Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. We have no evidence that this legislation will result in more secure employment or improved wages. But it has served as a good indication of how the Albanese government will conduct itself in this parliament in the future. It will cave into union bosses and rush through bad laws that will undo years of painstaking work by the parliament to improve Australia's economic productivity. Labor may have won this year's election, but the result was definitely not a mandate for the regressive measures in this legislation. In fact, this bill goes against the only mandate that truly exists for industrial relations laws, the 2016 double-dissolution election triggered by bills to establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission. Those bills were the subject of months if not years of inquiry, debate and negotiation and were taken to the Australian people at an election.

In the last parliament, the most recent amendments to the Fair Work Act were the subject of inquiries lasting at least 3½ months.. On this occasion, however, only three weeks were given to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee to inquire into the bill. This was during budget estimates. As a result, public hearings were held at very short notice and witnesses who appeared did not even have time to make their submissions. Labor was announcing amendments to its own legislation while this inquiry was taking place. Today, following only a few days of cursory scrutiny and limited debate, this parliament seems likely to pass a poorly drafted bill with unjustified haste and no electoral mandate.

I am compelled to remind the government of something which should be obvious but which apparently escapes them: a person's wage cannot increase if they do not have a wage. That's what this rushed bill is risking. That the corrupt thugs masquerading as union bosses want this bill very badly is all the evidence we need that it's a very bad bill. They're looking forward to returning to the bad old days when they could hold businesses and economic productivity to ransom over trivial issues like a worker not being up to date with union fees. The ABCC prevented a lot of that and now we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It's pretty obvious this legislation is, ultimately, just a ploy to gain more union members and, therefore, more money for the Australian Labor Party. Don't think for a moment we've forgotten previous attempts by Labor governments to do this—for example, the farce that was the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

At one stage last week, I held out some hope that Labor would slow things down and allow the Senate due time to consider the implications of this bill and make it better. There was some hope that the really awful parts of the bill—like multi-employer bargaining, the poor definition of 'small business', the attempt to decouple productivity from wages and measures to force small business into crippling enterprise agreements they have no part in negotiating—could have been separated. But, no, Labor had to had everything passed before Christmas and successfully gambled on pressuring a rookie crossbench senator into letting it happen. Senator Pocock was only saying a few days ago that much more time was needed to review this omnibus bill, but he has rolled over for a couple of trivial and, ultimately, useless concessions.

Senator Pocock gave his word to other crossbenchers that we would stand together and demand that the more contentious parts of this bill be split from it and considered separately without undue haste. That hasn't happened. There's an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, with Senator Pocock telling readers that he wrote 'DWYSYWD' in his rugby locker. It stands for: 'Do what you say you will do.' I'll repeat it: 'Do what you say you will do.' That wasn't the case, was it? That hasn't happened, 'Doormat' Dave's word means nothing. My chief concern—