Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Wong. Will the minister guarantee that no individual Australian worker will be worse off under Labor’s industrial relations proposals?

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you what I can guarantee, Senator, through you, Mr President. That is, workers under our system will not be subjected to the wage stripping, condition stripping Australian workplace agreements that those opposite put through whilst in government. I can guarantee that this government will proceed with its policies to implement the abolition of AWAs and the abolition of Work Choices.

So the real question is: what will the position of those opposite be? Yet again, we see that the coalition is not clear about what its policies are. The coalition is all over the shop, divided and disunited because they do not know what they believe in anymore. What they do believe in is trying to get political support.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. The level of decibels emanating from the minister bears no relationship to relevance. I would invite you to remind the minister of what the question was and ask her to remain relevant to it.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order to note that the senator who took the point of order talked about decibels. Most of the decibels I believe are coming from his side of the chamber.

Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner, that is not a point of order, as you well know. Senator Abetz, Senator Wong has been replying to the question for just one of her four minutes and I am sure that she is about to come to the thrust of the question.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, what I can guarantee is that this government will proceed with its election commitments to abolish Australian workplace agreements and it will be a question for the opposition in this chamber when those issues are debated—I understand it will be next week—as to what they do. Are they going to hold fast to Work Choices or are they going to sell out because they actually believe the Australian people have rejected it?

It is instructive, given that the senator has talked about workers being worse off, to consider just what the impact of the Australian workplace agreements was on Australian workers and their families.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Full employment!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go; we have Senator Macdonald interjecting, again justifying the Howard government’s condition- and wage-stripping AWAs. It simply reminds us that those opposite are all at sea when it comes to industrial relations. What we know is that data released in May 2006 showed that employees were losing their core conditions at astonishing rates: 64 per cent of agreements cut annual leave loading, 63 per cent cut penalty rates, 52 per cent cut shift work loadings, 51 per cent cut overtime loadings, 48 per cent cut monetary allowances and 46 per cent cut public holiday pay. In fact, in April 2007 it was revealed that 75 per cent of agreements cut shift work loadings, 68 per cent cut penalty rates, 57 per cent cut monetary allowance and 52 per cent cut public holiday pay. I do want to emphasise this, and I can go on as there are a lot of statistics about what occurred under your regime.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr President, it is clear that those opposite presided over a regime where a great many employees were significantly worse off, substantially worse off.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It substantially increased real wages and employment!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They cannot bear now to let go of that legacy, as the interjection from the Leader of the Opposition demonstrates, but the reality is that the system that we will put forward will provide a far fairer system, a system where workers will not have their wages and conditions stripped—unlike that which was provided under the previous government.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left! I cannot hear the question.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that the minister has failed to provide that guarantee to individual Australian workers, the very same guarantee that Labor sought from the former coalition government about its workplace relations reforms. Given that the minister cannot provide a guarantee that no individual Australian worker will be worse off under Labor’s laws, does the minister agree with concessions reported today and made by her Labor Senate colleagues Senator Gavin Marshall and Senator George Campbell that Australian workers will be worse off under Labor’s workplace relations proposals? Mr President, I seek leave to table the articles.

Leave not granted.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I make two points. Firstly, I would invite honourable senators, if they have not done so, to look at the reports in relation to the comments by Senators Marshall and Campbell. Secondly, I can assure the Senate that we on this side are quite happy to have full and frank exchanges in Senate committee processes—unlike the previous government when they rammed through the Work Choices legislation, as those of us who were here will recall. I also want to make this point: under the system of the previous government, between May and June 2007 a sample of 670 AWAs showed that half of them were between $50 and $199 a week below the required rate. That was allowed; that was perfectly legal under the system that you implemented when in government.