Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure, Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. What we have before us today is a bill that in the very short time which we have had to examine it as the Senate, has been exposed as an absolute shambles. Those on the other side don't seem to understand that governments do not create jobs. Employers do. Businesses do. Industry does. What governments do is put in place frameworks under which employers have to operate.

In relation to the bill that we currently have before us, let's look at what the job creators of Australia have to say. As at 27 November—all of two days ago—this is what the Australian Industry Group had to say:

The late night deal between Senator Pocock and the Federal Government means Australian industry now faces an industrial relations system riddled with conflict, complexity and uncertainty.

The deal as it stands does not remove the core concerns for industry …

…   …   …

We now face the prospect of more strikes and fewer jobs. There has been no modelling on any economic benefit of the legislation, only the vague hope that employers with an industrial gun to their head will pay more and somehow not pass costs onto consumers or reduce their headcount.

Let's now look at what the other job creator, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in relation to this bill but two days ago:

Unfortunately, this Bill still puts Australian jobs and businesses at risk. It is fundamentally flawed and simply cannot be improved through the amendments that are now proposed. In our view it is not fit for passage.

The Minerals Council of Australia said:

The Minerals Council of Australia remains concerned that Government's proposed amendments to the Secure Jobs, Better Pay legislation … do not go far enough in addressing industry concerns about the unintended impact of the bill.

The Business Council of Australia had this to say:

This is a huge economic risk and there is no evidence multi-employer bargaining will lift wages. In fact, we remain concerned that this fundamentally flawed bill could make things much worse.

…   …   …

At a time of global economic uncertainty, skyrocketing inflation and a global cost of living crisis, Australia has almost full employment and wages are beginning to strengthen, why are we taking this risk?

Peter Strong, formerly of the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, said:

One of Labor's election promises for small business—now a broken promise—was to 'draw on Labor's history of working with unions, workers and industry to deliver better outcomes with settings that are simpler, more accessible, and fair'. The opposite of that is happening.

What we have is a bill. We have said what the job creators of this country think about it. That is what the job creators of this country think about Labor's extreme industrial relations legislation.

Let's now contrast that with what John Setka, the head of the most militant union in Australia, the CFMMEU, has to say about the bill.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What did he say?

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is what he said, Senator Scarr, as reported in the Australian newspaper:

Writing recently to members, the union's Victorian secretary John Setka … said he was 'impressed' by Burke's move to scrap the ABCC and the building code.

'Without going the early crow, I'm hoping that this government is going to be different (from the Rudd-Gillard governments) and from what I've seen so far I'm quietly confident,' Setka wrote.

'Our next EBA negotiations are now not going to be restricted to shit clauses and we will have the power to go after the non-union sites …'

There we have it. At least Mr Setka, the head of the most militant union in Australia, who is about to be handed back the building and construction industry on a silver platter, is being honest, unlike Mr Burke and Mr Albanese, who refuse to listen to those people who represent the employers in Australia and who say this bill will not have the effect that the Australian Labor Party says it will.

It gets worse the more we discover about this bill and how it was formulated. It has actually gone from completely absurd to a complete farce. Why do I say that? Let's look at the discoveries in relation to the costs that are going to be imposed on businesses: the bargaining tax that is Mr Albanese and the Australian Labor Party's Christmas present to the employers of Australia. The costs were revealed quite recently in this bill's regulation impact statement. We've learnt that the bargaining costs this government's radical shake-up of the industrial relations system will impose on small businesses is a Christmas present of $14½ thousand or thereabouts. For medium businesses. let's not forget that the cost that was included in the regulation impact statement is actually not the correct cost, because they made a mistake in the calculation.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Couldn't do the math!

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They said it was—they couldn't do the math—around $75,000. We now know it's actually $80,000, and for large businesses it's $94,000. But it gets better. The contempt that the Albanese government has for job creators in this country was on display in the exposure that there is a $5,000 error in the costs that were calculated for medium-sized businesses. That cost is now $5,000 higher. It is an $80,000 bargaining tax when they are roped into multi-employer bargaining. But it gets worse, because what did the Minister for Small Business actually call this mistake? She said it was essentially a typo. Quite frankly, that could only come from a minister representing the Australian Labor Party. Why do I say that? Because blind Freddie can tell you that $5,000 is not a typo when it is an increased cost that is going to be borne by the job creators of this country, by any business currently above 15 employees. So for a business with 16 employees—say, a cafe in Sydney—that's $5,000, and it's a typo? Quite frankly, that is treating those who are going to be paying the Albanese government's bargaining tax with contempt.

It gets worse. One would have thought that you couldn't get worse than a $5,000 mistake that is going to cost business, but it does get worse. When we explore how the department, working with the Australian Labor Party, the government, came up with the costs that are going to be borne by business, we find that, rather than consult—God forbid you should consult, because if you consult you get told by the job creators in this country: 'This bill will only lead to more strikes and less jobs. This bill will not have the intended effect that the Albanese government says it does.' Why bother consulting when you can actually turn to Mr Google. Footnote 70 in the regulation impact statement says the department used an article entitled, and I assume this was the Google search term, 'How much should I charge as a consultant in Australia', from a website named authentic.com.au, to calculate this cost.

Anyone from business listening into this should know that this is how the author of the article, Benjamin J Harvey, is described on the website:

A cross between business strategist, modern day spiritual healer, and self-development expert, Benjamin J Harvey is as comfortable working with Shamans to Strategists, Psychics to Sales Reps, Healers to Home Makers, Buddhists to Businessmen and Meditators to Mediators.

You have to be kidding me. That is the source the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations used, signed off by Minister Burke's office, as the relevant source to work out the costs that should be imposed on business. I asked the department, at a very quick hearing into this, what industrial relations bargaining experience any of these people have. Oops, there was none. That is the contempt that the Albanese government has for the job creators of Australia.

You thought it couldn't get worse. Well, it does. Let's go to page 42 of the regulation impact statement of Mr Burke and Anthony Albanese, our Prime Minister. It refers to an article entitled—yet another Mr Google search term—'How much do payroll services cost?' You couldn't speak to a small business, you couldn't speak to ACCI, you couldn't speak to Ai Group, you couldn't speak to COSBOA. Why would you do that? Because you might be told what it really costs, as opposed to what the website bark.com tells you. Bark.com is an interesting website. It lists its most popular services as 'dog and pet grooming, dog training, dog walking, life coaching, limousine hire, magicians and private investigators'. You actually cannot make this up, because this is what appears in a regulatory impact statement from the Anthony Albanese Labor government in relation to the most fundamental changes that we are making, or will be made, to our industrial relations system in decades. Instead of consulting with the job creators of this country, this government holds them in contempt and uses the Google search engine: 'How much should I charge as a consultant in Australia?' and 'How much do payroll services cost?'

And they're wrong. That is actually right, Senator Brockman, because we actually asked the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 'Could you actually tell us what a more realistic cost is?' The department came up with $175 per hour with their little Google search. ACCI says, 'Using the government’s own methodology, but with a far more accurate minimum market rate of $438 per hour'!

Let's now look at what the government doesn't want businesses in Australia to know, because guess what? Your bargaining tax that's about to be imposed on you by Mr Albanese has just increased—between $19,574 and $23,684 for a small business, between $107,344 and $129,880 for a medium business and between $126,307 and $152,824 for a large business. These are significant costs. These are significant costs that this appalling bill will impose on businesses of this country.

There's a reason the government didn't consult. It's because this legislation is all about creating conflict in workplaces, stopping businesses from negotiating pay and conditions with their own employees and basically handing over decision-making to a centralised umpire. Labor have made it very clear in this bill that they want to hand over Australian workplaces to unions, including small and family businesses. Employers have said multi-employer bargaining will dramatically increase the number of strikes across the economy.

