dealt with the so-called fairness test. Again, I remind the chamber that that legislation, with all its complexity and uncertainty—and we saw some of that after its implementation—was processed within four sitting weeks, including a Senate inquiry. The then government, the current opposition, then believed that four sitting weeks was an appropriate length of time, inclusive of a Senate inquiry, for parliamentary scrutiny of a piece of industrial relations legislation which had not been put to the Australian people and which was announced—let us remember this—before it had even been drafted.

To those who might recall, send your minds back to May last year, I think it was. The government actually announced what it was going to do before it had the legislation ready. So we had this very strange situation where employers and employees were told something publicly that was in effect not enacted, nor was the legislation or the clarity around it introduced into the parliament.

I again remind those opposite that we announced our policy intentions in our Forward with Fairness policy in April last year—that is 10 months ago—and we provided the implementation details of our policy, to which I have already referred, in August last year. That was some three months before the election. It is our very strong view on this side of the chamber that, if four weeks was good enough for the consideration of the previous government’s so-called fairness test legislation, inclusive of a Senate inquiry, it is certainly good enough for the processing of this Labor government’s clear and simple transitional legislation.

This is a challenge for the opposition. Are they actually going to accept the will of the Australian people? Are they going to fairly and properly deal with this legislation or are they going to frustrate its passage? Those watching can only draw one conclusion from the delay that the opposition are proposing, and that is this: that you have not changed. The opposition have not changed. This is the same Liberal Party and National Party that were dedicated to deregulating the industrial relations system such that workers become substantially disadvantaged. This is the same coalition that supported the extreme Work Choices laws, the laws which we know are the most extreme this country has ever seen. This is the same coalition that supported and championed the Australian workplace agreements that we know stripped away the wages and conditions of Australian workers.

So what is happening in this chamber today is that the opposition are refusing to allow the abolition of Australian workplace agreements. That is what the opposition are doing. They are refusing to allow the expeditious passage of a piece of legislation which the Australian people voted for, because the Australian people voted for the dismantling of Work Choices. They knew exactly what the Labor Party’s position was on this, and they knew exactly what yours was as well. One thing we can take out of this debate is this: the opposition have not changed. We will remove Work Choices. We will abolish Australian workplace agreements. The other thing that is clear from this debate is that you have not changed. The opposition have not changed. You are still supporting the extreme Work Choices laws, which have meant a stripping away of wages and conditions amongst Australian workers.