Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Can the minister confirm that under the government’s new workplace laws employers can legally sack people simply because they do not like them? Can the minister further confirm that other lawful reasons for being sacked under the government’s new system—which workers now cannot do anything about—include chewing gum, the need to cut wages or simply no reason at all? Can the minister now explain exactly why the government thinks that it is okay to sack workers for any of these reasons?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the honourable senator knows, the government has ensured that in Work Choices there is a guarantee that workers cannot be sacked for unlawful reasons, and they have been set out in some considerable detail in the legislation. That is what provides the workers of this country with protection against unlawful termination. The Labor Party is still harking on about its unfair dismissal social experiment, which has been a failure for the men and women of Australia who have sought employment and have been denied employment until we were able to remove that from the statute book. Make no mistake: the unfair dismissal provision only came into legislation under the Keating government. It was not as though it had been there forever and a day; it had only come into the Commonwealth legislation as a social experiment by the Keating government, something which demonstrably failed.

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, on a point order: the question was specifically about unlawful dismissal. There was no mention of unfair dismissal in the question. The minister started his answer by referring to unlawful dismissal but he has now gone on to talk about an entirely different aspect. I ask you to draw his attention to the question.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear your point of order, Senator, but the minister has almost 2½ minutes to complete his answer. I remind him of the question.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to assist the honourable senator who, given his former days as a union representative, I would have thought might have had a better grasp of some of these concepts, unfair dismissal and unlawful termination are concepts that basically go hand in hand. It is quite churlish of those opposite to seek to discuss one in isolation from the other. What those opposite do not want the Australian workforce to hear is that they have protection against unlawful termination. That is what those opposite are scared of: the Australian workers hearing that there is that guarantee of protection against unlawful termination for reasons such as race, gender or indeed, as Senator Conroy would be very interested in, whether or not you belong to a particular trade union, which I understand is one of the reasons certain people were sought to be disendorsed in Victoria; that is, they happened to belong to the wrong trade union.

With the unfair dismissal laws, what was allowed to occur—and Mr Beazley himself acknowledged this—was that go-away money was paid in the most outrageous of circumstances simply to get the case out of the way, at great expense to small business and, what is more, as a great disincentive to small business employers putting on more workers. As a result, what we sought to do was strike a balance to get rid of the unworkable—and indeed unfair—unfair dismissal laws. I have gone through case after case in this place highlighting to those opposite how unfair the unfair dismissal laws were. There was that celebrated case on the west coast of Tasmania.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry knows what I am talking about. Under his regime, those outrageous circumstances would remain and people would be paid money simply to go away when it was the totality of the workforce that had in fact sought that dismissal. We as a government acknowledge that we have changed the law in relation to unfair dismissal. We believe it is a change for the better. Workers still have protection in relation to the unlawful termination sections. (Time expired)

Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I notice that the minister spent most of his time talking about unfair dismissal, not unlawful dismissal. I ask: given that an employer is hardly going to tell a worker that they have been sacked because of their age, their race or their sex, won’t an employee who thinks that they have been sacked unlawfully now have to prove it in court? Is the minister aware that the average cost of undertaking a claim for unlawful dismissal is $30,000? How does the government expect workers, battlers, to afford $30,000 in legal bills on top of losing their job when they have been sacked unlawfully?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again the Australian Labor Party is seeking to dissemble in relation to this. As those opposite know, prior to Work Choices, the workers would have to have relied solely on their own resource to take the legal action. We now have a fund that individual workers can avail themselves of, if I recall correctly, up to $4,000, and the office of workplace standards will assist them in that regard. This is a huge step forward but, of course, what those opposite are condemning is that we are giving them the capacity to seek independent advice and they do not have to go cap in hand to the trade union movement. That is the thing that those opposite are concerned about in relation to this particular reform. (Time expired)