David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

who took that pledge to the Australian people in 2007, campaigned on it and won a historic history—a historic victory that Senator Brandis still struggles with. It is time to give the Australian people what they voted for: a new industrial relations system, one based on fairness in the workplace, security for working families and flexibility for business.

The fact that the economic circumstances we now face are very different to those we faced in 2007 does not in any way lessen our responsibility to give the Australian working families the benefits contained in this bill. Our current economic circumstances in fact increase our commitment to that responsibility, because imagine the position of Australian workers and their families if they had had to face the current economic downturn with a federal government in office which believed in the Thatcherite doctrine of survival of the fittest. Imagine if they were dealing with a government who put every man, woman and child at the disposal of a philosophy that says: fend for yourself at the mercy of blind market forces. Imagine what the position of Australian workers and their families would be now if we still had a government that believed that all employees should be put on individual contracts and deprived of virtually all legal protection in terms of their wages and conditions—including, as the Prime Minister noted this afternoon, redundancy provisions—at a time when so many jobs are at risk through this downturn. Imagine the spectacle at Pacific Brands if that company had had the legislative opportunity to continue its strategy of implementing AWAs.

Now more than ever, Australian workers and their families need an industrial relations system which protects their rights. Now more than ever, Australian businesses need an industrial relations system which ensures flexibility and prevents industrial conflict. Now more than ever Australia needs an industrial relations system which encourages and in fact requires employers and employees to negotiate in good faith to reach binding agreements. Now more than ever Australia needs clear workplace rules which both sides accept as fair and balanced. Now more than ever Australia needs an independent workplace umpire to resolve disputes before they lead to costly and disruptive industrial action.

The bill before us does all of these things. It is true that not everyone in the union movement is happy with every provision of this bill. It is true that not everyone in the business community is happy with every provision of this bill. Such is the nature of striking a balanced piece of legislation. But both unions and business recognise that this bill is vastly superior, vastly preferable, to what went before it—the arbitrary, unfair, extreme, unbalanced and ultimately ideological document that was Work Choices, a set of laws that virtually guaranteed to set employee against employer, a set of laws designed to foment industrial disputation, harm productivity and undermine the living standards of Australian families.

When considering the fact that business itself often found Work Choices completely unworkable, I am reminded of the events at Spotlight, a company that did implement AWAs but finally abandoned them in sheer despair as they discovered that over and over again they were forced to comply with ever-changing, ever-moving regulations—a regulatory regime which ultimately led them to prefer a non-AWA solution. Even in their ideological extreme, they could not develop a workable system.

If ever a government had a mandate for a piece of legislation, the Rudd government has a mandate for the Fair Work Bill. Both sides agree that this was the central issue of the 2007 election. Mr Howard, Mr Costello, Mr Turnbull, Mr Hockey and Ms Bishop as well as every sitting member opposite fought tooth and nail in defence of Work Choices laws. Who can forget the months of scaremongering advertising denouncing union bosses and warning of the terrible disasters that would follow if Work Choices was scrapped?

Senator Abetz complained in his speech earlier this afternoon about the cost of the trade unions’ campaign opposing Work Choices, but context is everything. Senator Abetz failed to mention the huge cost of the coalition’s dishonest scare campaign in support of Work Choices. We on this side remember that it was an avalanche of government advertising and an avalanche of government communications—sheer propaganda which would do the Romanian and North Korean governments proud. They were avalanches of propaganda designed to change, to subvert and to distort the opinions of ordinary Australians.

Do I need to remind the Senate that the Howard government spent more than $120 million of taxpayers’ money promoting the Work Choices bills, bills for which they had no mandate? That was on top of the $420 million of taxpayers’ money they spent promoting the GST. That was all part of a total spend, estimated by Jason Koutsoukis of the Age on 2 September 2007, representing over $2 billion of taxpayers’ money promoting Howard government legislation. It was in that context that the union movement mobilised and it was in that context that the Your Rights at Work campaign occurred. It was in the context of there being a government that was prepared to put literally billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money at the service of their own ideological and political electioneering.

What was the result of all these moneys spent on promoting Work Choices in the lead-up to the 2007 election? Labor polled 52.7 per cent of the two-party preferred vote and thereby proved that old adage that nothing kills a bad product like good advertising. So clear was the mandate that Labor won on the issue of scrapping Work Choices that even those opposite are forced to understand it and recognise it. In November 2008, when the Deputy Prime Minister introduced this bill into the House of Representatives, Mr Turnbull said:

The Coalition accepts that the Rudd Government has a mandate for workplace relations change as proposed in their election policy last year.

The Coalition accepts Work Choices is dead. The Australian people have spoken.

…            …            …

The Coalition acknowledges that industry stakeholders support key elements of the Bill.

…            …            …

The Coalition will not oppose the Government’s Fair Work Bill 2008 in the House of Representatives—

and I interpose here that Mr Turnbull did give himself an escape hatch in this formula when he said—

but we reserve our right to propose amendments to improve the operation of the Bill following the Senate Committee process without seeking to frustrate the Government’s election commitment to implement its ‘Forward with Fairness’ election policy.

It was an escape hatch, but it was a very small one. Nevertheless, Mr Turnbull and those opposite are now trying to wriggle their way through it. At today’s coalition party meeting, it was decided that the coalition would after all introduce major amendments. This is typical of what we have come to understand as the Turnbull three-step. The Turnbull three-step is a formula we have now seen on many occasions. Step 1: Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party announce that they are supporting a government initiative and proudly wrap themselves with the bipartisan flag. Step 1 generally lasts for about 24 hours. Then we come to step 2. Step 2: Malcolm Turnbull talks about doubt; there is great doubt. He tries to strike a Churchillian pose and tries to strike doubt into his bipartisan wonder of the day before. Finally, we come to step 3: opposition. The other side reverts to type, forgets the rhetoric of day 1 and finally opposes the Labor initiative. We have seen the Turnbull three-step on the stimulus package. We have seen the Turnbull three-step on emissions trading. We have seen it on payments to pensioners. Now we are watching the Turnbull three-step on industrial relations. It has now become an old trick and we can all see it.

And why is Mr Turnbull doing this desperate three-step? Because he is feeling the heat from the self-appointed messiah of the Liberal Party, Peter Costello—and, Senator Brandis, I see you veritably bloom with enthusiasm for the subject. Last week Mr Costello said that the coalition should oppose the government’s bill regardless of the clearly expressed will of the Australian people. Mr Costello said it ‘might have been OK in times of good growth’ but it will ‘affect jobs in a downturn’. He said:

It will make manufacturing in this country more difficult and I think the Government has now got to reconsider that. It has to reconsider its proposals in relation to industrial relations.

Of course Mr Costello said on three occasions on Q&A ‘this is my policy’. He does not have too much trouble with his policy being different from what you say is your policy. So alarmed is Mr Turnbull by the continued presence—that looming omnipresence—of Mr Costello on the back bench—