Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I think Senator Ronaldson is right: he had no idea. He thought he was on Sky News again and could just talk his way out of the issue rather than abide by standing orders, which in fact require direct relevance to be provided to the questions asked.

So what we have here is once again policy on the run. There are three lots of amendments that I am predicting Labor will need to introduce to have this legislation in some sort of shape, but we cannot address that in our second readers because we do not see the actual amendments—and that was after a raft of 120 amendments that had to be moved in the other place. We are concerned about award modernisation impacting on small businesses, and I trust that I have outlined that. I can indicate that we will be moving amendments in relation to the no-detriment rule, relief from increased labour costs, default superannuation, state based differences in modern awards and also the union representation orders.

It is important that we get the workplace relations regime right in this country, especially at this time. If there is any disincentive to employ, guess what? Employers will not employ. Employers are actually called employers for a very simple reason: they employ people. The Labor Party often forget that. And the more difficult you make it for employers, the less likely they are to employ. That is why we have already seen a substantial increase in the unemployment rate in this country. Sure, the global financial crisis is having an impact, but can I tell you from anecdotal evidence all around the country that it is obvious that a lot of businesses are shedding workers already in anticipation of the new regime that is going to come into place on 1 July.

As I have said on a number of previous occasions in this debate, Work Choices is dead, and we as a coalition and as an opposition acknowledge it. But one thing we do say to the Australian people is that we were motivated by one thing, and that was to try to make it easier for employers to employ people. We dared to dream at the time that unemployment could have a four in front of it, and people told us we were mad; you would never get unemployment below five per cent. When we did put in Work Choices, unemployment fell. Yes, we did fail to have a four in front of it at the end. You know why we failed? Because it had a three in front of it; we got unemployment down to 3.9 per cent. When you think of the social good and the social benefit that does for a community, to see unemployment fall by a full one percentage figure or more down to 3.9 per cent, that was our motivation.

We accept that we got it wrong because some elements of Work Choices were too harsh and that needed to be addressed, and the people spoke. But one thing I would say to those opposite is that what you are doing now is swinging the pendulum back not only pre Work Choices, not only pre Howard, Costello and Kernot changes of the early years of the Howard government but even further back to before the Hawke-Keating reforms. This is really the revenge of the dinosaurs in the Labor Party and trade union movement, those who would not have truck of Work Choices—and I accept that—but also never had truck with the Howard-Costello reforms or the Hawke-Keating reforms. In a time when people are desperate to keep their jobs, when employers are finding it difficult to keep employees, the Labor Party and those that manipulate it from behind from trades halls around the country are now swinging the pendulum back way, way beyond pre Work Choices to pre Hawke-Keating, and that is going to have flow-on consequences for employment levels. I know that Labor will say that it is the global financial crisis. They will hide behind it. But they will know in their heart of hearts that that is not the full picture. It is their industrial relations changes that will be part of the driver of the ever-increasing number of unemployed. This is Labor’s legislation and Labor will bear the responsibility of it.

Having said that, I flagged the areas where we will be moving amendments in the committee stage. I would be interested if the minister could confirm in the summing-up speech that there will be further amendments moved by the government and, if so, whether the three areas I have indicated are to be the subject of amendment. If not, we might be minded to move amendments, and of course there may be other areas of amendment above and beyond their 120 amendments that have already been moved in the other place.

In general we will be supporting the passage of the legislation but can indicate that we have very grave concerns about certain areas of this legislation, in particular how it builds on the unfortunate events when the Fair Work Bill was passed by the Senate where the grave on Work Choices was reopened and jobs and small business were thrown in as well, which will be of great detriment to our economy, to the workforce and to small business, who after all are the engine room of job creation in this country.