Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was not aware whether Senator Ludwig was actually talking about industrial history, because at one stage there I thought he was going to start talking about the Mudginberri meat dispute back in earlier times. The information that he gave us was honestly far better consigned to history than it was to modern understanding, because the purpose of this Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014 is of course to deliver not only on key aspects of the coalition's election policy—and let me assure you, going not one word further than the policy commitments in 2013—but indeed also on issues such as union workplace access, individual flexibility arrangements and the removal of the ability to strike first and talk later. You would not believe it, Mr Acting Deputy President, but this amendment is actually delivering on specific policy promises made by the Labor Party prior to the 2007 election which, after becoming elected and under the pressure of their union bosses, they conveniently broke and left to one side. So, we are really doing the uncompleted work of the Labor Party in 2007. These amendments will give effect to a number of commitments in our policies. They will restore balance to the system, and I will explain why that is so beneficial for employees, for the economy and, of course, for business generally.

What will they do? First of all, we will improve through this amendment the process of negotiating greenfield agreements, to open up and allow encouragement for further business development and project completion in this country. This will ensure that the unions can no longer frustrate the bargaining process for these agreements through unsustainable and unreasonable claims and delays which, as we know, not only threaten investment but delay the onset of new projects and put workers' roles, permanency and opportunities at risk.

The second thing that we will do through these amendments is restore workplace access rules which in fact reflect those put in place by Labor themselves at the time they were putting their policy position together for the 2007 election, and dealing with what we know to be—and I will explain it in greater detail—the excessive right of entry visits by union officials on work sites. As you and I know, Mr Acting Deputy President, there are no better examples of this than in our home state of Western Australia, the engine room of the Australian economy.

Thirdly, we will improve workplace productivity and flexibility by enhancing the scope for employees to make individual flexibility arrangements that meet their needs as they determine, in accordance with Labor policy which Labor themselves have now turned their backs on.

We will also close the strike-first-and-talk-later loophole in good faith bargaining, which Labor refused to address after successive leaders of their party stated openly that they would ensure that did not happen. And we will maintain the value of unclaimed wages recovered for workers by the Commonwealth. Why are all these good measures available at this time during this country's economic drive for improved growth and improved employment? Because each of them will improve business confidence. As we know, when business confidence improves, investment confidence flows and, when investment confidence flows, we know that there are increased employment opportunities and, therefore, job security. That is what we are all about. This bill enacts a number of the recommendations from the Fair Work review panel of 2012, which was commissioned by the now Leader of the Labor Party in this place, Mr Shorten, before he was rolled by his unelected union bosses.

In relation to union workplace access, the scenario we will address is the imbalance that now exists. We will recreate that balance, and we will balance the right of employees to be represented in their workplace,—get this—if they want to be, with the right of employers to go about their business activity without disruption. In 2007 the Labor Party promised, on multiple occasions, that there would be no changes to union right-of-entry laws. The then Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ms Gillard, made this statement:

We will make sure that current right of entry provisions stay. We understand that entering on the premises of an employer needs to happen in an orderly way. We will keep the right of entry provisions.

It has now been reversed. What do we now have? A scenario in which unions can actually walk into workplaces, even if there are no members of their union amongst employees, and even if their presence has not been sought by workers. I have a couple of examples of abuse that you and I are well aware of. They were highlighted, incidentally, by the review panel commissioned by none other than Mr Shorten. There was the Pluto project by Woodside on the North West Shelf where 200 right-of-entry visits were demanded in a 90-day period. That is better than two a day on the Pluto project. A second example was when the BHP Billiton Worsley Alumina plant faced 676 right-of-entry visits by unions, uninvited, in a one-year period, which was better than one a day.

I do not need to read out the quotations of Mr Joe McDonald because the terms he used are unparliamentary and, of course, you will have no trouble understanding what they were. The union, the CFMEU, of which Mr McDonald was an executive member, was fined $194,000 in the Western Australian court in relation to Citic Pacific's Sino iron ore project at Cape Lambert. He said in regard to right-of-entry permits:

I haven't had one for seven years and that hasn't—

I pause for the omitted words—

stopped me.

That is the sort of attitude that Mr McDonald and those like him have to the court system in our country.

When we speak of eligibility it is entirely reasonable that, if members of the workforce are represented by a union or there are individuals who want to have union representation, then they should be able to do so. Under those circumstances the bill will provide that a union will be only entitled to enter a workplace for discussion purposes if they are covered by an enterprise agreement, or if they have been invited by a member or an employee they are entitled to represent. That was Labor policy, and I think it is entirely reasonable. What has happened is that, of course, we have once again had a circumstance in which the union bosses, the unelected bosses, have dominated the decisions and the attitudes of their parliamentary elected representatives on the other side of this chamber.

I have referred to frequency of disputes already, which are disputes about excessive right-of-entry visits for discussion purposes. These amendments will remove the restriction to ensure that the Fair Work Commission has the power to properly deal with excessive right-of-entry visits by suspending, revoking or imposing conditions on an entry permit. In addition the amendments will provide that the Fair Work Commission can take into account the combined impact of visits by all unions to a workplace, reflecting a circumstance in which an employer is subjected to multiple union visits.

The other point which has been a subject of great contention, particularly in our state with offshore and remote mining site operations, is the whole question of expanded rights of unions to enter uninvited, and particularly the so-called lunch room invasions. Why is such a provision unfair? In the case of offshore operations there are specific requirements and training required for personnel going in helicopters to the offshore rigs. There are limited seating opportunities. There is the need to provide accommodation on a rig. More to the point, if the only place on a rig that can be provided is a lunch room, why should workers on that rig who have no interest in participating in some sort of harangue from an elected union official be subjected to that while they are having their recreation and their lunch? I make the point that 87 per cent of private sector workers in this country are not members of unions. To those of us who travel to remote locations, be they offshore or remote mine sites, the solution is obvious. Everybody gathers at the airport in advance of travelling to these locations. If indeed workers are keen to receive a visit by a union representative, the opportunity is there. The union official does not have to leave the city. They can just drive to the airport and conduct that meeting in advance of an aircraft leaving to go to a mine site or rig site. That whole question will be addressed in the amendments. We will give effect to the Labor Party's own commitments prior to the 2007 election.