We all want higher wages, but there is no evidence because there has not been any modelling done in relation to this bill that the reforms will deliver higher wages. In fact, when Senator Pocock was asked, 'Did the government, in doing the deal with you, guarantee that wages would increase?', Senator Pocock had to say that there is no guarantee that wages will increase. So, in other words, based on all the comments from employers, the evidence is the opposite. The evidence from the government is: no modelling has been done.

I put to the department: Whose wages will increase? They couldn't tell me. When will wages start to increase? They couldn't tell me. And by how much will wages start to increase? Again, they couldn't tell me. When the job creators of this country stand united and say to the Prime Minister that this bill will only lead to more strikes and job losses, it will allow unions into small business—and they have never had to deal with unions before—it will potentially hold up wage rises because of increased complexity and delays, it will undermine competition so Australians have fewer choices but face higher costs, it will force up prices and increase the cost of living and it will unfairly target small businesses because they do not have the resources to deal with this type of legislation you'd actually think you'd quietly pull the legislation and listen to the job creators of this country. But that's not what the Labor government does.

Time is short, unfortunately. I would like to talk about the fact that also in this bill I feel very sorry for the construction industry, because they will shortly be handed, on the silver platter, back to John Setka and the most militant union in Australia.

The government ignores all businesses. Why? Because it's not about the job creators of this country. Quite frankly, it is only about the Albanese Labor government repaying their union pay masters. All I can say is shame on them.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. There is much to like in this bill. It helps to deal with some of our big work challenges. It makes a good start, and there is more to do. We've heard a lot about how the sky will fall if this bill is passed. This is the world spruiked by those opposite, as we just heard, and on the front page of the Australianthe world of backward-looking employer organisations and old-time IR club warriors fighting the workplace battles of last century. It is a world of opponents of reform, of hired advocates and consultants singing from very old song sheets, spruiking alarmism about the catastrophe of multi-enterprise bargaining and the imminent collapse of small business. This mob are re-running the IR debate of 30 years ago, and their lines are tired.

Out there in the real world of work, things are different. The issues are not strike action or enterprise bargaining. The issues are: 'Who will look after my kids tomorrow while I go to work? What hours have I got next week? If I knock back this shift, will I ever get another one? And how will I pay for child care or rent if I don't get a pay rise?' So many Australian businesses right now cannot find the workers they need because those workers cannot get the child care or the flexibility they need. If the roads that get us to work every day were failing like this, keeping people away from work, a national emergency would be declared. We'd have a critical road-to-work infrastructure program, worth billions, very fast.

The failures of our work system are a failure of critical infrastructure and a failure of outdated labour law. Yet, led by the opponents of this bill, our shouty, blokey, labour law debate—if we can dignify it with that title—is awash with alarm about the possibility of horrors like more collective bargaining. We need reform of our labour law, but it needs to leave behind the tired old preoccupations and myths of business collapse and instead recognise the reality of work now.

We are not in 1950. We do not have a wife at home. We are in a different world, where half of workers are women—most of them carers; where a third of workers are insecurely employed; where only 13 per cent of workers are covered by enterprise agreements; where union density is now at 14 per cent; where our underinvestment in the infrastructure of work, like child care, has created a workforce shortage crisis; where undervaluation of jobs in the care economy means early childhood educators, teachers, nurses and aged-care workers are voting with their feet and leaving jobs they love; and where so many workers have no say over their rosters and have to choose between care for their kids and getting a pay packet.

Australia's workplace relations system is broken. It is built for the workplace and workers of the last century, not this one. It is built for someone who can work a standard working week when our lives are no longer standard. It is not the 1950s. It is not even the 1980s. Most of us hold down a job over our life cycle and have kids who need our support, as any parent who has parented a teenager knows, not for a few years but for decades. In an ageing population we have older parents and friends who also need our care.

We need a labour law that has our back as we put together our jobs and our care. We need a labour law that does not make insecurity the absence of paid holidays or sick leave, and low pay and unpredictable working time the price of being a mother or a father. We need a labour law that does not reward a lifetime of working and caring with an old age of poverty. We need to ensure that the paid workers who do the work in our care system, in early childhood education and care, aged care, respite care and disability care—the people who enable so many others to get to work—are paid decently, with jobs that enable them to both work and care.

Our IR system needs a complete reset. It is not fit for purpose. Australian workers are enduring real wage falls despite historic profit levels. Too many are working casually—25 per cent of our workforce, young people, women, migrants. Too many workers are on a perpetual cycle of limited-term contracts that get rolled over every year or every few months with no pay certainty and no career.

The gig economy is growing very fast. It's now over 250,000 workers with no job security, no access to safe work and no predictability in terms of pay and hours. As things stand in Australia, our army of five million working carers, most of us over our life course, and 40 per cent of all workers that work on any day of the week in Australia are contorting themselves around outdated labour law unsuited to the world out there.

In too many workplaces wage theft is real. It is robbery. It needs to be outlawed with a criminal penalty. Unpaid overtime is common. The average Australian now works six weeks of unpaid extra hours every year. Our workplace is now on the phone, in our handbag or in our back pocket, and it's in vigorous competition with the rest of our lives, especially if we have to stay sweet with the boss to keep our shifts or to get a promotion. A right to disconnect from work when the paid hours that we are paid to do are finished is a remote possibility but a real need for so many Australians.

New technologies that promised freedom and a shorter working week have instead tethered too many workers to their phones and their laptops, extending the length of the working week but without pay. A proud nation that led the world on shortening the working week in 1856 with the eight-hour day is now going the wrong way, with long hours for many and no sign of the four-day week promised by new technology and productivity increases.

The productivity gains of recent years have flown straight to profits, with a wages system which has made it too hard for workers to bargain collectively to get a pay rise—unless, of course, you happen to be in the executive class where wages have accelerated obscenely in recent years, leaving ordinary Australian workers far, far behind.

When the Keating Labor government introduced enterprise bargaining in 1991 with the accord mark VII, many women, including myself, said it would not work for women, it would not work for the low paid and it would not work for whole industries that had no elaborate working conditions or lengthy classification structures to compress or trade-off for a pay rise, and so it has proved. It was an enterprise bargaining system that suited more powerful workers and male dominated industries, but it failed women, it failed the low paid and it failed young people. Thirty years on it has run its course. We have reaped what the Keating Labor government sewed, along with the fruit of successful Liberal government workplace reforms that have stripped back working conditions, accelerated an epidemic of job insecurity, seen real wages fall and stalled the gender pay gap.

This system, with its failed regulation piled on failed regulation, has now failed most workers. It is rife with secrecy about pay. It has seen the introduction of repressive anti-union machinery, like the ABCC and the ROC, built to create a punitive anti-union regime that stops unionists from doing their jobs and stops workers from being able to join their unions.

In my state, South Australia, only five per cent of workers are now covered by collective agreements. Most Australian workers have to wait for a national minimum wage increase to get a pay rise and they are falling behind. We need a return to a more collective arrangement that sets decent liveable wages and conditions, not a bare minimum that leaves too many in working poverty. We need to make it easier for undervalued occupations, women's jobs like childhood educators, to get better pay that recognises their skills and their experience.

Too many workers now cannot predict their rosters of work—not next week, not tomorrow. They are nervous about refusing a shift or about asking for flexibility. Their employers can put them on minimum hour contracts of, say, 10 hours and then every week give them an extra 15 hours without any penalty rates for their extra time, and no guarantee they can truly rely on those hours into the future. How can they organise care for their kids or a housing loan? Roster injustice is rife in our workplaces and it must be fixed.

