Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move opposition amendment (5) on sheet 5817:

(5)    Schedule 5, page 66 (after line 11), at the end of the Schedule, add:

Part 5—Factors requiring award modernisation request

Workplace Relations Act 1996

19  After section 576C

Insert:

576CA  Minister must make award modernisation request

        (1)    If the Minister has made or varied an award modernisation request to accommodate one industry based on any of the factors set out in subsection (2), the Minister must also make or vary an award modernisation request ordering the Commission to create a modern award to accommodate every other industry in which any of those factors exist.

        (2)    The factors are:

             (a)    the potential for the modern award to impact upon continuing business viability;

             (b)    low profit margins;

             (c)    peak operating times;

             (d)    limited capacity to bear significant cost increases;

             (e)    different business models and streams of revenue from other activities;

              (f)    the labour-intensive nature of the industry;

             (g)    high labour costs as a proportion of total expenses;

             (h)    high award reliance.

In doing so, I will provide some explanation as to what the amendment will achieve and why the opposition considers it to be necessary. The government’s well-publicised promise to ensure that the award modernisation process would not increase costs for business and would not disadvantage employees has been unkept in the most spectacular fashion thus far. This amendment goes directly to the heart of that promise. This amendment will provide that, if the minister has varied an award modernisation request to accommodate one industry based on a number of factors listed in the amendment, the minister must also make a similar request ordering the commission to create a modern award to accommodate every other industry in which any of those factors exist. It should be no surprise to the government that the factors listed in subsection (2) of the amendment are identical to the factors upon which the Deputy Prime Minister says she has relied in justifying her carve-out of the restaurant and catering sector, the factors listed in her letter to the President of the Industrial Relations Commission of 29 May as the reasons for which the government has appropriately seen fit to create a special case for the restaurant and catering sector.

Why is this amendment necessary? You would think that the fabric of the so-called Fair Work Act, together with the good work of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, would deliver the government’s promise of award modernisation not increasing costs for business and not disadvantaging employees. But the stream of traffic to preceding Senate committee inquiries considering the matter and the stream of traffic to my office and my colleagues’ offices demonstrates that this is not so. The stream of traffic demonstrates that the first port of call, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, working on the fabric of the Workplace Relations Act, is not responding to enacting the government’s promise and is not able, apparently, to respond to the concerns of business. Business gives us concerns along the following lines. A grape producer from South Australia, Mr John Harvey from Chalk Hill Wines, says that the proposed transfer of grape growing from the Federal Court horticultural award to the wine industry award, in his case:

… will increase our costs of production, further reduce our competitiveness and market share and force existing growers out of the sector.

Derek Cameron, Chairman of the McLaren Vale Grower’s Council, said:

The change to that wine industry award in its current form will seriously increase costs associated with employment and contracting staff, likely to cripple an industry at a time when it is struggling with oversupply and low grape prices.

Joch Bosworth, of Edgehill Vineyards, said:

The movement to the wine industry award in its current form greatly increases costs associated with night vineyard spraying, grape harvesting, contracting work.

Neil Delroy, of Agribusiness Research and Management, said:

The wine industry award—

and this goes right to the point—

is essentially designed for the processing, packaging and retail of wine, and does not provide the flexibility we need in agricultural production enterprise to have when we have to manage the vagaries of the seasonal nature of production and the vagaries of weather, plus pests and diseases.

Vineyard labour costs currently represent approximately 50 per cent of the total site cost for grape growing.

There is very little negotiability for the price of the final product we produce in this industry.

We have completed a forward labour cost projection for one of our operations based on the proposed award and anticipate a minimum increase to our labour costs of 7.1 per cent.

Those are the sorts of concerns that are being relayed by the industry. They are the concerns that have been put in testimony by this industry to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in their case in justifying their argument as to why the wine grape industry should not be coupled in one and the same award with the wine industry. After all, they have some different models because there may be different revenue streams under consideration. I will come back to that shortly.

It is clear that the industry needs relief in a way that is not being provided by either the current act or the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. So where to then? One would think that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations might be able to provide some assistance. Indeed, the minister would have us believe that she has provided some assistance to the restaurant and catering sector. The Minister for Employment Participation may shortly choose to respond to my question of last night about the extent of the consultation that the government says it is undertaking in respect of the wine grape sector. But, when the industry has been to the minister, it has not necessarily found even a response forthcoming from the minister, let alone relief. In terms of the case that the industry has put to the Industrial Relations Commission, Mr Mark McKenzie, the Executive Director of Wine Grape Growers Australia, for example, tells me that, despite multiple submissions from his association about the traditional length of independent wine grape production with horticulture award provisions, ‘The full bench of the commission has decided to parcel us up with the wine industry award instead.’ So, as I reminded Senator Arbib last night, wine grape producers have not been conferred with by the government. I am sure he will get back to me in that respect.

Similarly, Mr Neil Delroy told me he found Minister Arbib’s response in question time a couple of days ago suggesting a process of extensive consultation ‘interesting’. He said:

I have had no response at all from the email I sent to the Deputy Prime Minister or the agricultural minister. I have not heard of any consultation with the industry whatsoever from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office.

So the industry say they are not even getting a response, let alone relief, when they go to the Deputy Prime Minister. The existing act, the existing recourse to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and, one would think, the prospect of some relief from the minister have not delivered and the government has not delivered on its promise to not increase costs for business and to not disadvantage employees through the award modernisation process. It is pretty clear that the government has not got a policy, has not got a plan and has not got a process to deliver on its promise.