Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is because I come in for the show. But it is all show and no substance. Actually, it is like watching a Punch and Judy show with only Punch. There is no Judy; there is no Judy at all. There is no substance in what Senator Ronaldson has to say.

Let us go back to the very start of Senator Ronaldson's speech, where he decided that everyone on this side of the chamber was a union official and had no other work-life experience, and that we would not even know a shearer if we fell over one. Let me say this: there are three people on this side who have spoken in this debate. First of all, Senator Cameron is a fitter and turner. He worked as a fitter and turner for most of his working life. That is what he was. The second speaker from this side was Senator Anne McEwen, whose first job was as a tea lady in a solicitor's firm and who then worked for most of her working life as a clerical worker.

I am the third Labor person to speak and I am an electrician. I did an electrical apprenticeship and worked a large part of my working life as an electrician. So, Senator Ronaldson, you say that we have not had our hands dirty and that we have no real experience in life but it is simply untrue. It is a demonstration of all show but no substance, which we are very used to from you, Senator Ronaldson. But you are not alone; there are plenty on your side who do that.

Then we heard this little tirade about the Prime Minister and all the things she has to answer. But, strangely enough, I listened to Senator Brandis, Senator Fierravanti-Wells and then Senator Ronaldson in this debate and not a single accusation was made nor a single question put that required an answer—not one. It was just this 'round the world' general muckraking and accusations that other people apparently have made but not saying it here, not even making the point once. Quite frankly, it is a nonsense.

But let me go to what the real substance of this debate is. It is about the special relationship between the Labor Party and the trade union movement. And it is a special relationship. I would not for one moment seek to distance the Australian Labor Party from the fine tradition of the union movement in Australia. It is a close relationship with working people and their representatives. It may be viewed as a source of embarrassment over in the opposition's headquarters, but it only goes to show how out of touch they are with the everyday lives of working people.

As I said, I am a senator who worked for many years as an A grade electrician. I am also a former shop steward and a former official of the Electrical Trades Union. I am very proud to follow in the footsteps of my many predecessors in the Labor Party who began their working life on the shop floor before going on to devote their careers to improving the lives of their fellow workers right across Australia. And our party is full of those people and I am proud to be one of them.

There are, from time to time, in all walks of life and in all professions people who do not do as we would like them to do, whether it be in the judiciary, politics, business and, unfortunately, sometimes the union movement. There are people who do not act as we would like them to act. Recent examples will be before the courts. Those matters will be tested before the courts where they are properly to be tested and, if the accusations made about some in the trade union movement are true, none will be more disappointed than the people of the trade union movement and the labour movement and I will be one of them. I will be incredibly disappointed. But just because one of our colleagues may be found guilty in the future does not tar people on this side of the chamber nor former union officials.

Given that Senator Fifield is himself the grandchild of a widely respected former federal secretary of the former Printing & Kindred Industries Union, Mr Bert Fifield, I am surprised that he would seek to tarnish his own legacy by denigrating the proud history of the trade unions and what they have achieved through their relationship with the Labor Party. Just because there may be people in the trade union movement on this side who have done wrong does not take away his legacy in respect of his grandfather and nor does it take away anyone else's. As I said, unfortunately, you have only to go to the court system and see people who are accused of doing wrong from all walks of life. I know through my personal experience that the vast majority of union officials, union activists and indeed union members are hardworking, committed and dedicated people. I am proud to be part of that group.

I just want to go through a little bit of history, because the author of this motion is obviously incredibly ignorant of the background of the Labor Party and the trade union movement in this country. The first working class member of parliament was Charles Jardine Don. He was elected to the colonial government of Victoria in 1859, with the support of the Trades Halls Operatives Reform Association. As members of parliament were not paid for their service until 1870, Mr Don would work as a stonemason during the day and attend parliament at night. The need for political representation of the trade union movement became even more apparent over the following years and this was highlighted when the efforts of trade unions to improve the lives of working Australians through collective action, from 1890 to 1894, were thwarted by the vested interests of the colonial governments of the time. The Labour Defence Committee expressed the need for political representation of everyday Australians in the following words. If we are to:

radically improve the lot of the worker we must secure a substantial representation in Parliament. Then, and only then, can we begin to restore to the people the land of which they have been plundered, to absorb the monopolies which society at large has tended to create, and to ensure to every man, by the opportunity of fairly remunerated labor, a share in those things that make life worth living.