We Greens have pushed hard from the very beginning of this process of reform to get some long-standing Greens' policies reflected in labour law. I'm pleased that Labor heard us and built some of them in. This bill will help lift the pay of the lowest paid. With new Fair Work Commission objects of job security and gender equality, and new panels, the commission can more easily act to revalue care jobs that are underpaid. It removes the anti-union devices of the ABCC and the ROC. It takes step to abolish endless limited-term contracts. Most importantly, we have worked very hard to ensure that the better off overall test continues to protect workers; that no-one falls through any cracks in the BOOT; that it protects the most disadvantaged, including retail and hospital workers, indeed all workers.

The bill puts an end to corrosive pay secrecy—the enemy of fairness and of gender pay equity—and it offers improved prevention of sexual harassment and better prevention of discrimination around breastfeeding and gender identity. Importantly, the bill, with our amendments, fixes the anomaly that left just two of the 11 National Employment Standards—the right to request flexibility or to ask for an extension of unpaid parental leave—without any enforcement mechanism. What do you call a labour law without enforcement? A failed gesture.

We have the evidence on this. Around five in 10 Australian workers would like to ask their bosses for flexibility, and around two in 10 do ask, and they get what they want. There are a further three in 10 who would like to ask and who don't. They are fearful about the culture in their workplace and the stigma that will arise from asking. The existing unenforced right to request flexibility made no difference to that statistic. This bill fixes that, and it has long been Greens policy. We know that Australian workers need this flexibility, and they need more.

So we will move amendments to widen eligibility for the right to request flexibility. This right should be available to all employees, not just those with narrowly defined family responsibilities. It is only when seeking flexibility is something that is available to all that the stigma will be removed from asking for it, and we will see more men seeking flexibility and, hopefully, sharing domestic and care responsibilities as a result. Wider eligibility for flexibility has been adopted in the UK on clear evidence about its value, and guess what? The sky has not fallen.

We will also move amendments to establish a positive duty in favour of creating flexible workplaces in Australia. A modern workplace should create an environment that actively anticipates the needs of workers and doesn't require individuals to have to push for it, one by one.

We will move an amendment that allows the Fair Work Commission to deal with employers who unfairly deny a request for an extension of unpaid parental leave. This will support parents in taking the time they need to care for their child. It's an important step forward alongside other important steps, like an increase in paid parental leave.

We will also move an amendment to increase the minimum wage to ensure that all workers have a meaningful living wage. Our amendment aims to establish a new minimum wage, at 60 per cent of the median wage. This is based on international best practice. It will lift the minimum wage—so important in the current cost-of-living crisis.

Australian workers need improved workplace laws, laws that deal with 21st-century life and work. The job of reform is not over. There is more to do. The Greens want to see all workers get paid sick leave and holiday leave. The pandemic has shown us how important sick leave is, and anyone who works for a year, whether casual or permanent, should get a chance for rest and recuperation. New Zealand has done this; we should do it too.

We also need to see improved job security. Casual work should not be endemic. It should only exist where work is genuinely casual, intermittent or seasonal. We must protect the rights of gig workers, we must criminalise wage theft and we should improve roster justice. Workers need a right to disconnect from the technologies which tie them to work when their paid hours are done. They should not be doing six weeks unpaid work every year.

We've made an important start on reforming Australia's labour law to make it fit for the current century and the kinds of workers that are at work in our workforce. It's an important and valuable set of changes. We'll be back. We want to see real change on other pressing work issues of our century, but this is an important, positive step to begin.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. Labor's proposed workplace changes represent the most radical shake-up of Australia's industrial relations system in decades. The Albanese government's new IR laws blatantly provide unions with the tools to show their workplace muscle. In my home state of South Australia, union demands and bullying are already rattling businesses and threatening investment and growth, particularly in the construction industry. In South Australia, the construction industry is a major employer of nearly 75,000 people. That's equivalent to 8.6 per cent of the total workforce and it contributed $8 billion to gross state product in 2021. Total construction work in 2021 in South Australia was valued at $14.5 billion, equivalent to 6.5 per cent of all construction work carried out in Australia.

This critical industry to the South Australian economy is being put at risk by this IR bill, which is turning investment and developers off financing building and infrastructure projects that employ many hundreds of South Australians. Among the developers to voice concerns is well-known Adelaide property developer Theo Maras, founder and chairman of Maras Group. He raised the risk to millions of dollars in investment and scores of jobs. His next project, the Rymill, a $27 million, 16-storey apartment complex, could be unviable amid instability and uncertainty in the sector. He isn't anti-union, but has said that a lower-cost state, such as South Australia, cannot compete with the eastern state wages and conditions as demanded by the CFMMEU.

Already, the CFMMEU is spending tens of thousands of their members' money to wrap an Adelaide tram completely in the CFMMEU slogan, 'A union of opportunity'. Their membership drive is up and running absolutely in South Australia. Trade union membership Australia-wide has been in a decades-long decline; it stands at 14 per cent nationally and 14.1 per cent in South Australia, as outlined in the latest ABS stats. We heard in Senate estimates that union membership will likely rise with the passing of this bill. Labor says that they stand for regulation, transparency and women, but not, it seems, when it relates to its union paymasters.

Recently, in the Senate Education and Employment Committee, a union aligned think tank organisation, Per Capita, told us that it draws the line at accepting donations from the CFMMEU because of its treatment of women. And yet Labor dances with them when it suits. Let me demonstrate the hypocrisy: during the SA state election, the Labor Party accepted and then later returned a donation of some $125,000 from the CFMMEU. This is bad for the economy. Master Builders SA has outlined that workers were being intimidated to join the CFMMEU, while builders were being pressured to agree to pay deals that could send them broke.

Business SA, the Australian Industry Group, the Motor Industry Association SA/NT, the SA Wine Industry Association and the Australian Hotels Association have raised concerns over this legislation. Business told those opposite their concerns and yet they were ignored. At a time when businesses are struggling with staff shortages and rapidly increasing power costs, this is yet another impost. There is nothing in the government's plan for the cost of living for Australians, let alone for businesses that employ them. Multi-employer bargaining will force employers to bargain with other businesses, who may even be competitors because they are deemed to be of common interest or reasonably comparable. We heard some outrageous examples of the potential to be caught by this legislation, with other businesses that might seemingly be similar but which are significantly different.

We all want higher wages in Australia, but there's no evidence that the IR reforms proposed by this bill will deliver higher wages or even higher productivity. In fact, based on comments from employers—the people who employ Australians, remember, not the unions and or the government—the evidence is quite the opposite. Earlier this month in my home of Adelaide, a group of union workers launched industrial action against a South Australian based crane company, vowing not to fold until they received a pay rise and better conditions. That type of behaviour is not conducive to constructive negotiations in any responsible way. Abolishing the ABCC does not help that. It was claimed that the union rejected a 16 per cent pay rise, instead demanding a pay rise of 25 per cent. The crane service employs 78 people.

And if you think that the Senator Pocock deal doesn't make this bad build better then think again. These minor amendments will do nothing to allay the concerns of small, medium and family businesses across Australia and in my home state of South Australia. Changing the definition of a small business from one with fewer than 15 employees to one with fewer than 20 goes nowhere near far enough and still includes casuals.

The other suggested amendments are minor and have no real impact on the overall bill. But let me tell you what we understand is the impact. This bill could affect 350,000 South Australians who work in the 145,000 small businesses in South Australia. The Albanese government's own modelling shows that small and medium businesses will have to pay between $14,000 and $80,000 in bargaining costs because of these industrial relations changes. There is a basic calculation error by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in the regulatory impact statement, which means the bargaining costs for medium business will be $5,000 higher than documented. That error means that medium-size business will pay over $80,000 when roped into multi-employer bargaining, rather than the $75,148 figure quoted in the document.

