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

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No.2) Bill 2023. Firstly, I move second reading amendment on sheet 2359 on behalf of Senator Cash:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) is of the opinion that consideration of the amendments in the bill relating to the road transport industry should be deferred until after the conclusion of the current ACCC inquiry into Australia's supermarket sector; and

(b) calls on the Government to:

(i) amend the bill to remove the elements of Part 16 of the bill that relate to the road transport industry so that those amendments may be dealt with in a separate bill, and

(ii) direct the ACCC to specifically consider those amendments as part of its inquiry into Australia's supermarket sector".

Without doubt, this is the single worst piece of industrial relations policy that has been seen in this country for over three decades. This legislation is nothing more than a pursuit of hyperfixated obsession of left-wing ideology. Let me be crystal clear: this is arcane and draconian legislation. It looks in the eye of the industrial relations legacy of the Hawke and Keating governments and tears it asunder. It's nothing more than ensuring that the traditional owners of the Australian Labor Party are kept happy at the next federal election. It's nothing more than trying to keep alive the dying embers of their trade union allies.

It was the poet Alfred Tennyson who said, 'Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.' Surely, when it comes to industrial relations policy, this government possesses neither.

This country is confronting a cost-of-living crisis not seen in a generation. For most Australians, it's the first time that they have encountered such rises in their cost of living. The Albanese government has blamed the previous coalition governments. It's blamed the Ukraine war, the former Reserve Bank Governor and, indeed, the Israel-Hamas war, but, if it looked itself in the mirror, it would see where the responsibility lies. Instead of addressing rampant inflation, interest rate pressure and a sustained period of low productivity, this government thinks that the best step forward right now is to grow union membership and increase their sphere of influence in the Australian workplace. If you were to momentarily close your eyes, you would have thought that we had returned to the early 1970s, when Jim Cairns and Rex Connor were running around driving the economy onto a rocky shoal during the time of the discredited Whitlam government.

If it was the intent of this government to mobilise the business sector, if government's motivation was to unify conservatives, this bill goes a long way to achieving that. In my time in this place, I seriously doubt another piece of industrial relations policy will energise its opponents like this bill has done.

For some time, I've been talking about labour productivity and the government's lack of focus and discussion on it. Labour productivity plays a critical role within our economy in lowering inflation. Productivity growth is a fundamental key to long-term prosperity. It has delivered Australia the higher living standard and quality of life that we as a society enjoy today, yet the original bill mentions the word 'productivity' only twice. There is scarcely a mention of productivity. This government is lost at sea when it comes to productivity. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, who is very fond of sound bites and one-liners, did not mention it once in his second reading speech. It's no wonder, given the unions' hatred of the word and their longstanding loathing of the Productivity Commission.

The Prime Minister has gone missing altogether when it comes to discussing this important economic measurement. In fact, he has basically handballed the economy to the Treasurer and said, 'Good luck.' The Prime Minister knows that the long-term forecast for inflation returning to the two to three per cent band is in 2025, after the next federal election, so he might as well damage the future prospects of his Treasurer at the same time as ruining the economy. One thing is crystal clear. At the next election, one thing will be front and centre for all Australians: are we better off than we were three years ago? The evidence would suggest clearly not.

This government likes to boast that this bill is about growing wages. Without stating the obvious, of course we all want higher wages, but this government is presenting it like some magic pudding, as if we could all benefit from higher wages without achieving higher productivity. It is akin to the theory of all those who once believed that simply printing more money would get rid of hyperinflation. Herein lies the government's problem: Treasury is also telling them that, if the unit labour price keeps going higher while productivity growth is negligible, inflation won't come down from the three-decade high we've seen under this government's watch. The government's magic bullet theory is to get the trade unions infiltrating the Australian workplace and ramp up union delegate rights, and they think that somehow this is going to improve the prosperity of Australians. We have seen that in this country before, when unions had the grip of the Australian workplace, and we know that it didn't end well.

The Education and Employment Legislation Committee, of which I am the deputy chair, held seven public hearings across the country, and time and time again we heard from stakeholders about the negative consequences of this bill and the impact that it would have on the cost of living, inflation and, more broadly, the economy. We know that this bill will actually increase costs for Australians. Food delivery platform Menulog have said that they will have to increase their charges. They estimate that the average costs will go up by $15 per delivery. This significantly increases to $39 if the calculated per hour rate is used as applied by the explanatory memorandum. Uber undertook its own impact modelling. It revealed that rideshare and delivery fee prices across the country would increase by 60 per cent and 85 per cent respectively. Higher prices will make rideshare and delivery services more expensive for consumers. The pizza which the minister claims will only cost a few extra dollars more will in fact cost substantially more.

