Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

At the 2007 election Labor promised to get rid of Work Choices and create a new, fair and balanced workplace relations system. The Fair Work Act 2009, which received royal assent on 7 April, delivers on that promise. The two bills being debated cognately today, the Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009 and the Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009, provide for the sensible and measured transition of employers and employees into the new system. The new workplace relations system created by the act starts on 1 July 2009 and will be fully operational by 1 January 2010. Obviously, given those commencement dates, the speedy passage of the legislation is critical. The new system will balance the needs of employees and employers. This balance reflects an unprecedented degree of consultation by this government with employee and employer representatives, as well as with state and territory governments. Representatives from these groups have provided valuable feedback at meetings of the Committee on Industrial Legislation, which examined the two bills before us today, as well as having examined the Fair Work Act itself.

At all stages in developing and drafting a new framework we have responded to legitimate criticisms and issues raised by all sides. No side got everything it wanted, but the result of our consultation approach is that we have succeeded in balancing fairness and flexibility to ensure that Australia will be competitive and prosperous without compromising workplace rights and guaranteed minimum standards. When introducing the then Fair Work Bill 2008 into the House of Representatives on 25 November 2008, the minister indicated that the government would introduce separate legislation to set out transitional and consequential changes to ensure a smooth, simple and fair transition for the new system while providing for certainty in employment arrangements. These transitional and consequential changes are provided for in these two bills now under consideration. The two bills, once enacted by the parliament, will operate with the Fair Work Act and will transition employees and employers into the new workplace relations system simply and fairly.

Let me remind the Senate of the key provisions of the bills. The Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009 repeals the current Workplace Relations Act 1996 other than schedule 1, which deals with registered organisations, and schedule 10, which deals with transitional registered organisations. The Workplace Relations Act will then be renamed the Fair Work Registered Organisations Act 2009. The bill provides for the application of the 10 national employment standards and minimum wages to all national system employees from 1 January 2010, including those covered by instruments made before the commencement of the new system. The bill ensures employees’ take home pay is not reduced as result of any transition to a modern award from 1 January 2010. The bill sets out rules in relation to the treatment of existing industrial instruments in the new system and includes arrangements to enable bargaining under the new system to commence in an orderly way.

The bill includes arrangements for the transfer of assets, functions and proceedings from the Workplace Relations Act institutions to Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman. The bill also includes consequential amendments to create the fair work divisions of the Federal Court of Australia and the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia. On 19 March 2009 the Senate referredthe Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill to the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, which reported back on 7 May. The government carefully considered the Senate committee’s report, as well as the detailed submissions, and as a result it proposed a number of technical amendments to improve the bill when the House of Representatives considered its provisions.

These amendments included the following: amendments ensuring special low-paid bargaining determinations are accessible to workplaces that no longer have an operating collective agreement, providing the other criteria are satisfied; amendments preserving the interaction between transitional instruments and state and territory laws; technical amendments ensuring that the transitional arrangements in place for outworkers protect their existing terms and conditions and that outworker unions can properly enforce outworker entitlements; and amendments ensuring registered employee and employer organisations are able to represent their members in the fair work divisions of the Federal Court and the Federal Magistrates Court. The government’s intention through the consultations and through the Senate committee was to seek views in order to improve the bill, and those amendments were duly brought forward and are represented by the amendments I have just described.

I can foreshadow a small number of government amendments will be moved to the bill. In relation to protected action ballots, the bill currently provides that protected action ballot orders and authorisations under the Workplace Relations Act are of no effect from 1 July 2009. The government proposes an amendment to allow limited preservation of Workplace Relations Act protected action ballot authorisations after 1 July 2009 on application to Fair Work Australia. Strict criteria will need to be met before Fair Work Australia may make such an order. In relation to registered organisations, the government proposes a number of amendments to further assist state and federally registered organisations to rationalise their affairs and simplify their operations across multiple jurisdictions. The amendments include changes to the provisions allowing federal organisations to extend their eligibility rules to reflect the broader rules of an equivalent state association, and ensure that settled demarcations are not reopened by allowing Fair Work Australia to make a federal representation order that reflects a state order in situations where a federal organisation has altered its eligibility rules to reflect those of an equivalent state association.

