Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. It didn't really take long, did it, for this government to resurrect the industrial relations wars of long ago under the guise of growing wages, as we've just heard? This government has undertaken, firstly, a sham process of consultation and, secondly, an extraordinarily rushed inquiry process. Despite some very strong criticism of this bill from many sectors of the economy, the government is pushing on regardless without any modelling, with no funding and, importantly, with no election mandate. This bill will cost jobs. It's going to drive down productivity, it's going to increase costs to small business and it's going to add to inflation. There is no guarantee that it's going to grow wages.

Firstly, there's the consultation process. The government was motivated by pure ideology and displayed a blind disregard for the usual procedures and processes involved in the scrutiny of legislation that usually accompanies such a substantial piece of legislation, let alone an omnibus bill. Here it is: it's nearly 250 pages of legislation. The committee was given 22 days to undertake an inquiry. We all work here. It is our job to scrutinise legislation. I didn't mind the long days. I didn't mind the late nights. It's my job. But what about the stakeholders that needed to consider the bill? They needed to take the time to put some effort in, put their thoughts on paper, send that through to the committee and give time for the committee to have a read of it and then maybe form some questions that they could ask in an inquiry. We weren't given that chance at all.

Despite what the government spin—and we've heard plenty of it—they did not take this significant industrial relations reform to the 2022 federal election. In November last year, the then shadow Treasurer, the member for Rankin, appeared on television. I think he was on Insiders. He was asked if industry-wide bargaining was on the agenda. The Treasurer replied, 'It's not part of our policy.' Maybe the Treasurer is not in the loop on the government's industrial relations agenda, or he was answering with a real honesty back then when he knew that the real cost of such a move would be to the Australian economy. Holding a sham talkfest like the Jobs and Skills Summit so soon after the election is not a substitute for a mandate from the Australian people for the introduction of a very radical and extreme new industrial relations reform that will—have no doubt about this—devastate the Australian economy.

It was evident very early on that the depth of this bill came as a shock to many stakeholders. You only had to gauge the red-hot reaction from many sectors in the Australian economy that this bill had come like a bolt out of the blue. Some vague references about low-paid workers and female dominated sectors of the economy at the Jobs and Skills Summit are no substitute for consultation and no substitute for a mandate. They didn't demonstrate industry-wide consultation. Back on election night—sadly, and we're still living with that—when the now Prime Minister spoke about conciliation, seeking a common purpose and promoting unity, I don't think many people thought that we'd see a bill like this.

Then we were given a time frame, as I discussed. Twenty-two days this committee was given. That's 22 days to consider such a comprehensive, significant bill that is overhauling the industrial relations system. I remember that we had a couple of bills in the last parliament that pale into insignificance in terms of their complexity. I was on the Education and Employment Legislation Committee at that time. We had four months. That lot over there were complaining that we only went to five capital cities for the inquiry.