Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Is the minister aware of reports that Commonwealth Bank employees are being asked to sign AWAs that remove 46 award entitlements like overtime, penalty rates, leave loading, shift allowances and rostered days off? Is it also true that these employees are not guaranteed to get any pay increase for the next five years, despite the loss of these conditions? Can the minister confirm that the Commonwealth Bank is able to do this because there is no requirement in the government’s workplace laws to compensate employees for the loss of any of these conditions? Why is the government happy to allow employers to offer AWAs that take away penalty rates and overtime on the one hand but offer no guarantee of anything in return on the other?

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

Once again we have the Australian Labor Party, through Senator Marshall, seeking to misrepresent the wonderful impact of Work Choices on the Australian community. The wonderful impact has been the creation of over 200,000 new jobs—compared to the situation which Labor presided over when they were in government where one million of our fellow Australians were on the social scrap heap of unemployment. In relation to the specifics of this matter, I understand that the Commonwealth Bank have said this: ‘We have been offering AWAs to our staff since 1997’—some nine years now; and of course the Work Choices legislation only got through in March of this year—‘so staff on an AWA get a higher salary—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

They do not want to hear this, Mr President: what the Commonwealth Bank is saying is that staff on an AWA get a higher salary.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

And if they keep interjecting, I will just repeat it: they get a higher salary. That is why workers want AWAs—because they get a higher salary. But they also choose not to have overtime or rostered days off, or some of the other award based allowances. So they are getting remuneration in place of some of the allowances they previously received. What we have is a situation where the Commonwealth Bank is offering flexibility.

As Mr Combet himself has indicated, the High Court decision has removed all constitutional doubt. And it is very interesting: that was another of the Labor Party’s criticisms, that this was unconstitutional. It was fully and wholly upheld by Australia’s High Court. So the Labor Party were wrong on that score as well. But I do welcome the fact that I have been able to embarrass the Australian Labor Party into finally asking another question about Work Choices, given the drought of some 30 weeks since they last asked a question on Work Choices.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you ever wondered why people don’t ask you questions, Eric? It is because you don’t know anything.

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

What they—such as Senator Evans with his ongoing carping and interjecting—do not want to hear is that people on AWAs are getting higher wages and that jobs have been created for over 200,000 of our fellow Australians. I welcome the opportunity to talk about Work Choices—and I trust there will be a supplementary question—because every time we talk about it Mr Beazley’s rating goes down in the polls.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, yes, I do ask a supplementary question. I ask the minister: how is it fair—or, in his words, how is it so wonderful—for employers to deprive employees of penalty rates and overtime without any compensation? Don’t many middle- and low-income families rely on these payments to pay their mortgages? How does the minister expect the families of Commonwealth Bank employees who sign AWAs to get by when they lose their penalty rates and overtime but get nothing in return?

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

I did not think question time should be a remedial class, but I think that is what it is turning into. I will try to assist the honourable senator yet again. As I indicated in the initial answer, workers are not deprived of their entitlements; it is their choice as to whether or not they have an Australian workplace agreement. In the circumstances of an Australian workplace agreement, as the Commonwealth Bank itself has said, the workers get a higher salary, so they do get paid more. I repeated that a number of times against the interjections of the Australian Labor Party. The chances are that Senator Marshall, who sits on the back row—where he belongs—did not hear that.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

Order! Senators on my left will come to order. There is too much noise in the chamber.

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

The reality is that workers on AWAs enjoy a higher salary, and that is something Labor never wants to hear. (Time expired)