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

The Australian Greens oppose the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014 [No. 2] in its entirety. Here we are again defending Australian workers from the ideological attacks of the besieged Abbott government. We are hot on the heels of the debate this morning over the building and construction industry which, it was very pleasing to see, got rejected.

The ideological attack on workers and unions by this government is clear to see. It fits in with the union-attacking agenda of the trade union royal commission, that politically motivated witch-hunt that has been laid clear over the last week. With the royal commissioner, Dyson Heydon, having accepted an invitation to speak at a Liberal-fundraising event, the political motivation of the attacks of the Abbott government on the trade union movement and on ordinary workers is very clear.

The legislation that we are discussing today is essentially the same legislation that we were debating earlier this year and that got rejected. It got sent back. The Senate said that this legislation is unwanted and unnecessary. This bill works on a simple principle and that is, 'We'll come for the unions first so that there is no-one left to protect the workers when we come for them.' And this government is attempting to dump a mountain of red tape, unnecessary red tape, on unions to prevent them from advancing the interests of the people that they exist to protect.

From a government that claims to want to reduce red tape, the hypocrisy is appalling. Supporters of this bill claim that it puts corporations and registered organisations on an even footing, wrongly suggesting that unions and other registered organisations ought to be treated in the same way as corporations because they are fundamentally the same. This notion is completely false. It completely dismisses the clear differences between these organisations.

The government fails or refuses to understand that employee organisations do not exist for the same reason as businesses. Unions are required under the Fair Work Act and other legislation to be democratic organisations; corporations are not. Unions are required to publish their accounts and financial returns online every year; corporations are not.

If the government were serious about putting unions and corporations on an even footing they could extend the current democratic and reporting requirements demanded of unions to corporations. But, instead, the government are saying to organisations that represent Australian workers: 'We reserve the right to micromanage you in a way that we would never dream of doing to a private company, but we'll impose the same penalties on you that we might on a publicly-listed company.'

But it goes further than that. The differences go to the very heart of why these organisations exist in the first place. Businesses exist to make a profit; that is what they do and what they are judged on. And Corporations Law requires directors to act in the best interests of their shareholders and to continue to make a profit. But unions exist to advance the interests of their members and, in so doing, to help all workers.

Unions advise people of their rights and entitlements at work and ensure that those entitlements are honoured. Unions ensure that the lowest paid workers enjoy something that we and others take for granted—a decent income and a quality of life. Thanks to unions we have got penalty rates that mean that people working unsociable hours get a decent income. Unions fought for shorter working weeks. Unions are responsible for the existence of the weekend. And it is thanks to unions that workers are entitled to annual leave and penalty rates. These things were not granted to workers by benevolent corporations; unions fought for every single one, and these are the things that are under attack by this government.

This legislation, by tying unions up in red tape, will reduce their ability to continue to work for the interests of their workers in the best way possible. Workers who are on very low pay and conditions and are represented by unions need their unions to be fighting at every opportunity they have for every benefit.

Childcare workers, aged-care workers, the cleaners at Parliament House—who are obviously in the news this week—and seafarers work on very low wages and conditions and are under attack, and the unions need to stand up for them to the best of their ability.

The continual attacks of this government, the undercutting of wages and conditions and the attacks on penalty rates basically will end us up with a system like the US or even worse, where conditions and pay are so bad that a worker working not just a 40-hour week but a 50-hour week, 60-hour week, working two, three, four jobs is still struggling to actually have enough money to survive, to put food on the table and to pay for their housing. We are better than that in Australia. We pride ourselves on being the land of the fair go. And side-by-side in the land of the fair go means that a decent day's work is rewarded by a decent day's pay.

The impact on our society of workers having to survive on unfair conditions and not enough pay means that their whole lives are just based around trying to survive, trying to just scrabble together enough money to be able to put the food on the table. It leaves them no ability to contribute anything else in society, no ability to be out there supporting their kids at sporting events on the weekend, no ability to contribute to community organisations; it is just a matter of survival, a matter of just struggling and scrabbling together to be able to continue living a life where they can pay the rent and put the food on the table. We are better than that. Attacking the ability of unions to fight for the rights of workers means that the very way of life of Australian society is under attack. Unions have fought for all of the conditions our workers are currently enjoying. In doing this, unions did not get a direct financial benefit. This is where unions and employer organisations are fundamentally different from profit-making companies and it makes sense that they should be treated differently.

The bill before us today is unnecessary. Current laws prevent officers of registered organisations from using their positions for their own personal benefit and those that do are prosecuted. But rather than extend the current requirements demanded of unions to corporations, the bill allows the government to micromanage unions in a way that would be unthinkable for private companies while still imposing the same penalties on unions as apply to publicly listed companies.

The motivation behind this legislation is clear: the government hopes to tie up workers and unions in an abundant amount of red tape to stop them advancing the interests of the people that they exist to look out for. And the bill is simply another stage of the government's attack on workers' rights. Just as successive budgets have revealed the true callousness of this government, this bill reveals the government's anti-worker agenda. The government may insist that Workchoices is dead, buried and cremated but it has simply learned that such blatant attacks have real electoral consequences. There is a reason that this government is in trouble because of these real electoral consequences. Its position in the polls reflects the entire anti-worker agenda; it is not in line with what the general population wants. This government is in trouble because it refuses to listen and is putting the big end of town ahead of the interests of Australians. The Greens will always stand up for the rights of workers and so will be secure in our position of opposing this bill.