It was in the spirit of this fine sentiment that the first conference of the Australian Labor Party was held in 1891. Later that year Labor won 37 seats in the New South Wales parliament and, in 1893, 16 Labor candidates successfully stood for office in Queensland, 10 in Victoria and eight in South Australia. Finally, the aspirations of Australian workers were represented in parliament by Australia's first clearly differentiated political party and that was the Australian Labor Party.

We have always had a link to the trade union movement and I for one am absolutely proud of it. I can only ask: what aspect of this relationship between the trade unions and the Australian Labor Party could possibly be considered to be a barrier to good government, as the motion suggests?

It is easy to take our quality of life in Australia for granted but decent jobs with decent pay and conditions are not natural facts. Australian workers do not get paid well by international standards because we have a uniquely generous employer class; they are paid more because of the efforts of generations of working Australians who banded together in the spirit of a fair go for all. The Australian labour movement and their parliamentary representatives have made tremendous gains on the most important issues for workers and their families—wages, hours, representation, leave, security and safety.

In 1828 a convict shepherd was sentenced to 500 lashes, one month in solitary confinement on bread and water and the remainder of his sentence in a penal settlement for inciting his master's servants to combine for the purpose of obliging him to raise their wages and increase their rations. He got that penalty because he tried to take collective action to improve their wages, improve their rations and improve their conditions.

Perhaps understandably, the first record of an Australian trade union does not appear until what is thought to be the first general meeting of the Australian Society of Compositors in the Crown and Anchor in George Street Sydney on 21 February 1839. By the mid 1850s, approximately 20 trade unions had been established and in 1856 they made their first gain, reducing the hours of the then six-day working week from 58 hours to 48 hours with no reduction in pay. To this day you can see a monument to the eight-hour day across from the Victorian Trades Hall council in Melbourne.

In 1946, the ACTU lodged a claim for a 40-hour week. It argued that shorter hours would make workers more efficient and the booming economy could afford it. Two years later, the case was won and the 40-hour week began on 1 January 1948. Today, working hours are on the increase again and the Australian Labor Party, along with trade unions, remains alert to the erosion of the hard-won workplace conditions that are taken for granted all too often.

The Australian labour movement has fought and continues to fight for improved work-life balance for all Australians through access to leave. In 1941, the labour movement—the ALP and the union movement—won conditions like sick leave and one week of annual leave. In 1946, we increased annual leave to two weeks. In 1953, we achieved long service leave. In 1963, we increased annual leave to three weeks and then increased it again to four weeks in 1970. In 1971, we won the right to maternity leave. In 2001, we extended the benefits of maternity and carers leave to casual employees. In 2010, we guaranteed the rights of Australian workers under the National Employment Standards of the Fair Work Act, ensuring, amongst other things, that working parents would have the right to request flexible working hours to care for their children.

In 2011, the labour movement was responsible for extending 18 weeks of paid parental leave to hundreds of thousands of working parents and from 1 January next year Australians will be eligible to apply for two weeks of dad-and-partner pay, again thanks to the labour movement as a whole. That is just a very small snapshot of all the benefits that have been gained by the labour movement over the last century, and then some. The struggle to achieve those benefits is widely forgotten but nonetheless Australian workers enjoy them and they benefit from them, thanks to the labour movement. They are not thanks from benevolent employers; they are thanks to the labour movement. Does the opposition honestly believe that Australian workers will resent the relationship between the ALP and the trade unions when they take a week of leave to enjoy Christmas with their families this year? I do not think so.

For decades, women doing the same work as men were paid just a fraction of men's salary. In line with societal norms of 1907, Justice Higgins in establishing the basic wage ruled that a man's wage must be enough to feed and clothe his wife and family. A woman's wage was to pay only for herself. A landmark ruling in 1969 smashed through the discrimination and by 1974 all women were finally entitled to equal pay for work of equal value. The labour movement achieved that.

