Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Family First amendments (4) and (R5) on sheet 5733 revised 3 together:

(4)    Clause 479, page 390 (line 23), after “ordinary meanings”, insert “subject to section 480A”.

(R5) Page 391 (after line 9), at the end of Division 1, add:

480A Application of this Part

        (1)    This Part, other than Subdivision B of Division 2 and any provisions relating to that subdivision, does not apply in relation to small business employers or their employees.

        (2)    In this Part:

member of the permit holder’s organisation does not include an employee of a small business employer.

premises does not include premises occupied by a small business employer.

        (3)    Nothing in this Part authorises a permit holder to enter premises occupied by a small business employer.

These amendments relate to right-of-entry provisions for small businesses. The government has already set as a principle that small businesses should be treated differently under the Fair Work Bill. That principle has been applied because they know that small businesses actually need to be treated differently. Family First is seeking to extend the treatment of small businesses as being different to other businesses through the right of entry.

The issue here is that, if you go and ask a lot of small businesses around your local area whether they would like the unions to be entrenched—that is the word I would use—as the policeman of workplace contravention, in other words, to walk in, after being authorised to do so, and say, ‘Something is not quite right in your workplace,’ most small businesses would say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ There is a Workplace Ombudsman. There is Fair Work Australia. These are statutory bodies that have powers to investigate breaches of the workplace—and quite rightly so.

What Family First is seeking to do here is allow small businesses to not be overly burdened by having to worry about someone else, which could a union, being authorised to go in as a so-called policeman. We think it needs to be an accountable statutory body, like the Workplace Ombudsman and Fair Work Australia. They have those powers and they are accountable as statutory bodies. I must say here that I am not against workers, I am not against unions and I am not against businesses. But with the Fair Work Bill we need to get the power balance right between workers, businesses and unions. We had a similar debate about getting the balance right with Work Choices, and quite clearly the balance of power there was wrong—it swayed too far to businesses at the expense of workers. Now we are faced with new industrial relations laws for this country, we need to look at the balance of power and get it shared. Too much power with any one of those three groups means that, all of a sudden, one can take advantage of the other.

The government has given special treatment to small businesses with regard to unfair dismissals. We want to extend special treatment to small businesses with regard to right of entry for workplace contraventions. This is not about people in a union not having access to the union. They can still have that access and have the union work through their issues with them. But, at the end of the day, do we actually want to have entrench the unions as the next lot of police on the workplace? There could be some argument that that power is already there. But what we are discussing are whole new workplace laws for Australia and they have to be considered in their totality. Workers can no longer be ripped off like they could under Work Choices because of the National Employment Standards and the awards. It is good that they have the National Employment Standards and awards and that those awards are being modernised, so workers have those protections.

If there is a contravention of the workplace laws, then any worker, whether a union member or a non-union member, has the right to go confidentially to the Workplace Ombudsman and get them to investigate the circumstances. If they are not sure, they can go and consult a union, if they are a member, and discuss the issue with them. But, at the end of the day, it should be reported to a statutory body or authority because that is the right place—we can hold them to account. As I said, I am not against unions, but they are not accountable to anyone other than themselves. I cannot call them in to Senate estimates. They are not accountable to parliament. Statutory bodies are, and they have the powers to go and inspect certain things relating to non-union members.

What Family First is seeking to do is to treat small business as special with regard to right of entry. That is what we are proposing through (R5)(1), which reads:

This Part, other than Subdivision B of Division 2 and any provisions relating to that subdivision, does not apply in relation to small business employers or their employees.

So what the two amendments I am moving basically do is say that union members can still speak freely with their union, but they take the policing of workplace contraventions for small businesses away from unions and move it to only the Workplace Ombudsman and the Fair Work Australia. I would say that, if you go down to your local shopping strip or other small businesses and ask them if they really want the unions to be entrenched as the police force for workplace contraventions, their answer will be no.