I want to turn to Western Australia, my home state. This bill is a blatant attack on Western Australia. The mining industry in my state is largely non-unionised, which is not surprising given that union membership in the private sector is just eight per cent—hence why the government thinks that there is a problem. Through this bill, they have demonstrated that they see the problem as a trade union problem and as a loophole that needs to be fixed. Even worse is the fact that the federal resources minister is a Western Australian and has allowed, on her watch, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to run riot with this bill in her home state and, from what I can see, she has done nothing to stand up against the attack that this bill will make on her own home state of Western Australia. Did she speak up in the interests of her state or the industry that she purports to represent? The mining sector has largely underpinned Western Australia's success since the 1970s. Every Western Australian should be shocked and dismayed by what the Albanese Labor government is attempting to do with this bill.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Western Australia were blunt in their assessment of the impact that this bill would have on Western Australia. It told the Perth public hearing:

It's no overstatement to say that these changes pose a significant threat to WA's economic prosperity. Our state is at a crossroad. We are rich in the critical minerals that will power the green revolution, like lithium, nickel, copper. But having these minerals in the ground isn't enough. In the race for global capital we need to be competitive. Aspects of this bill, combined with already onerous regulation and more to come, risk putting Australia in the too-hard basket for global investors.

If that doesn't send a chill through you in this place, I don't know what will. We are competing internationally for projects to go ahead. Capital is competitive. If we're going to attract investment in this country and indeed in my home state of Western Australia, we have to be competitive on all fronts and provide a value proposition for that capital.

For the benefit of those that are living over here on the east coast—I know you don't care to think too much about us on the west coast; that's coming from a Western Australian, of course—in 2021-22 the Western Australian resources industry generated $186 billion in gross product, accounting for almost half of Western Australia's economic activity. The industry's exports totalled $233.6 billion, accounting for 95 per cent of WA's goods exports and 66.1 per cent of national resources exported.

It was during the Perth public hearing that the Australian Hotels Association WA told the inquiry of the 'lottery style' nature of the casual employment changes that this bill proposes. They said it was 'operationally insane'—operationally insane—for business. This is ridiculous! They asked how this would function in practice for Western Australia. They queried that. They couldn't make sense of how it would work, practically.

All of this is for the sake of appeasing trade union, left-wing ideology. Federal Labor pays lip-service to Western Australia. It even appointed a Western Australian as a cabinet minister, to the important resources portfolio. But it's merely smoke and mirrors when those same elected members sit idly by while the Albanese government launches a full-scale offensive on the state's private sector employees. This bill will not benefit Western Australia, and it certainly won't help the workers in the mining industry. But it will assist the trade unions to get a foothold in an industry that predominantly has remained a non-unionised workforce.

Back in September last year I was sitting here in this chamber, and Senator Ayres got up and spoke, and he boasted about this bill and the government's agenda. He said the Albanese government 'are moving from red tape for business to a red carpet for business'. That's what they were doing. If the inquiry's public hearings demonstrated one thing, it was that this government, through this bill, has laid out the red carpet not for workers in this country, not for businesses in this country and not for the Australian economy but, indeed, for the trade unions. Is it any wonder that the ACTU gleefully said:

… it's very good. Finally we have turned the corner in terms of this relentless, really 30 years of either going backwards and clawing things back, to now actually going forward …

Of course we would want more, but honestly the government has responded to problems that are there and they campaigned on, such as job security.

The business community knows the true intent of this bill. As the Business Council of Australia summed up in its submission to the inquiry: 'This bill is unnecessary. It will return Australian workplace relations to an age of unnecessary conflict and low productivity and does not respond to the key challenges for jobs, for enterprises or for Australians facing rapidly increasing costs of living. This bill is complex, is unworkable, has not been demonstrated to achieve its policy aims and, in most areas, is not based on clearly articulated or properly evidenced need for change.'

Credit to the minister for workplace relations; with this bill, and the one passed before Christmas, he has delivered big time for his trade union mates—there's no doubt about that. They will certainly be pleased with his performance and will be stamping his leadership credentials. A front seat at the next ALP national conference awaits him; there is no doubt about that.

This bill has seen a proliferation of unfettered trade union power not seen in a long time, increased rights of entry and union delegates rights. Anyone would think that union membership was hovering around 80 per cent, given the weight of this bill, but it's not happening.

Above all, the economic modelling represents something akin to a year 8 economics paper. The RIS was cobbled together. The way this government has presented this bill is an embarrassment. Its data limitations, its assumptions, are completely inept and completely unacceptable, given the original bill contained 800 pages. This government was not interested in knowing the full cost implications of this bill; its calculations were inept at best. This bill does nothing to benefit Australian families or reduce cost-of-living pressures, and it does everything to increase trade union influence in the workplace.