The second area I wish to address is that of greenfields agreements. The best example I can give is the current dispute, which may temporarily have been resolved now, with the Gorgon project on Barrow Island offshore of the Pilbara in Western Australia.

Senator Lines interjecting—

Several of us—including Senator Lines, Senator Sterle, Mr O'Connor, Mr Marles, Western Australian Labor leader Mr McGowan and, I think, the member for Perth—only three or four weeks ago were invited by Chevron to fly up to Barrow Island to visit the Gorgon site and then go to Wheatstone to have a look at that one. Gorgon is 95 per cent completed. The first gas train—the first of three—is due to deliver gas for export by the end of this year. It is and has been a phenomenal project—$53 billion, Chevron being the main partner. Wheatstone, a lesser project—$37 billion—is about 60 to 65 per cent complete. My recollection—I may be corrected—is that at the moment there are 8,700 workers on the project on Barrow Island and about 3,500 on the other one. Since we visited—since we were given the opportunity to look at every aspect, to talk to workers, to see where they resided, to eat in the same mess and to see the work they are doing—we have had a circumstance of threatened strikes. There are three gas trains under construction at the moment at Gorgon on Barrow but there is the capacity for a fourth and a fifth. So why, in heaven's name, would anyone who might be trying to influence decisions in Houston for investment in a subsequent fourth and fifth train do that? Why would people go on strike and threaten the integrity and the completion dates of the first, followed by the second, followed by the third train? I did not hear any of my Labor colleagues, all of whom I believe appreciated and enjoyed our recent visit, publicly make the obvious point that these people were putting at risk not only the completion of that project but also the future decision by that company to continue investing. When I was at Barrow Island the other day I did not see any brick wall around the island. I did not have anybody say to me, 'I find these conditions of employment to be untenable but I am in some way padlocked to working here.' This makes the point that projects of this nature have to become the subject of greenfields agreements. At the beginning of the project, at the MOU stage when you get a company making a decision to proceed, they can sit down with the unions who represent those who will be working on the project and say, 'For the purposes and the length of this project, this is what we all agree will be the terms and conditions of employment.'

I will give another example of what I am talking about. I had a representation from one of the unions involved in the shipbuilding industry at Henderson in Western Australia. Those of us who are from WA need to remind the rest of the country that we have a very active shipbuilding industry in southern Western Australia and that Austal shipping, which is represented there, through its operations in Mobile Alabama builds 15 per cent of the tonnage of the American navy. So we are not inexpert. These people came to me to seek my support in relation to new projects for the shipyard where they worked. I said, 'This is absolutely fantastic. What projects are to be bid on?' One was a replacement for the Aurora Australis and there were others. I said, 'That's great. There's going to be tremendous competition if and when such a contract is advertised for tender. There'll be Singaporean shipyards, Malaysian yards, Chinese and Korean yards and eastern Australian yards. Can you guarantee to me that you can come forward with a confirmation that you can take to your employers to say that in going to bid on that project you will agree in a greenfields fashion to a set of industrial conditions upon which the employer can then do their figures to put in a competitive bid?'

I said, 'If you can do that, you will certainly get my support in terms of anything I can do through government, through the company itself, to encourage them to put in the bid.' They could not.

We operate in an international market and therefore I make the point very strongly that greenfields agreements are absolutely critical if we are going to attract new investment in new projects and at the same time end up with perfectly reasonable negotiated settlements between employers and employees, through their unions if necessary, in advance so that everyone knows what is going on. Unless and until we can get to that circumstance, it begs the question: do these unions actually want to see new investments for new projects, for new employment, for new growth in our country?

The greenfields agreements in these amendments will provide the opportunity to ensure that employers and unions will be required to attend and participate in meetings with each other and to consider and respond to each other's proposals in a timely manner, and it provides the circumstance in which there will be a three-month negotiating time frame after which the parties are able to go to the Fair Work Commission for approval. In an intelligent, modern economy where we have intense competition around the world for the flow of capital, for the flow of projects, surely these sorts of provisions are what we need to be fixing.

The fixing of the strike first talk later loophole simply honours the commitment of the then leader of the Labor opposition, Mr Rudd, in his speech to the National Press Club on 17 April 2007:

… industrial disputes are serious. They hurt workers, they hurt businesses, they can hurt families and communities and they certainly hurt the economy.

He went on to say that employees 'will not be able to strike unless there has been genuine good faith bargaining.' Of course we know that all that was thrown out by the Labor Party when they came into government, and we now do have the strike first process. It has to be reversed. There has surely in any circumstance got to be an undertaking by the parties to negotiate in good faith and then only if they have been unable to resolve the issue do they move towards the industrial action that they have the right to take. To strike first and talk later is unacceptable, and it detracts from business confidence. It detracts from the opportunity for investment by banks or by others.

The amendments concerning individual flexibility arrangements are designed to expand what the Labor Party brought in as their own policies—they were their initiatives. They are an important tool; they were introduced by Labor to enable workers and their employers to mutually agree on conditions that suit their needs while ensuring that employees are better off overall compared to the underpinning employment instrument. I urgently request that those on the other side honour their own commitments going into earlier elections and I hope that those on the crossbenches, including the Greens, see the benefit to employees, to their job security, and to the wider community.