Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, here we go with the scaremongering from those opposite. It's clear that they are deeply embarrassed about the record years of low wage growth under their former government and are suffering from what I would call complete FOMO about refusing to turn up to the Jobs and Skills Summit. But this MPI gives me a chance to talk about how successful the Jobs and Skills Summit was and what outcomes it has led to. Given the Liberal Party's refusal to play a constructive role, they might have missed some of the positive outcomes that were agreed to at the summit. These include a massive investment in fee-free TAFE, an income credit for pensioners who want to get into the workforce, a fix for the visa backlog and fairer updates to the parental leave provisions. This government was also able to secure positive guiding principles for a new way forward on workplace relations, because at the Jobs and Skills Summit this government got everybody around the table. Businesses, unions and government agreed to work productively together to revitalise a culture of creativity, productivity, good-faith negotiations and genuine agreement in workplace laws. That is what those opposite are opposed to: working productively together to revitalise creativity, productivity, and genuine agreement in Australian workplace laws.

Last week the Jobs and Skills Summit showed us what good government can do. This side of the chamber demonstrated what is possible when we approach problems with curiosity rather than obstinance. We have highlighted that there is nothing to be feared by governing in a way that invites a range of perspectives, even disagreement at times, but always with respect. We saw that, despite the scare campaign from those opposite, there is nothing to be feared by breaking bread with people who don't talk, look or act like you do. At the Jobs and Skills Summit we demonstrated that Australians are hungry for cooperation in the name of national interest. Obviously there is detail that we need to consult on, and we are committed to doing that. But I know that the Albanese Labor government has the stamina to deliver on the principles agreed to at the summit. I'm excited to get to work on the reforms that I know will one day mean that people in this country will have higher wages. The challenge our Jobs and Skills Summit undertook was to address these very vast and significant issues.

It is very clear that the former government is embarrassed about the low wage growth over nine long years in government and is now trying to mobilise a fear campaign about plans to get wages moving again. The truth is, it was never harder to get a pay rise than under the previous government, and that has to change. In Australia, minimum standards are set by the Fair Work Commission, and if you want a wage increase above the legal minimum you must bargain with your employer for it.

In order to get a pay rise, workers in particular workplaces have to go through a complicated and lengthy process called enterprise bargaining. There are very long and technical steps that workers and their employers must go through to secure an enterprise bargaining agreement, and currently workers are only able to bargain workplace by workplace. This system was brought in over 30 years ago, and both workers and employers are saying that it is no longer fit for purpose. Certainly, at the round tables that I held in Mareeba, Cairns and Townsville in the lead-up to the summit, that is exactly what I was hearing from employers and workers alike. I heard that something needed to be done to improve the complexity of this system.

Enterprise bargaining was introduced at a time when workplaces had many more workers, giving them more power to bargain for good wages and conditions. Only one in every seven workers is currently covered by an EBA, meaning most workers aren't receiving regular wage rises. For that lucky one in seven, the system still isn't delivering, and it didn't deliver under nine years of the Liberal-National coalition. Workplaces are much smaller than they were when enterprise bargaining was introduced, meaning workers have fewer resources and less power to bargain on an even footing with their employers.

Workers and businesses are calling for multi-employer bargaining. It's nothing to be afraid of. Those opposite will try to create a scare campaign around it, but the Australian union movement and COSBOA, the representative organisation for small businesses, have come together to put forward sensible reform that allows for collective bargaining to take the most appropriate form for industry, which it is serving. Multi-employer bargaining allows workers who do the same job across multiple employers to bargain together for wage increases. Now, I'll give you an example of this, because I know that there will be a lot of misinformation coming from the other side of this chamber. Every childcare centre in Australia has its own set of wages and conditions. Under a multi-employer bargaining model, all early childhood educators could possibly come together, beyond their own centres, and bargain for an industrywide increase. There is no denying that childcare workers are some of our lowest-paid workers, yet they do some of the most important work. It boggles the mind that those opposite could be opposed to an instrument that would lead to wage rises for some of our lowest-paid, most highly feminised workforces.

More people means more power, which improves our chances of winning good wages and conditions for lower-paid workers. It is also good for business, because the current EBA process means employers have to fork out big sums of money to consultancies to navigate a complex system. This would make it easier for both workers and employers to negotiate and settle fair wage increases. The proposal, which has come from the ACTU and also from business, opens up the prospect of wage growth and collective bargaining for thousands more workers. Surely those opposite could not be opposed to more workers in our economy getting a wage increase. It is a critical step in tackling the wage crisis, because, when more workers and employers are able to bargain for wage increases, the earning capacity of working Australians will continue to grow.

Labor continues to maintain that a fair day's wage for a fair day's work is one of our core values, and we will always stand up for it. Despite the scaremongering of those opposite, we will stand here, always proudly representing unions and union members. There is no amount of intimidation that those opposite can level that would make us step away from those values, because let's be clear who those opposite are talking about when they are speaking about unions. Union members are frontline workers, and the majority of them are women. Nurses are union members. Teachers are union members. Aged-care workers are union members. Cleaners, pilots and bus drivers—these are all union members. And it's highly likely that the very people that were hailed as heroes by those opposite during the pandemic held a union ticket. Even our sporting heroes are union members. The Matildas are a fantastic football team and a national icon. They are union members and they took collective action. They went on strike so that they could get equal pay, and they delivered a historic pay deal which is unique to this part of the world.

Union members don't take legal, protected industrial action lightly, and when they do it's because they've exhausted every other avenue available to them. On the rare occasion that union members take the long, complex and difficult step of collective action it is because they have taken exhaustive legal steps to get there.

Don't let the other side of this chamber fool you. It was collective action that won a 38-hour week, it won annual leave and it won health and safety standards that make sure that we go home from work in the same condition we arrived in. Chances are that if your job has good wages and conditions, you have a union member to thank for that.

It is finally time for those opposite to stop the conflict, to build a consensus and to come together with us on this to solve the challenges that our country is facing. That is how we will get wages moving again in this country, because every Australian worker deserves a seat at the table and every Australian worker deserves fair wages and fair conditions.