Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Senator Abetz. Can the minister provide the Senate with an update on enterprise bargaining in the Australian Public Service? And is the minister aware of any misleading claims about the process?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for the question. Enterprise bargaining in the Australian Public Service is progressing at an agency level, as required by the Australian government public sector workplace bargaining policy. So far, 65 agencies, covering about 76 per cent of the workforce, have commenced enterprise bargaining.

In relation to misleading claims, I can regrettably inform Senator Smith and the Senate that the Community and Public Sector Union has been falsely claiming that the government is stripping public servants' rights and conditions. This is incorrect. The government's bargaining policy simply aims for less complex enterprise agreements that do not repeat rights, conditions and responsibilities already provided for in legislation or elsewhere. Entitlements conferred by law, such as in the Fair Work Act or workplace health and safety legislation, apply to employees regardless of whether they are uselessly repeated in an enterprise agreement.

For example, the CPSU claims that the government wants to cut public servants' super when the contribution rate is actually set by the trustee, a legislative instrument subject to parliamentary scrutiny. Duplicative content recently inserted into enterprise agreements pretending to fix a certain superannuation contribution rate cannot legally constrain the rate contained in Public Service superannuation law, yet the CPSU continues to deliberately misrepresent the reality and ignore the government's stated position that the rate will not change. This is just scaremongering by the CPSU and, what is more, public servants know it.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate whether the government has any further advice for the Community and Public Sector Union?

Senator Lines interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left! Senator Lines.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes I do, Senator Smith. The CPSU's grandstanding recently prevented the human services department offering employees pay rises from a pool of funds that is now no longer available. The CPSU should cease its scaremongering and posturing and instead help its members negotiate what small productivity backed increases are possible, given the mess left by the former Labor government. It should abandon its unaffordable four per cent per annum or 12 per cent pay claim, which will cost at least 10,000 jobs and which will be most severe in cash-strapped agencies like the Australian Crime Commission, which is having difficulty offering any increases without cutting jobs. The CPSU should also remind its members that, over the last decade, median public service wage rises outstripped CPI increases by 14 per cent.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Senate whether he intends meeting with the CPSU to discuss its concerns about bargaining?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last November, I addressed the CPSU national governing council and indicated that I was always willing to engage in constructive dialogue with union representatives and would look forward to the use of telephones, email and meetings, rather than megaphones. Sadly, this has not occurred. Recently the CPSU sought a meeting with me to discuss their concerns with bargaining—largely, the government's supposed stripping of rights such as superannuation. While my door will always be open to stakeholders with genuine concerns, I am reluctant to acquiesce to a stunt meeting designed to further spurious claims about the government's bargaining policy; and also because, as the CPSU has previously been told, I am not the Commonwealth's bargaining agent. I say once again to the CPSU: stop standing between your members, their jobs and sustainable wage increases.