In relation to an amendment by Senator Fielding regarding small business employers, the government proposes an amendment to provide a transitional definition of ‘small business employer’—that is, an employer with fewer than 15 full-time equivalent employees—until 1 January 2011 for unfair dismissal purposes. This amendment gives effect to the agreement reached between the government and Senator Fielding to secure the passage of what is now the Fair Work Act. The calculation of the number of full-time equivalent employees is based on the number of ordinary hours of the employer’s employees over the previous four weeks. Where an employee has been on leave associated with the birth or adoption of a child for more than four weeks, their hours of leave are excluded from the calculation.

I now turn to the Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill 2009. The bill marks the next step in the creation of a national workplace relations system for the private sector in Australia—a key election commitment of the government. The bill amends the Fair Work Act to allow states to refer matters to the Commonwealth with a view to establishing a uniform national workplace relations system for the private sector. In addition, the bill makes transitional arrangements for Victorian employees and employers who are currently covered by the Workplace Relations Act as the result of an earlier referral of powers and who are very shortly expected to be covered by a new referral from Victoria. On 4 June 2009 the Fair Work Bill was introduced into the Victorian parliament. The bill provides a text based referral of power to underpin the application of the Fair Work Act to all Victorian employers and their employees. The bill has now passed through both chambers of the Victorian parliament and is due to receive royal assent later this month. This will ensure that there are no interruptions in coverage for the working people and businesses of Victoria.

Victoria is the first state that will be referring its powers under the bill. I am very pleased to note, however, that South Australia and Tasmania have expressed their intention to join Victoria in making a text based referral of powers on workplace relations matters to the Commonwealth and are now negotiating their final details. Queensland has indicated in-principle support for joining a national workplace relations system for the private sector, subject to a number of key issues being resolved. The bill establishes a framework that can be adapted in future Commonwealth legislation to accommodate anticipated future referrals from other states. We are continuing to work cooperatively with the other states to achieve a uniform workplace relations system for the private sector. Over the coming months, we anticipate that they will choose to become participants in implementing this crucial national reform.

The bill also makes transitional and consequential arrangements to 67 Commonwealth acts which refer to parts of the Workplace Relations Act that will be repealed by the Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009. The bill replaces those references with references to corresponding concepts, institutions and instruments in the Fair Work Act. Together, these two bills now before the House represent the final batch of legislation needed to complete the transition to Australia’s new workplace relations system. With the repeal of the workplace relations act and as a result of these measures, we will see the final removal of the unfair Work Choices system, which the Australian people rejected when they rejected the Liberal Party at the last election. The death rites of Work Choices are now being administered and we are getting ready to see the Fair Work Act spring into life. The sensible and practical measures in the Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill will help to pave the way for the smooth and effective delivery of a balanced, modern workplace relations system for Australia.

The Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Bill offers clear proof that the government is well on its way to achieving, through cooperation and consultation with state governments, a uniform national workplace relations system for the private sector in Australia—quite a reform. The arrangements set out in these two bills will ensure that the transition to the new workplace relations system is seamless. The new national system is good news for Australia because it is based on fairness for working people, flexibility for business and the promotion of productivity and economic growth for the future prosperity of our nation. That is what the Labor government promised the Australian people at the 2007 election and that is what we are delivering. Given that the Australian people repudiated the opposition’s industrial relations laws at the last election, we are hoping opposition senators do not try to clutch onto Work Choices through procedural delay and tricks but actually fulfil the voice of the Australian people and expedite passage of this legislation so that our new system can commence on time on 1 July this year and we can finally see the end of Work Choices. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.

Ordered that consideration of these bills in Committee of the Whole be made an order of the day for the next day of sitting.