Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The hyperventilating hyperbole we have just had to endure from the ALP is shamefully and simply designed to ensure that our fellow Australians do not understand what is actually at stake. I stand here as somebody who represents not only the state of Tasmania but also the Liberal Party. It is a party that was founded on a principle of looking after the forgotten people. The forgotten people in this debate are the unemployed, the underemployed, the Australian consumer and Australian small businesses.

Let us be very clear in this debate: big unions and big business have traded away penalty rates day after day. Indeed, the person who would have to be the champion of trade union leaders doing deals with big business to trade away penalty rates is none other than the alternative Prime Minister, Mr Shorten. He traded away penalty rates for the Chiquita Mushrooms workers and for the Clean Event workers and then got payments made to his union. How dare Senator Cameron assert that somehow I had reduced the wages of cleaners in this place. It is untrue. But I can tell you who has reduced the wages of cleaners: the Australian Workers Union, as led by Mr Shorten, with the Clean Event enterprise agreement. This is where those opposite, in their former careers as trade union officials, were day after day negotiating away penalty rates and doing enterprise agreements with big business whilst forgetting about the unemployed, the underemployed, the Australian consumer and small business.

One thing that we do know is that if somebody is employed their mental health is in a better state, their physical health is in a better state, their self-esteem is in a better state and their social interaction is in a better state. So we as a community need to ensure that opportunity, which is such an important individual, social and economic good, is afforded to as many Australians as possible. What we had, not in this government decision but in this Fair Work Commission decision, was an acceptance of the reality that penalty rates in certain modern awards that had previously been established by the Fair Work Commission had been set so high as to undermine the opportunity of the unemployed and the underemployed to gain employment.

So why is it that the Australian Labor Party, the Greens and Senator Lambie would seek to ensure that these people, the unemployed and the underemployed, continue to be denied the opportunity of employment, of that important individual and social good? That is what the Australian Labor Party, the Greens and Senator Lambie really need to come to grips with in this debate. Why is that, when they know that if this bill were to be passed people would be denied the opportunity of employment and, as a result, they would be on the social scrap heap of unemployment? That is what they wish for with this bill. That is the crassness of this bill. That is the social inequity in this bill that needs to be fully understood by all of my colleagues in this place.

The unemployed seek employment. The underemployed seek more employment. The Australian consumer, not unreasonably, seeks services on a weekend. And today in Australia we have many service providers and businesses closed on a Sunday for one simple reason: they cannot afford the labour cost and, therefore, they are closed. And if they are open, many of the mums and dads who run these small businesses are working the businesses themselves, which denies them the opportunity to spend time with their families. The Fair Work Commission, in considering all these matters, saw the social good in reducing the penalty rates for certain categories of workers. We should be reminded that this is something that was a decision made under which legislation? The Australian Labor Party's Fair Work Act. Indeed, as the Rudd government was in its death throes in 2013, Mr Shorten, as the then Minister for Workplace Relations, forced through this place, with virtually no debate, an amendment to the Fair Work Act requiring the Labor Party's appointed Fair Work Commission to consider penalty rates. An amendment, forced through this place by Mr Shorten, specifically required the Fair Work Commission to have a look at penalty rates. So this requirement for penalty rates to be considered every four years is all Mr Shorten's own doing in the legislation. Be careful what you wish for.

That aside, who made the decision? There were five Fair Work commissioners on this full bench, all of whom were appointed by the Australian Labor Party. When I went through the names, I was reminded that four out of the five were appointed whilst I was the shadow minister for workplace relations. Indeed, the Australian Labor Party, in pretending to consult—underline the word 'pretending'—advised me of the names that they were intending to appoint. I objected to all four. So here we have a Fair Work Commission bench stacked out by Labor appointees which we on this side of the chamber did not favour. But they heard all the evidence. The Labor Party and the trade union movement could not have hoped for more favourable legislation or a more favourable full bench considering this decision, but that bench was mugged by the reality that the previously set penalty rate regime was costing Australians jobs. That is the reality, and that is why, if you believe in social equity—if you believe in the opportunity for the underemployed and the unemployed to take a step on the ladder of employment—you would acknowledge that this decision of the Fair Work Commission is a good, right and proper decision from a social justice point of view because it does allow people to step on the ladder of employment. What do the statistics tell us? In very rough terms, within 12 months 75 per cent of our fellow Australians who start on the most basic and minimum of wages move up another rung of the employment ladder. The great debilitator is getting onto the ladder. As soon as they are on the ladder, the vast bulk of Australians are then on a trajectory to move up the ladder of employment. The balancing act is: where do you set that first rung on the ladder to ensure that people are properly remunerated but not denied the opportunity of employment? So, in carefully considering this decision under Labor's legislation, Labor's Fair Work Commission appointees were mugged by the reality that social justice demanded that some of these penalty rates be changed.

