Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senator Ciccone today relating to workplace relations.

Senator Ciccone asked about the plight of an aged-care nurse, Ann, who has been in her profession since 1978 and who expressed her concern about the government's IR legislation, saying:

The proposed legislation doesn't make things better for us and our residents. It makes it so much worse. And to be honest, I don't think I can handle any more cuts.

Prime Minister Morrison and Minister Porter have made it clear that they are only ditching their plan to scrap the better off overall test, the test in IR law—and doing so would have given employers the capacity to strike agreements that made cuts—not because they don't believe in it, not because they recognise that it's unfair, but because they can't get it through this Senate. The Labor Party is very firmly opposed to it, and, now that some discussions have taken place with the crossbench, it's very clear that there's only one motivation behind the government dropping this test, and that is that they don't have the opportunity to pass it.

Mr Porter said very clearly he still believes in the change—a change that would remove the safety net for workers and give employers vastly expanded powers to cut pay and entitlements. Minister Porter continues to say it is 'sensible and proportionate'. Nevertheless, this IR legislation, which is in the guise of 'the COVID recovery package', is really the government saying, 'We'll create rhetoric around the creation of new jobs, because we will boost company profits by cutting the wages and conditions of Australians.' So why are they retreating on this? They are retreating now for the sake of political expediency. But we cannot forget that this is their real agenda, as we have seen time and time again in this place.

We can also see in what the government continues to put forward in this place that dropping the BOOT test was only part of the picture. It's certainly not the only issue. There are issues in relation to changes in rostering and hours, the conversion of pay et cetera, and moving from casual to permanent employment that are also egregiously problematic.

What does that mean for a nurse like Ann, a registered nurse for 12 years who works in aged care? As we've seen in the course of this pandemic, aged-care workers have been told that they can't work two jobs, despite the fact that they don't earn enough in their aged-care job to get by. We've seen workers have significant problems in this regard. These are the kinds of flexibilities that this government wants to continue to impose on Australian workers instead of coming up with funding reform and a package for areas like the aged-care sector.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, in their submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, said:

The impact of COVID-19 served to draw attention to the risks associated with a casualised, insecure workforce.

They highlighted that, in health and aged care, movement across work sites was an infection risk. This has been the situation for these workers for too long. COVID has only highlighted that. We've got to stop this legislation before it passes as a whole. (Time expired)

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we saw today was another classic case of the Labor Party spreading lies, fear and pessimism. There is going to be absolutely no cut to the better off test. There never was. What we wanted to do was enable businesses that are suffering under COVID to survive. If wages are going to be cut by any party—

Senator Pratt interjecting—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Pratt, you were heard in silence.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

it's going to be under the Labor Party, because the Labor Party's policy is to force casuals to take up permanent work. That's expected to cost $153 a week. That is typical of the Labor Party because they are all about command and control. Don't give the workers a choice as to whether or not they want to stay on casual conditions and earn a 25 per cent loading. 'No, we're going to tell you what to do and how to do it.' What will that do? It will reduce flexibility and, if you reduce flexibility, you're going to destroy jobs. That's what the Labor Party does.

This government has created over 1½ million jobs. We've got 80 per cent of the people who lost their jobs in the initial COVID outbreak back into work. If it weren't for the Labor state premiers shutting their borders and causing lockdowns at the drop of one or two COVID cases, we'd probably have 100 per cent of people back in work.

This is the thing with Labor. If you go and look at Labor's record, after they introduced the Fair Work Act, wage theft went up because the laws were so complicated. This wasn't just big business. This was the ABC. This was Maurice Blackburn. Maurice Blackburn, an industrial relations law firm which Senator Watt and Senator Green have both worked for, couldn't even pay their staff properly. That tells you just how complex the Fair Work Act was when it was introduced by the Rudd-Gillard government.

Let's not forget which party raised penalty rates for the retail industry. Do you know who that was? It was the Liberal-National party. Saturday rates went up from 140 per cent to 150 per cent, and loading from six to nine o'clock on weeknights went up from 130 per cent to 150 per cent. That's because we know that it's important to reward people when they're working those hard hours. I know, as a former stay-at-home dad, those hours between six and nine o'clock at night are very important when you've got children. You've got to bath them, feed them, read to them and get them to brush their teeth, and anyone who's been a parent will know how hard that is when you've got three little guys running around. So make no mistake that under the coalition, only under the coalition, we will create jobs. What we are doing with these IR changes is to actually give workers the choice so they can convert from casual to permanent. We know Senator Watt. He's been very quiet as the shadow minister for resources lately. He's not doing a very good job there. We don't see much of him at all. It is a bit like 'Where's Murray?' when it comes to supporting the coal industry and the mining industry. We will be the party actually giving workers the right, if they choose—we're not going to tell people what to do—to go permanent.

