Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Fair Work Amendment (Protected Industrial Action) Regulation 2014, as contained in Select Legislative Instrument 2014 No. 95 and made under the Fair Work Act 2009, be disallowed.

In June this year the minister made a new regulation, the Fair Work Amendment (Protected Industrial Action) Regulation 2014. This regulation is part of the Abbott government's agenda to bring back Work Choices by stealth. It is part of its undeclared crusade, or very poorly disguised crusade, to destroy both the union movement and people's ability to have their rights at work protected by working together using the power of their union. The Greens will always stand up for the rights of working people, and that is why we are seeking to disallow this motion.

The regulation that we are seeking to disallow today amends the Fair Work Regulations 2009, which were made under the Fair Work Act. This amending regulation drastically changes the arrangements by which protected industrial action under the Fair Work Act can be terminated. Currently, only parties to an industrial dispute or the relevant state government can apply to have action terminated that is covered by the Fair Work Act. This regulation will allow third parties to apply for protected industrial action to be terminated and will allow state governments such as Western Australia to intervene in disputes under the Fair Work Act, even though their workers are not subject to the other rights, responsibilities and protections in the act.

The relevant section of the act reads that the people who can apply for an order to suspend or terminate protected industrial action are:

(a) if the industrial action is being engaged in, or is threatened, impending or probable, in a State that is not a referring State … [then] the Minister of the State who has responsibility for workplace relations matters in the State;

(b) an organisation or other person directly affected, or who would be directly affected, by the industrial action other than an employee who will be covered by the agreement.

The effect of subsection (a) will mean that even those state governments that have not referred their industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth will be able to intervene in disputes and will be able to do this even if the industrial action is only deemed to be impending or probable. The effect of subsection (b) of this change will see a ballooning of litigation before the court by third parties to an industrial dispute—third parties whose main aim is to undermine workers' rights to collectively bargain. It is going to be a lawyer's picnic and will undermine the important balance between employers and employees when enterprise bargaining. And it is clearly aimed at strengthening the arm of employer groups who want to undermine union led bargaining.

The government would like to tell you that the Fair Work Act strongly favours workers and needs reform, that the existing Fair Work Act is essentially a return, after Work Choices, to the worker friendly regime that existed under John Howard and Peter Reith. The reality is the existing Fair Work Act already tips the balance in favour of employers. In fact, this attack on workers comes at a time when industrial disputation is at a record low in this country. Last year had the second lowest average level of days lost to industrial disputes since the Bureau of Statistics began collecting data. But for this government those facts do not matter. What matters is ideological warfare against working people led by Senator Abetz. The Greens are not going to stand idly by while this attack on the rights of workers proceeds, which is why we have moved this disallowance motion and why we urge senators to support it.