Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those on the other side in this chamber seem to love to demonise unions. They attack unions almost on a weekly basis, and they are not beyond attacking the CPSU, the public sector union. We also hear from the government, without any proof, that unions apparently delay enterprise bargaining, that they are slow in coming to the table, slow in considering offers put by employers and so on. It is time the government shone a spotlight on itself, because the way the government has behaved in public sector bargaining is nothing short of an employer who is trying to avoid enterprise bargaining.

The CPSU has been attempting to bargain with the government for 18 months. For 18 months the CPSU has been trying to sit down to bargain with the government in good faith. Our previous IR minister somehow tried to paint a picture that a four per cent wage claim was unrealistic. Somehow he was trying to claim it was 12 per cent in a year. There were never any real details, but the claim is four per cent a year.

More recently, we heard from the new industrial relations minister, Senator Cash, that somehow Border Force is not living in the real world. Courtesy of the government, which is acting like a bad employer, and certainly not bargaining in good faith, unprecedented industrial action is happening right across the Public Service, whether they are conservative departments that have never taken industrial action or departments that have taken industrial action before. The government has single-handedly managed to upset the whole of its Public Service—not just one department, not two departments, but the whole of its Public Service.

This week we see with Border Force, something the government is very proud of creating, that the government cannot even get that right. Border Force took a 24-hour stoppage at our airports. And what is the government's reaction to that? Well, it is just silent. Again, we have seen the minister's own industrial relations department—the experts in the game, if you like—voting overwhelmingly to reject their pitiful offer from the government, something like a one per cent increase, with a massive trade-off of hard-won conditions of employment. The minister's own expert department, its own industrial relations department, was a very early rejecter of what was on the table.

Just a couple of weeks ago we saw the Prime Minister's own department now considering industrial action. It is just unacceptable that the government cannot treat its Public Service with the respect it deserves and sit down and bargain in good faith—something they accuse the unions of doing all the time: 'Unions don't bargain in good faith.' Here we have a real, live example of the federal government being absolutely unable to bargain in good faith with their Public Service, to the tune that almost every single government department has either rejected the pay deal or taken industrial action, two of those being key departments. How embarrassing that the Prime Minister's own department is about to embark upon industrial action because the government has simply failed to sit down and make a decent pay offer to hardworking public servants.

And what is it about? They want to demonise public servants. Well, they are the heart of government. Those departments are what makes governments keep churning over. They do good work. They are highly dedicated. The public servants I see, certainly in my own team and the teams of ministers and backbenchers, no matter which side of the parliament they are on, are all hardworking. I look at the secretariat staff; I look at departments that come before us at estimates. All of those public servants are hardworking and deserve a fair go from a government that is acting like the worst employer in the nation by refusing to bargain in good faith.

Eighteen months is too long. It is time our public servants got a decent pay rise and were able to sit down with an employer who is willing to listen to them to put a decent offer on the table and stop trying to take away hard-won conditions, real conditions, such as annual leave and so on. So, lift your game, government. You are the worst employer in the land.