Just this year, the Australian Labor government, along with the Australian Services Union and the CPSU were successful in their application for equal pay for workers in the social and community service sector, achieving a historic pay increase of between 19 per cent and 41 per cent for 150,000 of Australia's lowest-paid workers, the vast majority of whom were women. Does the opposition honestly think that these workers resent the relationship between the Labor Party and the Australian Services Union and the CPSU? I do not think so.

From as early as the 1960s a number of unions achieved superannuation for their members in established industry funds. This led to a wider push amongst unions to ensure that working people would be able to enjoy a decent level of retirement income. In the 1986 National Wage Case, the ACTU argued and won three per cent universal super for all award workers. Compulsory super has since risen to nine per cent through a legislated super guarantee charge negotiated under the accord in 1991.

Reform of taxation and superannuation by the Australian Labor Party this year will result in a 30-year-old person on an average full-time income receiving an estimated $100,000 extra in retirement savings. Does the opposition think that these workers will resent these savings on retirement? Will they decry the relationship between the Australian trade unions and the Australian Labor Party that led to these retirement savings? I do not think so.

The Australian Labor Party governs for all Australians. Is the opposition honestly proposing the government should ignore the ideas and aspirations of millions of trade unionists, millions of trade union members who contribute to Australia's society and economy? Is that what good government is supposed to look like to those across the chamber? When 180,000 unemployed Australians asked conservative Prime Minister Stanley Bruce for work in 1927, and Bruce replied that it was not his business, is that what good government looks like to the opposition in this chamber? When Patrick Corporation unleashed the attack dogs in the waterfront dispute in 1998 with the backing of the coalition government, was that what good government looks like to the coalition?

What about the former ACTU President and Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke's government—a government that cooperated with unions to launch the accord, a mechanism to bring inflation under control, promote jobs growth and investment, and implement social wage improvement? Perhaps I think that is what good government looks like. What about a government that consults with both working people and their employers? What about a government that works with the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia to protect exploited outworkers in the textile, clothing and footwear sector?

What about a government that works with the United Firefighters Union to ensure that firefighters dying of cancer from occupational-related causes get adequate compensation? Those are just two examples of government action taken this year in response to consultation between the Australian trade unions and government. The culture of the Australian Labor Party and its relationship with trade unions is no cause for alarm for firefighters or textile workers—far from it. I think they appreciate the special relationship between the trade union movement and the Australian Labor Party. The special relationship that alarms Australian workers is the relationship that exists between the big end of town and their coalition mouthpieces, a relationship that compels the coalition to demonise the union movement at every available opportunity, not in spite of the achievements they have made on behalf of everyday Australians, but because of them.

We are the government that got rid of Work Choices. We are the government that gave people a fair go. I do not think that having a special relationship with the trade union movement where we give and return basic entitlements to people is a cause of concern to Australian workers. I do not think Australian workers are concerned at all when the Labor Party and the trade union movement stand up for their rights, stand up for the rights of their families, stand up for a fair go for all, stand up for equality of access and stand up for education being made available to those who need help: those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, those who are struggling on low wages. We are the government that makes education available to them, and we want to make education available fairly to them. We want the best education for those people. I do not think Australians worry about that. I do not think they worry about the relationship between the trade union movement and the ALP when they see a Labor government acting on behalf of working class kids, trying to get the best outcomes, the best social equity, for them.

Let me say, I think this motion is simply a joke. When anyone of any substance looks hard at the great achievements that have been made by Labor governments in conjunction with the trade union movement and the achievements that the trade union movement has made, they should be over there saying that the trade union movement is one of the great civilisers of our society. Every rich Western country has a strong, vibrant trade union movement. They are protectors of democracy. They are protectors of working people. I am proud to be part of it. I am proud to have worked as an electrician. I am proud to have been a blue collar worker. I am proud to have been a union official—aspiring to keep those values alive, defending working people wherever I could—and I am very proud to be a senator of the Labor Party, which has a fine history, a fine tradition and a great special relationship with the trade union movement.