We know that the Labor Party doesn't have regard for business or the jobs it creates. But surely it must have been important to get the numbers right. This bill, in the very short time we've had to examine it, has been exposed as an absolute shambles, hastily conceived, designed only for their union paymasters. The coalition senators' dissenting report is the most accurate portrayal of this bill and what it will do to Australian businesses and the people employed by them. This dissenting report recommends that the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is not passed by the Senate.

The Albanese government apologised to the Australian people for promising that industry-wide bargaining was not part of our policy before the election and then attempted to legislate it by stealth once elected. Australians deserve an apology for that. Labor speaks of equality and of supporting women back into the workforce, yet this IR bill will impact negatively, mostly on women. According to Workforce Gender Equality Agency data, women represent almost 57 per cent of the retail workforce across the nation. They account for 68 per cent of sales assistants, 75 per cent of checkout operators and cashiers, and 58 per cent of retail supervisors.

Retail told us about the likely impact of this bill. Women control 75 per cent of consumer spending, according to the Australian Retailers Association, and with their jobs gone the impact on family incomes will be dramatic and will only add to the cost-of-living pressures they are already experiencing. This is not what Australians or their employers need.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. We have no evidence that this legislation will result in more secure employment or improved wages. But it has served as a good indication of how the Albanese government will conduct itself in this parliament in the future. It will cave into union bosses and rush through bad laws that will undo years of painstaking work by the parliament to improve Australia's economic productivity. Labor may have won this year's election, but the result was definitely not a mandate for the regressive measures in this legislation. In fact, this bill goes against the only mandate that truly exists for industrial relations laws, the 2016 double-dissolution election triggered by bills to establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission. Those bills were the subject of months if not years of inquiry, debate and negotiation and were taken to the Australian people at an election.

In the last parliament, the most recent amendments to the Fair Work Act were the subject of inquiries lasting at least 3½ months.. On this occasion, however, only three weeks were given to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee to inquire into the bill. This was during budget estimates. As a result, public hearings were held at very short notice and witnesses who appeared did not even have time to make their submissions. Labor was announcing amendments to its own legislation while this inquiry was taking place. Today, following only a few days of cursory scrutiny and limited debate, this parliament seems likely to pass a poorly drafted bill with unjustified haste and no electoral mandate.

I am compelled to remind the government of something which should be obvious but which apparently escapes them: a person's wage cannot increase if they do not have a wage. That's what this rushed bill is risking. That the corrupt thugs masquerading as union bosses want this bill very badly is all the evidence we need that it's a very bad bill. They're looking forward to returning to the bad old days when they could hold businesses and economic productivity to ransom over trivial issues like a worker not being up to date with union fees. The ABCC prevented a lot of that and now we've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. It's pretty obvious this legislation is, ultimately, just a ploy to gain more union members and, therefore, more money for the Australian Labor Party. Don't think for a moment we've forgotten previous attempts by Labor governments to do this—for example, the farce that was the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal.

At one stage last week, I held out some hope that Labor would slow things down and allow the Senate due time to consider the implications of this bill and make it better. There was some hope that the really awful parts of the bill—like multi-employer bargaining, the poor definition of 'small business', the attempt to decouple productivity from wages and measures to force small business into crippling enterprise agreements they have no part in negotiating—could have been separated. But, no, Labor had to had everything passed before Christmas and successfully gambled on pressuring a rookie crossbench senator into letting it happen. Senator Pocock was only saying a few days ago that much more time was needed to review this omnibus bill, but he has rolled over for a couple of trivial and, ultimately, useless concessions.

Senator Pocock gave his word to other crossbenchers that we would stand together and demand that the more contentious parts of this bill be split from it and considered separately without undue haste. That hasn't happened. There's an article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, with Senator Pocock telling readers that he wrote 'DWYSYWD' in his rugby locker. It stands for: 'Do what you say you will do.' I'll repeat it: 'Do what you say you will do.' That wasn't the case, was it? That hasn't happened, 'Doormat' Dave's word means nothing. My chief concern—

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, Senator Hanson. Senator Bilyk.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order: I think senators need to be referred to by their title, not by nicknames put upon them by other members of the Senate.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hanson, please refer to colleagues by their correct title. Thank you.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My chief concern is that this bill is going to drive up costs for the small businesses which can least afford it. There's been no meaningful consultation with the small business sector. At a briefing on the bill last week, I was provided with a lot of detail about extensive consultations with at least 50 unions and a handful of large employer groups, like the Minerals Council. There were about 50 conversations with the unions—probably in total with about eight to 10 different union groups. Who knows? It might have been more. But the unions got through the Fair Work Commission's door rather than small business or even big business, so it was high on their agenda to hear what they had to say.

When I asked the Fair Work Commission about which small businesses they had met with, they couldn't answer me. They couldn't give me the names of them. I even asked the general manager—and everyone on the board—if they'd ever run a small business or worked in one. His answer was that he had always been a public servant—in other words, no, he had never run a business, never employed staff and had no idea what it was like.

I have run my own small businesses—plumbing, farming, food processing and, of course, my fish-and-chip shop, for 10 years, as a single parent. I also grew up in a small business for the first 16 years of my life. So small business has been part of my life for most of my life. Most of the people in this place have never run a small business or employed staff, so the fact is: you have no idea the impact that you're going to have on businesses out there. It's a two-way street, whether you're an employee or an employer. They go hand in hand.

In speaking to small businesses over the past few months, it's very clear they're struggling with the consequences of inflation as much as, if not more than, Australian households are. They are experiencing big increases in operating costs, insurance premiums, rents and government taxes or rates. So many of these small businesses have been established by owners with capital raised from credit or from mortgaging their homes, so they too are feeling the bite of rising interest rates.

This is what people have to consider. They all go out there and think, 'We should have part of the profits.' You know what? If you want part of the profits, then go and take out a loan, put yourself in mortgage up to the hilt, mortgage your home, and you can run your own small business as much as you want to, and you can get the profits. We don't live in a communist country. We live in a democratic society. This bill is just dictating what the workers should have. That's communism. That's socialism. That's what this is about. You think that one business over another business—you're tying it all in. If it's a like-minded business—and you haven't really explained that in itself. What's a like-minded business? You're saying enterprise bargaining.

If you really are serious about this, then you should look at the state and federal awards. That's what you should do. Raise the state and federal awards. You don't tell businesses, private enterprise, that they must bargain as far as everything else. It's plus, plus, plus. No-one has bothered to actually ask the question: can businesses afford it? You have never asked that question. Can businesses afford it? I'm all for the worker and the inflation rights and looking after the worker—a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. But you are pushing it from one side. This is the unions. This is about unionisation. It's about the unions getting into businesses and it's about the unions signing up more people, because you've only got about 13 or 14 per cent of Australians who are part of the unions. So that's what this is all about—nothing more than that.

The businesses are having difficulties sourcing skilled Australian workers, and their productivity is falling as a result. They're also now required to pay out up to 10 days of domestic violence leave, thanks to this government—another added cost of business. This bill does nothing about these issues and in fact places yet more costs on small businesses, which are ultimately being passed on to the consumers. We should not be pushing small businesses to take on more costs to fund enterprise bargaining. This increases inflation, not wages, and threatens jobs rather than makes them more secure.

Also missing from this debate is the fact that, if higher wages are forced upon small businesses, they will face increased payroll tax from greedy state governments. Have you considered that? Have you considered that, if you're going to increase wages on small businesses, then their payroll tax is going to go up? For what? If you had any common sense, that's what you would address. You'd actually work with the state governments to get rid of payroll tax so that the employers could employ more people without being fined with a tax. For what? Because they employ people? What a stupid tax it is. You've done absolutely nothing about that. If you had any common sense you'd deal with the payroll tax before you start telling businesses what to do. This bill should never have been introduced without a serious discussion with the states about reducing payroll tax.

