David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

During the election campaign, I told Canberrans that should I become a senator I would sit in this place and look at each piece of legislation on its merits—look at it and say: 'How will this affect the people of the ACT? How does this square with the kind of future that we want to create in Australia?' My commitment was that on the big pieces of legislation that were contentious I would consult as widely and as thoroughly as I could. This is what I've tried to do over the last month. I've listened, I've consulted and I've negotiated honestly to get the best outcome for the people I've been sent here to represent.

I was watching the Senate earlier, and it really highlighted that there are some politicians in this place who can stretch the truth at times. I would like to point out that in the meeting that Senator Hanson referred to, she was not present. I've been very upfront with concerns about how rushed this legislation, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, has been. This is a big IR omnibus bill. Indeed, standing here, I moved a motion to push the reporting date out so that the Senate had more time to consider this bill. In that vote, where the motion was narrowly defeated, may I point out that a credible source informs me that Senator Hanson was in the Virgin lounge on her way home. So I take on board her comments, but, as far as engaging with this bill, she is a long way off the mark.

After that vote went down and it became clear that this was going to come on for a vote in the last week, I knuckled down and got to work and tried to get across this issue as best I could to be able to make a decision and vote on behalf of the people of the ACT, something that I take very seriously. I have consulted, I've held a round table with business, I've had a town hall attended by 200 people and I've also met with workers, business owners big and small, unions and employer representatives. I've tried to do the best I could with the time available to me, and I am now happy with where we have landed.

I understand that with most of these debates around contentious issues we hear extreme sides of the argument, and my sense is that we should probably be heading somewhere in the middle, looking for that middle ground. It's absolutely correct that workers have waited too long for a pay rise. There are so many Australians doing it tough. Their wages have not kept pace with inflation and have not kept pace with the cost of living. Many of these workers are the same heroes in our community who have put their time and their lives on the line to get us through COVID. Those people deserve a pay rise.

I appreciate, too, the anxieties of business, especially small business. My parents were small-business owners. I've seen their efforts at times not resulting in much reward and just how hard they have worked to keep that business going. Many of the things that happen are outside of small-business owners' control. At times there is a huge burden in terms of administration and red tape, and we all need to appreciate the huge contribution they make to our nation. The long list of amendments that have been negotiated with the government addressed most of these anxieties, certainly the most pressing.

For 97.5 per cent of businesses in Australia, they will be excluded from the changes in this IR bill. For those that are excluded I've secured a commitment from the minister to review modern awards. Sitting on the committee, I saw that this was something that kept coming up: people wanting a review of the modern award—a whole range of views, from some people wanting them simplified and others wanting more awards. For those with a more-niche business, rather than having a 150-page award they can have something that applies just to their line of work.

For the 2.5 per cent of businesses who will be affected by this bill, there are a range of new safeguards that the government will have to put in place. There will be a longer grace period so that businesses have more time to negotiate a single-enterprise agreement. As pointed out earlier, there's a total carve-out of civil construction alongside residential and commercial—a new reasonable comparability threshold in the common-interest test to provide more clarity and to deal with one of the issues that kept getting raised, which is the need to ensure that, for example, the big supermarket chains are not able to drag your IGAs and independent grocers into a bargain.

As pointed out, too, by many, there's a higher threshold for small business—a 20 headcount, and that doesn't include seasonal workers or irregular casuals. There's also a new safeguard for medium-size businesses of 50 people or fewer that makes it harder to get in and easier to get out of multi-enterprise bargaining. In this there's a recognition that if you have a business with under 50 employees it's unlikely that you have a dedicated HR person or department and that you have less resources. The onus is now on the applicant, which in most cases will be a union, to provide a case as to why it is in the common interest for a smaller employer to bargain in a multi-enterprise stream, taking some of the onus off businesses with under 50 employees.

There's the requirement for conciliation to take place before arbitration when you're dealing with working arrangements, unless there are exceptional circumstances—another clause that's had some work today. There's also removal of the absolute right that unions have to veto an agreement. This was another concern raised through the committee process and has been raised with me personally. Where there are two or more unions involved and they withhold their vote, the commission can now determine whether they are unreasonably withholding agreement and it can be put to a vote. There's also a statutory review no later than two years after the passage of this bill so that we can see what's working and what isn't. That will be ahead of the next election. The Australian people will be able to decide what they think of this based on that review and what people are seeing. I would really like to see a lot more reviewing and adapting legislation as we go. I don't think the approach of setting and forgetting things is appropriate, given how big many of the decisions in this place are.

Then there are other parts of the agreement I'd like to speak to. Senator Cash rightly pointed out that it was struck late at night. I was here for the College of Nursing ball, and we'd been negotiating for a couple of days and finally landed in a spot where I can now hand on heart vote for this bill and believe I'm voting on behalf of the ACT people in good faith. One of the things I would like to address is that there was no secret deal. I've been very upfront about the terms, how it was agreed and whom it was agreed with.

This morning I met with local ACT firefighters, who will now find it much easier to access workers compensation benefits for eight additional cancers, including women's reproductive cancers. This is included in this bill and is incredibly important for people who put their lives on the line not only through bushfire season but every day in towns and cities across the country. We go from having decent coverage for firies to now having world-leading coverage when it comes to firefighters and presumptive legislation to do with cancers.

The week after next I'm meeting with subcontractors, who will be better protected and who will stand a better chance of being paid on time every time, following a commitment from the PM to respond to the recommendations of the Murray review. This is something unions and businesses across the sector want dealt with. The review has been languishing on a desk somewhere since 2017 and hasn't been responded to.

Then there's the commitment to a new legislated expert committee that will finally give the more than three million people living in poverty a shot at getting out of it. I understand there are a range of views in this place saying that the last thing we need is a committee. For me this is about transparency and being able to see not only expert advice but advice that is produced by a committee that includes experts, people with lived experience, someone from the unions and someone from business to look at social security payments and provide advice to government, and then we'll be able to see what is being done with that advice by this government and by future governments. Clearly it's a great thing to get wages moving.

We have to remember the people who aren't in the job market, who are currently unemployed for whatever reason. Despite the rhetoric that you'll hear from various people in this place, during COVID when the former government lifted the rate of JobSeeker, we saw people coming off JobSeeker. All of a sudden people had more time and they had more money to think about getting into work. They weren't constantly scrambling just to put food on the table. They weren't under chronic stress. This is really about the kind of future that we want to create together. I'm really pleased and proud to have put this into this agreement, and it will be acted on. I'd really like to address again just how important it is that we get wages moving for people in our communities who clearly need it—the highly feminised industries; the people who are educating future generations, are looking after the generations that are at the end of their life and are cleaning our offices here in Parliament House and the Senate floor.

I understand that there is criticism from the big business lobbies. I'm not here to represent big business; I'm very open about that. I'm happy to cop the criticism. I've engaged with them, I've been upfront with them and I believe that this is the right decision on this bill.

I want to thank fellow senators on all sides of politics for their engagement in the committee process. I really do find it such a valuable process. It is a real privilege to be able to interrogate and ask questions of experts and people with lived experience. It really has been fundamental to being able to ask better questions, to have questions answered and then to form a position on this bill.

I would urge and ask the government in future to allow more discussion and scrutiny on big pieces of legislation. This has been rushed. Big changes do warrant more scrutiny. I've made that clear throughout. As I said, I moved a motion to push the reporting date back. That was unsuccessful. So I've made do with the time allocated, and I will be supporting this bill.