Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a bigger than normal week in the Senate. We have heard government senators speak, and each one who stands up does so with hubris. We have heard it from senators in this Wednesday lunchtime debate. The way in which the government are treating the Fair Work Bill 2008 is a disgrace. They are treating this bill as sheer victory, as a vindication of all their time, trouble and obedience to Australia’s trade unions.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It just comes back to that. Government senators have shown hubris as they have stood up, and no less a person than Senator Sterle condescendingly threw an aside and said, ‘Well, there are some good employers.’ The truth of the matter is that this has nothing to do with employer-employee relationships. The bill we have been debating today, and will be debating all week and next week, with the Orwellian title ‘Fair Work Bill 2008’, has very little to do with the employer-employee relationships. The bill has absolutely nothing to do with the flexibility and honesty of those relationships, the personal relationships that are struck up in the workplace, but everything to do with the return of union power.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Many on the other side cannot see it, but some can. For those who can see, this is nothing but a return to union power that will cost jobs. That is a fact. We are at a time when jobs are being shed because of the economic crisis, and here we have a piece of legislation that is that big and that thick and it will accelerate the process and make it worse. Those on the other side who cannot see it never will see it because they just take their instructions from the union movement. There are some, like Senator Sherry, who has been persistently interjecting during my speech, who can see it quite well, who can see that jobs will be shed because the flexibility in the workplace will no longer be there, because of the compulsory arbitration being introduced in this bill and because of the pattern bargaining effect this bill will have.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry knows that all those elements being reintroduced into the workplace are going to cost jobs. He knows it only too well, and some others over there do too. But the point is that they do not have the power to change it and they do not care. They do not care about jobs. They have been long enough in government, as we were long enough in government, to know that all decisions in government funnel to one point—that is, the welfare and benefit of Australians, and that begins with a job.

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

You want to talk about jobs; we supported you in your job!

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly—the Leader of the Government in the Senate also interjects. He admits that all decisions in government funnel to one point—that is, getting a job. Yet this bill is anti jobs and, what is more, they know it. The government know that it reduces flexibility and they know that it reduces employability, let alone privacy. The privacy of employees is being invaded by unions. How is that, Senator Sherry? The right of entry is now open slather for any union, not just the union that may oversee that workplace. Any union can now march in. Worse than that, unions will have access to any employee records held by the employer. The unions can just go to those records whether the person is a union member or not. That is the sort of advancement we have in this bill. That was not the mandate from the Australian people. We have Ms Gillard on record as saying that the right of entry rules will not be changed and that the right of access to records will not be changed from what it was under the previous government. But that has all been turned upside down. It is as fake as the Prime Minister saying that he is an economic conservative. He now rails against economic conservatism, which must be a great relief to Senator Carr and Senator Cameron because they could not have kept up the pretence any longer. For those two particularly, this idea that the Labor Party is economically conservative was really too much to take. So there we have it, to their great relief: the other side are not economic conservatives. Much to everyone’s surprise they are not economic conservatives after all, and they have not kept their word on the so-called Fair Work Bill. Everything they went to the election with is not what it is in this bill. The poor aspect of it, the cruel effect upon their own workers, is the fact that jobs will be lost, in greater numbers than is already occurring.

How can the so-called Labor Party, which began under the ‘Tree of Knowledge’, as they try to sell it, and which I should add is but a dead stump today—it began with the shearers—say that they are all for the workers? Let us consider why it would be that the Labor Party are introducing a bill that they know will accelerate the already frightening unemployment figures. There is only one reason: they are dominated by the unions, who themselves profess to be for the workers but we know they are not. They are for themselves. So this is an exercise in paying back the unions. This is a bill that has gone too far beyond its mandate, and it is going to cost jobs for one reason—because everyone across there has to belong to a union. They are told. They have no sense of their own personal freedom, as we have over here. What sort of sense is that? You are told which union to belong to. You are told what legislation to introduce. If you were given $65 million by the unions—$65 million in third-party advertising, if you like—and individually $9.2 million was given directly to the Labor Party in campaign funds, you are in debt. You are in debt to the unions and this bill is the payback.