One Nation cannot and will not support this bill. And why I ask the bureaucrats—wonderful bureaucrats, know everything, read it in the textbooks, learnt it from universities—come in here and start telling the ministers, who don't even know their own jobs and then start going along with everything the bureaucrats say. What should have happened with this whole thing is a sensible debate and a consultation process to understand it, because you have not proven to me that there is going to be an increase in wages. You have not proven your point here. And that's what it's all about. The mining industry should never have been tied up in this. Most of the mining industry pay above the award wages with anyone to do with this Fair Work. It's ill thought out.

You've got a rookie senator who's going to go along with you, who doesn't understand, who was not part of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, which One Nation was. For three months we debated this. In the consultation that went on we investigated, we spoke to businesses and we spoke to unions. We spoke to everyone. And now with the ABCC being abolished, the thuggery that goes on in these construction industries due to the unions. Small businesses were going under because if they didn't join the union and pay their $5,000 fee they couldn't unload the concrete and it hardened and they lost a truckload of concrete. Unions go in and commit thuggery. These building construction sites faced increased costs of about 30 per cent because of the union thuggery that was going on. That stopped under the ABCC, so it's going to be quite interesting what happens in Australia when this passes under Labor. And I wonder if some people are going to say whether they got it right or whether they got it wrong.

It frustrates me no end that the Labor Party relies on the unions for its funding and for its donations. And have a look at who's on your benches—all union reps. Most of you are from the unions. You have been part of the unions and you move up through the ranks of the unions and you all end up here in parliament. It's a great pathway for people from unions to end up in this place! It's not the union members I'm having a go at. I'm having a go at the union bosses. You're pushing this bill because of your own self-interest and your own self-gains to end up on the benches here in this place. What frustrates me is that the general populous are going to be the ones who will suffer because of this ill-thought-out bill brought before this parliament.

One Nation calls for sensible measures to address the rising costs of living and the rising costs of doing business, such as tax reform, welfare reform and especially immigration reform. We call for this legislation to be thrown out into the rubbish bin where it belongs.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no doubt that Australia is in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. For Australian households, basic costs like rent, mortgage repayments, electricity, child care and GP services are going through the roof. Whoever would have thought that Hobart would have the highest rentals in Australia?

Everyone knows that we inherited this crisis from the previous government, but now that they're in opposition they have the temerity to demand that we instantly fix the mess that they created. If the opposition continue on their current course then it raises the question: what is their plan to get wages moving again? The fact is, they have none—zilch, zero, nothing. When those opposite have abandoned any commitment to real wage growth then they have zero credibility when it comes to talking about cost-of-living pressures.

When they were in government they presided over record low wages growth. They refused to support an increase in the minimum wage for Australia's lowest paid workers. We saw an explosion under the previous government of insecure forms of work such as labour hire and contracting, even in the Public Service. Those opposite stood idly by while gig economy workers were mercilessly underpaid and exploited. Who could ever forget the former finance minister admitting that low wages were 'a deliberate economic policy'? Those opposite admitted proudly and unequivocally that they sought to keep wages low. When those opposite cry crocodile tears about the cost-of-living pressures Australian households are facing, their words ring hollow because they have zero commitment to real wage growth—absolutely none.

When enterprise bargaining is working, productivity gains are shared between business and workers. But the bargaining system is clearly broken. In the last 10 years, business profits have grown 133 per cent. And how much have wages lifted? A little over 35 per cent. So who's reaping the benefit there? After waiting 10 years for their fair share of productivity gains, workers have waited way too long for a decent pay rise. How much longer do the opposition want them to wait? Come on, give me a timeline. How much longer do you want low-paid workers to wait?

To those listening, I would say: don't be fooled by all the confected outrage from those opposite on behalf of business. They do not have a monopoly on understanding the needs of business. For the benefit of Senator Hanson: I grew up in a small-business family and I've run my own business. I've also worked as a union official and negotiated agreements on behalf of workers. As a former early childhood educator, I think I can say with authority that it is one industry where wages really need to get moving. But those opposite would be happy to deny early childhood educators a pay rise.

This is a prime example of an industry, dominated by female workers, where the importance of the work and the level of qualification needed to do the work is simply not reflected in the pay. I challenge anyone on that side to spend a week changing other people's babies' nappies in an early childhood education area. Any one of you: change other people's babies' nappies for a week, and see how much you think they should be paid. I can tell you: I know people, especially males, that gag at changing their own babies' nappies, let alone going in and changing other people's. You have no idea how the early childhood educators work—not a speck.

Educators' pay is at complete odds with the value we place on children in their care, and it shocks me. It still shocks me that the arguments workers and their unions in that industry are making are the same arguments that I put forward when I worked in the industry more than 30 years ago. We're still having the argument, and those on that side want to block those workers from getting a pay rise. You are disgusting.

As a former educator, I was pleased to hear support for the government reforms from Ms Julie Price, executive director of the Community Child Care Association. Ms Price, who represents over 750 community not-for-profit early childhood education and care centres, told the Senate inquiry into this bill that multi-employer bargaining is 'a fantastic instrument to help ensure better wages and conditions'. She said that a multi-employer agreement covering 60 early childhood education services in Victoria was of great help to small community-owned centres that 'don't necessarily have the expertise in industrial relations to be able to negotiate an agreement themselves'.

Let's not forget that bargaining has benefits for business, not just for workers. For example, agreements can have a simpler set of tailored conditions when compared to the award, and businesses can negotiate productivity improvements with their workforces. It's unfortunate that others in this place have chosen not to play a constructive role, and some have effectively dealt themselves out of any meaningful engagement on shaping the provisions of this bill.

Sadly, the opposition have such an ideological hatred of unions that they will oppose anything that might involve them, even if it's good for business. It's a kneejerk, almost Pavlovian, reaction, not one based on the consideration of good, decent public policy. If they don't support this bill, let the record show that Labor sought to address the pain of cost-of-living pressures by getting wages moving again while those opposite continued to stand in the way.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. It didn't really take long, did it, for this government to resurrect the industrial relations wars of long ago under the guise of growing wages, as we've just heard? This government has undertaken, firstly, a sham process of consultation and, secondly, an extraordinarily rushed inquiry process. Despite some very strong criticism of this bill from many sectors of the economy, the government is pushing on regardless without any modelling, with no funding and, importantly, with no election mandate. This bill will cost jobs. It's going to drive down productivity, it's going to increase costs to small business and it's going to add to inflation. There is no guarantee that it's going to grow wages.

Firstly, there's the consultation process. The government was motivated by pure ideology and displayed a blind disregard for the usual procedures and processes involved in the scrutiny of legislation that usually accompanies such a substantial piece of legislation, let alone an omnibus bill. Here it is: it's nearly 250 pages of legislation. The committee was given 22 days to undertake an inquiry. We all work here. It is our job to scrutinise legislation. I didn't mind the long days. I didn't mind the late nights. It's my job. But what about the stakeholders that needed to consider the bill? They needed to take the time to put some effort in, put their thoughts on paper, send that through to the committee and give time for the committee to have a read of it and then maybe form some questions that they could ask in an inquiry. We weren't given that chance at all.