Indeed, the hyperventilating Senator Cameron, in his contribution, was unable to tell us why it is that, at the moment, if I am a pharmacy assistant, I get 200 per cent, or double time, for working on a Sunday but somebody who is slaving over a hot stove cooking hamburgers, doing the hard yards, only gets a penalty of 175 per cent. Where is the justice in that? Where is the rationale? Where is the logic? It defies logic and defies rationale. Nobody can explain it, other than that it was 'historical'. Well, some people actually think it is nearly hysterical. How can you justify these sorts of inequities where somebody in relatively good employment in a pharmacy who does not have to do as much physical and hard work as a person in a fast-food outlet is not remunerated in the same manner? But the gross injustice here is that, if I am a worker at McDonald's working on a Sunday, I get paid literally dollars less per hour than my colleague working in the independent hamburger shop down the road. Why is that? Because the trade union and the big business, McDonald's, have traded away my Sunday penalty rates. So the small, independent, mum-and-dad owned hamburger joint down the road has to pay their worker a lot more than the multinational McDonald's. Where is the justice in that and how come the McDonald's workers get paid less? There is only one reason: the trade union bosses have traded away their penalty rates. That is how it occurred—and do you know what? I do not think that what the trade union movement did was unjust. They saw the reality themselves. They saw the importance of having a business model that would keep these people employed.

The sinister part of this is: where do the unions get their membership from? It is from the big businesses. That is where they collect their membership from. The small, mum-and-dad, independent hamburger joint down the road are like a little family. They look after each other, so that is not a unionised workforce. So from the union perspective, and indeed the big-business perspective, if that independent hamburger joint down the road can be priced out of business, that is good for the union because then, hopefully, there is more work at McDonald's and, therefore, more union members. And, of course, it means more business for McDonald's when the local independent hamburger shop gets closed.

So let us take a reality check of what this is all about. It is, yet again, the Australian Labor Party and the Greens and Senator Lambie wanting to do dirty deals with big unions and big business at the expense of the unemployed and underemployed Australian consumers and Australian small business.

This is an absolutely galling piece of legislation. Mr Shorten, the would-be Prime Minister of this country—and this was, if I recall correctly, on the Neil Mitchell program on 21 April 2016—was asked, in relation to this pending penalty rate decision by the Fair Work Commission, 'Would you accept the decision of the Fair Work Commission?' His answer was, yes, he would. Allow me to find the actual quote. Neil Mitchell said:

… the Fair Work Commission will report soon on … penalty rates. They're an independent body, in fact you had a lot to do with the way they operate now when you were Minister. Will you accept their findings given this is an independent body assessing penalty rates for Sunday, if you're Prime Minister.

Bill Shorten said:

Yes.

MITCHELL: You'll accept them?

SHORTEN: Yes.

MITCHELL: Even if they reduce Sunday Penalty rates?

SHORTEN: Well, I said I'd accept the independent tribunal …

That was Mr Shorten's position to the Australian people before the federal election. He did believe in the independence of the umpire and that sometimes the umpire might make a decision that you do not like, but you have to abide by it. That was Mr Shorten's position before the federal election. And of course he, who had helped negotiate and trade away penalty rates for workers in the jurisdiction of the Australian Workers' Union, would not have had a difficulty with this particular pending decision of the Fair Work Commission.

But now we know that the new trade union boss, Sally McManus, is of the view that, if you do not like a law, you just break it. The concept of abiding by the rule of law has gone out the window. So what does Mr Shorten do? Yes, if you do not like the decision of the umpire, you just trash the umpire, try to blame somebody else and try to make cheap political capital.

But, as I indicated earlier, what is also galling about this is that the whole regime that has led to this decision on penalty rates was designed, was created and was legislated by none other than Mr Shorten and the Australian Labor Party. If that was not enough, of the appointees to the Fair Work Commission who made the decision, four out of the five were appointed by Mr Shorten himself. But still that is not enough for him.

The simple fact is that this is a decision that does seek to provide social justice. I am on the public record—and this is, I suppose, one of the characteristics of being 'extreme right wing', as Senator Cameron sought to describe me—as saying that, when modern awards were created under Labor in 2009, no worker should be worse off. I moved an amendment in this place in 2009, as the shadow minister, seeking to put into the Fair Work Act that, when the modern awards were created, no worker would be worse off. That amendment was defeated courtesy of the Labor Party and the Greens combining to vote down that amendment. That is their legislative record. When given the opportunity, they voted down that amendment.

I have been consistent. That is why, when the Fair Work Commission announced its decision and said, 'We now have to decide how to implement this decision,' I was relatively quickly out of the blocks to say that I believe that for those workers, especially the full-time and the permanent part-time people who rely on these penalty rates today, their wages and entitlements should be grandfathered. But supposedly that is the characteristic of being extreme right wing—seeking to ensure that no worker would be worse off.

Senator Cameron's Labor Party voted against that in 2009 and now seeks to condemn me in 2017 for still supporting the view that no worker should have their wages cut in circumstances such as the Fair Work Commission has recently determined. I am still of that view and have been heartened by the support from, indeed, some trade union officials, the Council of Small Business, Ross Greenwood and many other commentators who see the common sense and justice in ensuring that no worker is worse off.

What it will ensure is that new people will be able to get the benefits of employment. The unemployed and the underemployed will be able to step onto the ladder of employment, move up it and enjoy the benefits of mental health, physical health, self-esteem and social interaction—all those benefits that come with employment. That is what that Fair Work Commission decision seeks to achieve. That is why we support it, and that is why I believe there needs to be a balance in the implementation of this decision to ensure that current workers' rights are protected, but we are enabled to engage new Australians in the benefit of employment.