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

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer the minister to false claims being made that the Howard government’s workplace laws do not provide a strong safety net for Australian workers and their families. Is the minister aware of any evidence which contradicts these false claims? Further, what is the minister’s response to claims that any worker can be sacked at any time on the pretext of operational reasons?

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

I thank the intellectually robust Senator Fifield for his question. The fact is that Australian workers today have a very strong safety net, a safety net which I venture to say is stronger than at any time in our history. Under the workplace relations system, we have legislated minimum conditions which cannot be traded away. Under the fairness test, conditions cannot be traded unless there is fair compensation. And all this is enforced by a strong, independent policeman: the Workplace Ombudsman.

Last week, the ombudsman secured a successful prosecution and a massive record fine against a business that broke the law by trying to force employees to sign AWAs against the law. Yesterday we saw the ombudsman advise a company that their proposed AWAs failed the fairness test and would have to be corrected. Today, as a result of a Workplace Ombudsman prosecution, another company was fined almost $25,000 for pressuring a worker to sign an AWA. Despite this overwhelming success, the Labor Party will abolish the Workplace Ombudsman and leave these workers unprotected.

I was also asked by Senator Fifield about claims being made by those opposite and by their union masters about dismissal for operational reasons being an open book for employers. Here is what one of those misleading ACTU ads says about someone losing their job: ‘They said it was for operational reasons. Two weeks later they advertised my job for $25,000 less.’ This case is still before the commission, so I cannot comment on the specifics—although I note that the ACTU ad pre-empts the outcome. But can I advise the Senate that the law is this: you cannot dismiss someone for operational reasons unless you can prove that your business is facing financial crisis if you keep the person on.

Today another case of an alleged unfair dismissal was brought to my attention. It is about an employee taking action over an alleged unfair dismissal by her heartless boss. The boss says her redundancy was the result of a ‘genuine business decision’—in other words, it was an operational reason. He also said that the employee was made redundant because the business wanted to outsource some of its services to Victoria. ‘We would be getting a lot more for considerably less outlay,’ he said. This boss is a trade union boss, and the employer I was referring to was, in fact, a trade union—and guess which trade union it was. It was the Community and Public Sector Union. If I am not mistaken, that is the trade union to which Mr Rudd, the would-be Prime Minister of this country, belongs. So, once again, we have a classic case of the Labor Party and the trade union movement saying, ‘Do as we say, not as we do.’ When you expose the activities of the trade union movement and how heartless they are with their employees, you realise the cant that is involved in the ACTU and its advertisements. (Time expired)