John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) 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 workplace laws, the Commonwealth Bank has the choice to offer all new employees AWAs that scrap 46 existing conditions, including rostered days off, overtime pay, shift allowances, penalty rates and leave loading? Isn’t it also the case that the employer has the choice of not offering any guarantee of a pay rise over the five-year life of the AWA to offset those lost conditions? Can the minister confirm that, under the government’s workplace laws, new Commonwealth Bank employees only have the choice to accept the AWA or not get the job?

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

You can tell that the Australian Labor Party are running out of questions, because I was asked an identical question on that yesterday. I will remind honourable senators opposite of what I informed them yesterday: that the Commonwealth Bank has in fact been offering AWAs—

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

Mr President, on a point of order: the minister has clearly misunderstood the question. It referred to new employees, so I suggest that he not read the answer to yesterday’s question but try to answer the senator’s question, which referred to new employees.

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

Minister, I ask you to return to the question and I remind you of it.

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

I think the Labor Party are getting somewhat desperate with their points of order. I was hardly a few seconds into your answer. If you want to talk about AWAs with the Commonwealth Bank, it is important to put it into context that they have been offering AWAs since 1997—for a period of about nine years. Under AWAs, the Commonwealth Bank has said that staff on AWAs get a higher salary and that they also choose not to have overtime or rostered days or some of the other award based allowances. They are getting remuneration in place of some of the allowances they previously received. That is what Work Choices is about: it is about choices. So, as the Commonwealth Bank indicated yesterday, workers at the Commonwealth Bank can determine that they have the capacity to make that choice.

In the past, with the Australian Labor Party, when a person applied for a job the employee was told, ‘You sign up to the conditions of the award; take it or leave it.’ They never complained when an employer had the capacity to say that to a worker. But they hate it when the Commonwealth Bank and the worker sit down together and work out an Australian workplace agreement.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

That is something that those opposite do not want to hear about, and that is why we have this cacophony of interjections. No matter how much they interject, it will not make up for the appalling turnout, because the workers of Australia actually know what AWAs mean. The leader of the Labor Party’s state of Western Australia has the highest rate of take-up of AWAs in this country. Guess where the highest approval rating of AWAs in this country is? In Western Australia. So, as people are experiencing AWAs, as people see the benefits of AWAs, they are taking them up and the community is accepting them.

So, despite all the fear, all the hysteria, all the attempts by those opposite—even wearing their pathetic little lapel badges in question time today—to whip up some sort of community activity, the community stayed away in droves today because they do not believe the campaign, they do not believe what is being so mischievously peddled around the community. The 200,000 people that have got jobs as a result of Work Choices actually know the reality. And the mums and dads and brothers and sisters of those people know the reality, and that is why they support these changes.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The minister failed to answer that part of my question which went to the issue of the employer not having to give a choice in offering a guarantee of a pay rise over the five-year life of the AWA to offset those lost conditions that I outlined in the first part of the question. In addition to any pay rise being at the discretion of the employer, under the Commonwealth Bank AWA, isn’t it true that paid parental leave is also a matter entirely for the employer to decide? Can the minister also confirm that the Commonwealth Bank employees the minister says are already on AWAs signed their agreements with the protection of the no disadvantage test? Hasn’t the government scrapped that protection for employees, opening the door to agreements that wipe out existing conditions and offer nothing in return?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators—Yes.

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

The short answer is yes.

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

No. The short answer is in fact no, because the no disadvantage test was replaced by the five guaranteed minima which we legislated for. We legislated basic minima. For the first time ever, workers have a legislative guarantee and protection, which they did not have before. It is a pathetic academic argument to try to say the no disadvantage test was removed. That is true but, as is always the case with the Labor Party, they only tell half the truth, because the other half of the equation is that we legislated minimum guarantees for workers to ensure that protection. That is why the workers of Australia support us and believe that the Howard government is the friend of the worker.