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

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister for Finance and Administration. I refer to the minister’s decision not to ensure that 1,800 Telstra employees receive the superannuation pension benefit they were promised as a consequence of Telstra privatisation. Can the minister confirm that Telstra advised the T3 sale task force that there was ‘a compelling case’ in support of Telstra’s CSS members remaining in the CSS on the basis of legal advice that the 2004 deed of release was a legally binding document? On what basis has the minister made a decision which is, on Telstra’s advice, possibly illegal? Will the minister now table all material relevant to this decision, including the legal advice on which he based his decision to break the superannuation promise for 1,800 Telstra employees?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I am not aware of the Telstra advice to which Senator Sherry refers. I am happy to check the facts. I am not, on the face of it, calling Senator Sherry a liar. I am happy to check on that advice but I do not have an immediate recollection of it. I simply point out to Senator Sherry, as I did in the debate to take note of answers given yesterday, that it is 13 months since I put on the record in this Senate the situation that will apply to employees of Telstra who are members of the CSS and PSS schemes. I made it clear 13 months ago, on the record, that for those Telstra employees who are members of the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme membership will cease once the Australian government ceases to hold majority ownership of Telstra and that the government will continue to be responsible for meeting the obligations going forward in respect of the past service of those employees. That is the position, enunciated 13 months ago.

As I said yesterday, it is entirely consistent with the position adopted by all governments, including Senator Sherry’s former Labor government, with respect to employees of government owned businesses when those businesses are no longer owned by the government. The responsibility for the superannuation arrangements going forward moves to the new owners of the business and is a matter for the shareholders of that business. The Commonwealth, on behalf of taxpayers, will continue to honour its obligations for the accrued superannuation entitlements of those employees but, once ownership changes, the superannuation arrangements going forward are a matter for the new owners of the business and not the responsibility of taxpayers. I am happy to recollect or have refreshed the situation with respect to any Telstra advice and come back to Senator Sherry.

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

And I am happy to assist. I seek leave to table the confidential advice between Telstra and the minister’s department on this matter.

Leave granted.

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Further to the minister possibly acting contrary to law on this matter, did he or the T3 sales task force seek advice from the guardian and regulator of defined benefits superannuation funds, the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority, APRA, concerning the legality of reducing promised pension benefits for existing employees in a defined benefits scheme? If not, why not? If the minister did seek advice from APRA, will he now table that advice? What is the minister hiding on this matter? Is this just further evidence of the minister’s and the government’s incompetence around the sale of Telstra?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is one of the most professionally handled sales in the history of sales of Commonwealth government businesses. It is one of the most expert and superbly handled sales, despite the opposition of those opposite. This lot are trying to wreck this sale. They are going around talking down this sale. They want to see taxpayers lose on this deal—it is outrageous. They have already cost taxpayers $50 billion by not supporting a full sale in 1990. Now they are spending their whole time talking down this sale. It is outrageous behaviour on their part to so seek to destroy shareholder value. I will get back to Senator Sherry with any advice that we have in relation to the document he has tabled. I am happy to come back on that but I can assure the Senate that we have acted within the law at every step of this exhaustive process.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Abetz. Will the minister outline to the Senate how the government’s Australian workplace agreements are boosting wages and employment? Is the minister aware of any indications of support for the continuation of AWAs and is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank Senator Fifield for his important question, which recognises the value of Australian workplace agreements to our nation. Since Work Choices came into effect, a massive 175,000 new jobs, of which 128,000 are full time, have been created and wages have continued to rise. There are now over one million AWAs signed in this country. The simple fact is that AWAs encourage job creation because they give employees and employers the flexibility to agree to mutually acceptable working conditions, underpinned, of course, by a very strong safety net of minimum conditions. AWAs have contributed to real wages growth. Senator Fifield asked about indications of support for the continuance of AWAs. It is very apt that that question was asked by a Victorian senator—I will get to that later.

We all know that federal Labor’s policy is unambiguous—that is, to rip up AWAs. Mr Beazley has promised the people of Australia that he will abolish AWAs and the extra jobs and higher wages to which they have led. What is interesting, though, is that it is not just the workers and the employers who have engaged in AWAs who want to keep the system; it is also Mr Beazley’s state Labor colleagues. The Western Australian Labor Premier, Mr Carpenter, has already voiced his qualms about Mr Beazley’s foolhardy decision. Yesterday, the Victorian Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Hulls, declined not once, not twice, not even three times—at which time you would have thought a rooster might have started to crow—to agree with Mr Beazley’s policies. It was not four times or five times, and not even half-a-dozen times; Mr Hulls was given seven opportunities in an interview to agree to Mr Beazley’s policies. Seven times he denied himself the opportunity to say that he fully supports Mr Beazley’s policy. You would have thought that, after seven times, there would be a whole barnyard of roosters crowing over that. But, of course, the Labor Party was deadly silent.

What has happened here, and it is quite obvious, is that some Labor governments, when they are actually in government, are mugged by reality. That is why the Western Australian Labor government supports AWAs and that is why Mr Hulls from the Victorian Labor government was not willing to support Mr Beazley. That is the reason Mr Tony Blair, when he came to government in the UK, refused to rip up or roll back the reforms of Mrs Thatcher, and that is the reason Ms Helen Clark, the Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, refused to rip up or roll back the reforms in New Zealand.

So what we can hope for is that reality will finally mug the Labor Party. Mr Beazley should know from his attempt in 1998 to surf into government on the back of a fear and scaremongering campaign that that does not work. What we need is good, sound policies from Labor. Until Mr Beazley comes up with alternative policies, as opposed to scaremongering, he is unfit to be the Prime Minister of this country.