Despite what the government spin—and we've heard plenty of it—they did not take this significant industrial relations reform to the 2022 federal election. In November last year, the then shadow Treasurer, the member for Rankin, appeared on television. I think he was on Insiders. He was asked if industry-wide bargaining was on the agenda. The Treasurer replied, 'It's not part of our policy.' Maybe the Treasurer is not in the loop on the government's industrial relations agenda, or he was answering with a real honesty back then when he knew that the real cost of such a move would be to the Australian economy. Holding a sham talkfest like the Jobs and Skills Summit so soon after the election is not a substitute for a mandate from the Australian people for the introduction of a very radical and extreme new industrial relations reform that will—have no doubt about this—devastate the Australian economy.

It was evident very early on that the depth of this bill came as a shock to many stakeholders. You only had to gauge the red-hot reaction from many sectors in the Australian economy that this bill had come like a bolt out of the blue. Some vague references about low-paid workers and female dominated sectors of the economy at the Jobs and Skills Summit are no substitute for consultation and no substitute for a mandate. They didn't demonstrate industry-wide consultation. Back on election night—sadly, and we're still living with that—when the now Prime Minister spoke about conciliation, seeking a common purpose and promoting unity, I don't think many people thought that we'd see a bill like this.

Then we were given a time frame, as I discussed. Twenty-two days this committee was given. That's 22 days to consider such a comprehensive, significant bill that is overhauling the industrial relations system. I remember that we had a couple of bills in the last parliament that pale into insignificance in terms of their complexity. I was on the Education and Employment Legislation Committee at that time. We had four months. That lot over there were complaining that we only went to five capital cities for the inquiry.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remember that.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were on it, Senator McGrath. That's right. You were the chair, and we were absolutely hauled over the coals for it. This lot gave us 22 days. The first two public hearings occurred even before the date that submissions were due. We had this ludicrous situation where we were—I'm the deputy chair of this committee, so I followed it all the way through—sitting there having people in front of us that actually hadn't had time to put in a submission. I don't blame them, because it was this government that gave them that ridiculous time frame. The fifth hearing was held—would you believe it?—on the day that the committee had to table its report. For anyone that follows this—and I don't expect people at home would necessarily get this—you can't use the evidence from a hearing until it's on Hansard. We don't get the transcript of the Hansard for a couple of days after. Thankfully, Hansard were very efficient. Thank you, Hansard. You got it to us the next day, which was fantastic. Thank you very much. We got it the next day, but that was after the report had to be in. So I just want to foreshadow at the end of my remarks here I'll actually be seeking leave to table some additional comments.

Compare this, as I said, to the previous government. We gave four months for the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill and over three months for the ensuring integrity bill. What we've seen here is not proper process. They're avoiding scrutiny on this bill. They're trying to rush it through before Christmas, just so they can return to their paymasters in the unions and show that they did a good job. This is what it's about. It's about giving the unions a very large Christmas present. It was such a rushed process that, when the bill was presented in the House of Representatives, the minister who presented the bill also moved 155 amendments. Unbelievable. Has this happened? I haven't been around long enough to know, but I'm sure it has been a very long time since we've seen something as ridiculous as that. That's how rushed this has been. It's disorganised. It's haphazard. 'Anything to avoid scrutiny' sums up the process we've seen with this bill.

During the first couple of EEC public hearings it quickly became apparent that, since the introduction of enterprise bargaining 30 years ago, we've seen fewer and fewer strikes. This is a good thing. It's good for productivity. However, I'm not convinced that those on the other side or those within the union movement think there have been enough strikes in at that time, and that's the core of what this bill aims to do. It's re-energising the strike capability of unions. It has been interesting to read some of the recent comments of Paul Keating and Bill Kelty, two of the architects of enterprise bargaining in the late 1990s, on why the framework they devised has been failing to increase productivity and overall wages growth. They lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Gillard government. In fact they believe it was that government which made enterprise bargaining much harder.

Even more fascinating is that, because of the freefall in union membership over the past three decades—which is currently around 14 per cent, according to the ABS—Mr Kelty thinks we may see an uplift in union militancy if there are not enough ordinary workers to counterbalance militant leadership, and I quote Mr Kelty right now:

I would be seen as some right-wing crank in some of these unions because the Trots run them.

This brings me to my second point on what the bill is actually about. This is about growing union membership by stealth. Unsurprisingly this has set off alarm bells in many sectors of the community, because they do not want to see a repeat of the 1970s, when unions were out of control and ran rampant through Australian workplaces. Protected strike action was a strong theme of the 1970s, reaching a peak in 1974 during the incompetent Whitlam government.

Without doubt one of the sectors that will be worse off under the bill is the very and all important small business sector. According to the Small Business Development Corporation, from my home state of Western Australia, 97 per cent of businesses are classified as small. So how will this bill be good for small business—or, more to the point, is it about giving unions a foothold in a sector they've never had access to before? During the second hearing I asked one stakeholder, the Franchise Council of Australia—mostly small businesses in that sector—whether this bill will lead to an increase in wages for employees or an increase in union involvement in small business. Ms Aldred said:

We would suggest that union involvement in small businesses may ultimately undermine the sustainability and viability of many small businesses, which undermines the viability of jobs, so we have grave concerns on that basis.

Small businesses don't have HR departments and legal departments to shield them from union meddling and fend away applications being filed against them by organisations who do not respect the law and have in fact stated they believe it's okay to break the law.

Small business operators and mums and dads who work long hours and often seven days a week just want to get on with running their business, not examining the reams of complex legislation and keeping unions at bay. I'm very concerned that small businesses could be compelled into bargaining processes involuntarily and that they could be swamped by larger employers in the same sector under the majority vote support proposition. We could have a crazy situation in a shopping centre where Coles and Woolworths are dragged to bargain together. These guys are competitors. We know that. They'll be dragged in with smaller businesses who don't have the same scale or ability to deal with it. There are serious impacts on small businesses through this bill.

On the point of serious impact, this bill abolishes the ABCC and the ROC. The Albanese government's animosity towards this important regulator is well known; we hear it a lot. As recently as 27 July 2022, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations said of the ABCC:

This has not been a good regulator. This is a regulator that has simply increased conflict and that has got in the way where agreements exist and where agreements are possible.

The reasons for their dislike are hardly surprising. The ABCC was actually very good at its job. Time and again the ABCC prosecuted terrible recidivist behaviour of the Labor Party's union allies, which included verbal abuse and threats against inspectors and outright breaking of the law. Its success rate was commendably high. The union transgressions are too many to name here.

We know what the minister thinks of the ABCC, but this is what the Master Builders said of the same regulator that the Minister has labelled as simply increasing conflict:

The ABCC has made a significant difference in ensuring building industry participants comply with the rule of law and it has driven much needed positive industry cultural change … The work of the ABCC is not yet done and its removal will undo the significant improvements it has delivered for our building and construction industry.

Tasking the Fair Work Ombudsman is not a like-for-like comparison. This bill removes the Building Code. The ombudsman does not have the same powers that the ABCC has.

The government will say this bill doesn't apply to the CFMMEU because the bill provisions exclude general building and construction work. Thankfully, it will now include civil as well as commercial construction, but the bill does include some contractors, such as electricians, plumbers and metalworkers in multi-employer bargaining. We sure know the CFMMEU is going to find a way around any exclusions. Why would they do that? Because they're very well versed in breaking the law. Is it any wonder the CFMMEU thinks Christmas has come early—even before December.

Never mind the inflation crisis that's unfolding under the watch of this government. This is the priority of this government: bringing on this bill. The RBA forecasts that we're going to see inflation hit eight per cent by Christmas. There's no talk of tackling this crisis that we've got right now. Instead, they're introducing bills like this.