The other change that I think is a very good change is the fact that we want to make it 21 days to finalise a negotiation. I've got to admit I've had a lot of jobs over the years. Most of them have been off award. When I was a student, I worked under award conditions. I didn't need three weeks to work out my pay contract. Basically, you get a salary, you get four weeks leave, you get two weeks public holidays and you get two weeks sick leave. All of these awards are in place, so why do you need so long? Of course it's just a racket for the industrial relations lawyers to make more money, to milk employers, to milk employees and to keep everything as complex as possible so Labor can keep their IR mates in a job and basically destroy industry.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution in the debate on Senator Pratt's motion to take note of Minister Birmingham's answers with regard to industrial relations, but, first up, I want to associate myself with the comments from Senator Gallagher, which were directed to Minister Birmingham and to the Minister for Defence.

I am here to stand up for Australian workers who are, at this particular point in time, under great threat from a really dodgy piece of work in the shape of an industrial relations bill that the government is pushing. We know how dodgy it is because today, despite the denials and the comments there from Senator Rennick, the government has had to drop a big chunk of the bill, the BOOT—the better off overall test—because it became very clear in evidence given to the Senate employment committee over the last couple of weeks that what the government was proposing was going to lead to workers being worse off overall—more insecurity and cuts to wages. That is what this bill was lined up to do. If it gets through, even with the amendment, workers in this country will still be absolutely worse off.

We could tell today that Minister Birmingham, in full flight here in the chamber in question time, didn't know what his colleagues in the other chamber were doing, and the only defence he could muster was to say it's 'his intention' in this legislation, it's the 'government's intention' in this legislation, to look after workers. I can tell you what: you cannot trust the intention of this Liberal-National government. You can never ever trust its intention. And I remind Australians who might be listening to this that the road to hell is, in fact, paved with good intention, and this bill will be hellish in its outcomes for Australian workers.

Senator McDonald made a contribution here this afternoon. She was actually in Queensland, in Townsville, where our committee went to take evidence. She asked a question about what was going on with this legislation, and she got a response from Mr Bukarica, who was giving evidence about the total impact of the bill. He did agree that this omnibus bill—for those who might be listening who don't understand, it's like you get a great big bag and you chuck everything in it that you want and somewhere at the bottom you bury a tiny smartie-sized little sweetie that you think you can get away with, so one small thing that might be good that you can hang on to while the rest of it is totally doing over the Australian workforce—'has a range of measures'. He was trying to be honest—a unionist saying, 'Not all of them are bad, but, taken as a package, the bill should be rejected.'

Well, they've jettisoned one bit today. They've jettisoned the BOOT. There's a lot more they need to get rid of. The rationale? Mr Bukarica put it very well:

I've already stated … there's a critical flaw in the bill in relation to the definition of 'casual employment'.

Let's be clear. If this government gets its way and this legislation gets through, you'll be a casual employee if your employer says you are a casual employee. There will be no clear and proper test. It's totally exploitative. It's totally exploitative of Australian workers. The only reason that this government's mentioned the definition of casual at all is because they want to stand up against workers. Through this legislation, they want to construct cuts to your pay—more insecurity for you in your work.

They have dressed up the most disgraceful little response to the concerns of people who want to become permanent. Not everybody wants to become permanent. Sometimes it's handy in your life to be a casual. We know that. We support it. But, if you want to become permanent, this government's got this little play going on where they say, 'If you want to become permanent, we're making it easier for the boss to ask you if you want to be permanent.' Except they're not letting you know that if the boss changes your shift any time in the last six months, over a period of 12 months, that means they do not have to ask you. The government have given the whistle to the captain of the opposite team and removed the umpire. That's what they've done. That's how rigged against the workers this government's construction of this legislation is.

We are fighting tooth and nail against this omnibus bill, for the Australian small businesses and workers. We will continue to fight day in and day out. The BOOT's gone. We need to stick the boot into the rest of it and get rid of this disgraceful piece of legislation that is full of government intention—mal-intention—for Australian workers.

Question agreed to.