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

With great respect: I do not know if the minister was reading from briefing notes, but I would invite him to listen to what was actually said and have a look at exactly what the amendment is. To suggest that this would entrench state awards for five years is completely fallacious. It is wrong. I said in my introductory comments in support of the amendment that it would be up to the AIRC to phase out—and I even gave the example of the mining sector, which might not even want any transition period—but that there should be flexibility. So to say that this would be entrenching it for five years is patently wrong. I do not know where the minister got that idea from.

Further, to suggest that we would be pulling the rug out from under the AIRC—I think that was the term used by the minister—is also patently wrong. I said in my comments—and the amendment will bear it out—that the AIRC may phase out state based differences over any period it sees fit, with the default period being five years. In other words, the AIRC would be empowered. That is hardly pulling the rug out from underneath it. So the two reasons the minister tried to give in opposing this amendment have fallen flat. Undoubtedly he will come up with another reason, because the idea of flexibility is something that Labor clearly have an ideological difficulty with.

Given the propensity of the minister to quote, I quote the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who said on 11 June:

The Government’s award modernisation process should not come at the expense of increasing employers’ costs or introducing new or additional inflexibilities. If it does, the Government should have no hesitation in directing the tribunal to have another go.

It would be a perverse outcome that employers, when faced with the alternatives, may prefer the former array of “outdated” awards.

The government’s ham-fisted approach in relation to this transition bill is unfortunately going very much to a scenario where employers will say that the outdated or ‘horse and buggy’ era of awards that the minister referred to may well be preferred to that which the Labor Party, with their usual spin, are now describing as award modernisation.