At the request of Senator Cash, I move:

Omit all words after "That", substitute "the bill be withdrawn and the Senate calls on the Albanese Government to:

(a) give the Australian Parliament three months to review these significant changes rather than trying to force through the legislation this year;

(b) amend the legislation to exclude changes to multi-employer bargaining which will lead to more strikes and fewer jobs without increasing productivity or wages;

(c) admit to the Australian people that these extreme industrial relations changes will result in significant red tape and higher costs for small, family and medium businesses;

(d) work with the Opposition, crossbench and other stakeholders to make improvements to the better off overall test and changes to enterprise bargaining as outlined in the former Coalition Government's legislation, introduced in 2020;

(e) abandon the move to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the Registered Organisations Commission;

(f) redraft this legislation to ensure matters are dealt with separately rather than as an 'all or nothing' approach; and

(g) in the event the Bill is passed, cause an independent review to be conducted of the operation of the amendments made by the Act as soon as practical 12 months after the Bill receives Royal Assent and cause a copy of the report to be tabled in each House of Parliament".

I seek leave to table additional comments.

Leave granted.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So far, what we've heard from the coalition is the same old, tired contributions they do in debates around industrial relations time in, time out, year after year. Always, it's the hatred of organised labour. They can't stand it. They can't stand workers getting an even go at negotiation. They can't stand workers organising for themselves. That has been at the heart of the contributions that we've heard thus far. What they keep talking about and what they refuse to accept is the fact that we've just had nine years of a government that deliberately kept wages low. Now, I didn't bell the cat on that; former senator Cormann did. He belled the cat on that.

This is a piece of legislation that is all about secure jobs and better pay. What Australian workers were left with after nearly 10 years of the coalition government was a bitter cocktail. What they were left with was a cocktail of an environment of insecure work, policies that were deliberately designed to keep wages low and a massive trillion-dollar debt. Each of those—count them off: one, two, three—can't be denied by those opposite. They cannot be denied; they are facts.

The bill I rise to speak on today will enable workers to bargain across enterprises and will clamp down on the scourge of insecure work across our country, particularly in my home state of Tasmania. The secure jobs, better pay bill implements our election commitment and delivers on some of the immediate outcomes of the Jobs and Skills Summit in September. This bill is the first tranche of the Albanese Labor government's workplace relations reforms, which are designed to modernise Australia's workplace relations systems and finally, after nine years of coalition government, get wages moving. This bill will bring Australian industrial relations up to speed with many countries around the world. Through industrywide bargaining, it will allow workers doing the same job to be paid the same wage. Industrywide bargaining will finally stop the practice of large corporations paying employees less than others in the same job and in the same uniform.

Tasmanians have received the short straw when it comes to wages and conditions, something which has not been helped by consecutive federal and state Liberal governments. Tasmanian workers earn on average $200 a week less than their mainland counterparts, equating to about $10,000 a year. On top of this, if you're a woman in Tasmania, you can further expect to take home $163 less than a male doing the same job. So, as well as battling insecure work and the lowest wages in the country, Tasmanians are also experiencing the highest rate of inflation of all jurisdictions. Despite wages currently growing at a slightly higher rate in Tasmania compared to the rest of the country, the difference is so small that Tasmanian workers won't actually catch up until the next century. Finally Tasmanians can take a breath and know that this government, the Albanese Labor government, will spend their time fighting for them. We're not wasting any time; we're making improvements to the workplace relations system so it can work better for everyone.

This bill will ban paid secrecy clauses in enterprise agreements, so workers can freely speak about their pay and conditions to their co-workers. Pay secrecy clauses are typically used to stop co-workers comparing their salaries and collectively pushing for pay rises, something those on the other side have, of course, spent a decade trying to stop.

We know that pay secrecy clauses are rife in the banking sector, and I want to congratulate the Finance Sector Union for the long and relentless campaign to have the practice outlawed. Hundreds of thousands of workers will be better off for this work. From the work of the Unions Tasmania secretary, Jess Munday, the secure jobs, better pay bill will deliver meaningful change to our industrial relations system, a system that has been failing Tasmanian workers for close to a decade.

I commend to the Senate the secure jobs, better pay bill and I urge senators to support the bill.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I begin my contribution, I will just foreshadow that at the end of the second reading debate I will be moving the amendment on sheet 1772. It will come as no surprise to those in the chamber and those listening that I do not support this bill. This bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill, simply put, is a union business model. That is what it is all about.

Before the election, what did the government say? Before the election, what was the current government's policy in this area? I'm sure Senator Scarr knows. They said that this sort of multi-business bargaining is 'not part of our policy'—not part of our policy. Then, gosh, at the Jobs and Skills Summit—most know it as the union summit, the union stitch-up—suddenly it appears, and suddenly the industrial relations policy of the seventies and eighties is back in the frame for our nation. Back to the future it is indeed, because what this government is delivering is not an update to our industrial relations systems. It's in fact not a way of delivering secure jobs and better pay. It's a way of delivering a union business model.

Now, Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, has argued that the bill will get wages moving. Well, wage growth has actually already commenced, on the back of a very high inflation number. Does the government actually support that? I don't think the government does, because the finance minister said in this place a few days ago:

… no-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation.

Listen to that. Think about it for a moment: 'No-one is pretending that wages should be growing at the pace of inflation.' Therefore, the finance minister was saying that wages shouldn't be growing at the pace of inflation. A decline in real wages is what this government is overseeing.

I just want to dispel one myth, because we've heard this from the other side quite a lot—that real wages didn't grow under the coalition government. In fact, real wages grew in 2013, in 2015, in 2016, in 2018 and in 2019. And guess what? They did go backwards in 2020 and 2021, and I think there may have been a reason that real wages went backwards in those years. Something happened in those years, Senator Scarr. What was it that happened in those years? Oh, that's right. There was a global pandemic that shut down the economy for a year and a half and, gosh, it had an impact on wages! Surprise, surprise. Does anybody find that even remotely surprising or something that should be driving a modern economy's wages policy today? This is a ludicrous proposition. There was no mandate for the changes contained in this bill. Senator Ayres described this as a 'simple' bill: 250 pages, a simple bill! We had a rushed inquiry, where business organisations—certainly small- and medium-sized businesses—had absolutely no chance of understanding the content of the legislation, let alone its impact on their businesses.

I did manage to sit in on the last day of the hearings into this bill. As I said, it was an extraordinarily rushed process. Senator O'Sullivan did an outstanding job on that inquiry and in the dissenting report by coalition members. But I managed to sit in on the last few hours of the hearing. It was very clear from the interrogation of the Fair Work Commission and the department that even if businesses had had the time to read this, and even if businesses had had the time to digest the 250 pages of legislation, plus the hundreds of pages of explanatory memorandum—even if they had had the time to work through all that—they still wouldn't know the answer to some really basic questions, such as, 'When are we going to be dragged into one of these multi-employer bargaining sessions that are the centrepiece of this bill?' This is how the government is promising they're going to get wages moving, by dragging businesses into these multi-employer arrangements.

But the department couldn't answer when businesses would be considered to be in the same sector, when they would be joined together to be part of these bargaining arrangements. The Fair Work Commission couldn't answer these questions either.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's called an explanatory memorandum, but it doesn't explain!

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no explanation in the explanatory memorandum, so it would have been a waste of time, Senator Scarr, for businesses to actually read the explanatory memorandum. That's because the department and the Fair Work Commission couldn't explain it and, presumably, they're the ones who the government, at least partially, consulted on this bill—if they weren't just talking to the unions, which is entirely possible.

My good friend Ms Marino, the member for Forrest, asked a pretty simple question in the House about something that occurs in quite a few places in her electorate. You might have a beautiful, lovely rural block with a little brew house on it. You might serve a bit of food and it's a lovely place to go. I've been to one or two of them myself! Then right next door to it is a winery which sells a little bit of wine and a little bit of food; it's got a restaurant attached. They look pretty similar. But when Nola Marino, the member for Forrest, asked about this the Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Small Business, Ms Collins, said: 'Seriously, we keep getting all sorts of analogies from those opposite. We've said that they need to be comparable. They clearly are not.' Well, wait a sec, they're not comparable?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the geographical location!

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're right next door to each other, selling food and selling alcohol—it's tourism and hospitality—and they're not? If simple questions can't get an answer out of the department, can't get an answer out of the Fair Work Commission and can't get an answer out of the minister then how are businesses supposed to go through these 250 pages of legislation and the hundreds of pages in the explanatory memorandum to understand it? The answer is, obviously, that they can't, so they probably need a little bit of help with this new industrial relations regime. They will probably need to get some IR consultants in and, of course, Senator Cash has prosecuted the case on the extraordinary failure of due diligence by this government on their own regulatory impact statement—a regulatory impact statement that allocates $175 as an approximate cost per hour of bargaining.

I was sitting in the inquiry, as I said, when Senator Cash was asking these questions. I thought, quickly, 'How can I find out what the real cost of some advice of this sort would be?' and, as many of us do, I've got a mate who is a lawyer in the industrial relations area. So I sent him a quick text message and said, 'What's it cost to get a non-legal IR representative to give you some advice in this space?'

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You ask someone who does it.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You ask someone who does it. I asked a lawyer in the IR space what a non-lawyer would cost, and he said, 'Around $450 an hour.' What did the government allocate, in their regulatory impact statement, to the cost of this kind of advice?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A hundred and seventy-five dollars.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right, Senator Scarr: $175. I'm not going to go through again where that $175 came from. Senator Cash has embarrassed the government enough. The fact that they referenced a spiritual healer for the cost imposed on small business should be a deep shame—a deep shame to the minister and a deep shame to every member of the government.

Then what did they do? They had the department come out and issue a statement saying, 'Oh, no, it's just the reference that was wrong,' even though it said $175 in the regulatory impact statement and $175 on the website of the spiritual healer—exactly the same number. They said, 'Oh, no, actually it was just a bad reference; we looked at the AFR as well.' Well, I'd like the government to show me where exactly in the AFR it says that the cost of IR advice for small business is 175 bucks an hour, because I don't reckon they'd be able to find it. I don't think they'd be able to point to it. I don't think any of those other 'sources' they cited would have $175, because it's a non-credible number.

But did the government own the mistake? Did they just say, 'Yes, okay, sorry; that was a silly number and we shouldn't have used it, and the cost is way higher for small business'? No, they didn't. Instead, they got the department to try to justify that number by saying it came from a whole lot of different sources all over the place, when in actual fact they know it came from a spiritual healer. That should be a deep embarrassment to the government, because it shows the absolute contempt in which the government holds small and medium-sized business.

In the few minutes remaining to me, I just want to address a couple of the changes that have been made to the bill in the deal with Senator Pocock. In particular, I wish to talk about the change from 15 to 20 employees being the threshold for a small business. It sounds like a good change on the surface, until you delve into the numbers a little bit more deeply. When you delve into the breakdown of small business in Australia, you'll realise that the vast majority of businesses classified as small businesses have no employees. They're effectively sole traders with no full-time or part-time employees that would meet the standards of being considered to be an employment size of one to four. Some 59 per cent are non-employing business. Some 30 per cent have one to four employees. Some nine per cent have five to 19 employees. I can't find the exact breakdown for that 15-to-20 category, but the best guess you could make from those sorts of numbers is that it increased the percentage of small business protected under the legislation by about four or five per cent. Only four or five per cent more businesses will be protected by moving that threshold from 15 to 20 people. So, unfortunately, it just doesn't provide the protection that small business particularly deserves.

I hate to admit my age, but I can remember the 1970s and early 1980s and the industrial disputation in Western Australia.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No!

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I know it's hard to believe, but I can. I can remember the impact it had on small businesses, particularly in rural and regional Australia. I can remember the impact of the industrial disputation on the ports of Western Australia and particularly on the farming industry, including on our family farm. This was a time when industrial disputation saw businesses driven out of business. It saw rates of unemployment that we never want to see in this country again.

I'll remind everybody that this government inherited from the coalition an extraordinarily low unemployment rate and a growing economy, and every job that is lost under your watch will be a badge of shame. That, in the end, is what this legislation will do. It will drive up unemployment. It will make businesses uncertain about hiring new people. It will worsen the state of the economy. And you know that you aren't going to be delivering any real wage rises, because you haven't got inflation under control.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the election campaign, I told Canberrans that should I become a senator I would sit in this place and look at each piece of legislation on its merits—look at it and say: 'How will this affect the people of the ACT? How does this square with the kind of future that we want to create in Australia?' My commitment was that on the big pieces of legislation that were contentious I would consult as widely and as thoroughly as I could. This is what I've tried to do over the last month. I've listened, I've consulted and I've negotiated honestly to get the best outcome for the people I've been sent here to represent.

I was watching the Senate earlier, and it really highlighted that there are some politicians in this place who can stretch the truth at times. I would like to point out that in the meeting that Senator Hanson referred to, she was not present. I've been very upfront with concerns about how rushed this legislation, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, has been. This is a big IR omnibus bill. Indeed, standing here, I moved a motion to push the reporting date out so that the Senate had more time to consider this bill. In that vote, where the motion was narrowly defeated, may I point out that a credible source informs me that Senator Hanson was in the Virgin lounge on her way home. So I take on board her comments, but, as far as engaging with this bill, she is a long way off the mark.

After that vote went down and it became clear that this was going to come on for a vote in the last week, I knuckled down and got to work and tried to get across this issue as best I could to be able to make a decision and vote on behalf of the people of the ACT, something that I take very seriously. I have consulted, I've held a round table with business, I've had a town hall attended by 200 people and I've also met with workers, business owners big and small, unions and employer representatives. I've tried to do the best I could with the time available to me, and I am now happy with where we have landed.

I understand that with most of these debates around contentious issues we hear extreme sides of the argument, and my sense is that we should probably be heading somewhere in the middle, looking for that middle ground. It's absolutely correct that workers have waited too long for a pay rise. There are so many Australians doing it tough. Their wages have not kept pace with inflation and have not kept pace with the cost of living. Many of these workers are the same heroes in our community who have put their time and their lives on the line to get us through COVID. Those people deserve a pay rise.

I appreciate, too, the anxieties of business, especially small business. My parents were small-business owners. I've seen their efforts at times not resulting in much reward and just how hard they have worked to keep that business going. Many of the things that happen are outside of small-business owners' control. At times there is a huge burden in terms of administration and red tape, and we all need to appreciate the huge contribution they make to our nation. The long list of amendments that have been negotiated with the government addressed most of these anxieties, certainly the most pressing.

For 97.5 per cent of businesses in Australia, they will be excluded from the changes in this IR bill. For those that are excluded I've secured a commitment from the minister to review modern awards. Sitting on the committee, I saw that this was something that kept coming up: people wanting a review of the modern award—a whole range of views, from some people wanting them simplified and others wanting more awards. For those with a more-niche business, rather than having a 150-page award they can have something that applies just to their line of work.

For the 2.5 per cent of businesses who will be affected by this bill, there are a range of new safeguards that the government will have to put in place. There will be a longer grace period so that businesses have more time to negotiate a single-enterprise agreement. As pointed out earlier, there's a total carve-out of civil construction alongside residential and commercial—a new reasonable comparability threshold in the common-interest test to provide more clarity and to deal with one of the issues that kept getting raised, which is the need to ensure that, for example, the big supermarket chains are not able to drag your IGAs and independent grocers into a bargain.

As pointed out, too, by many, there's a higher threshold for small business—a 20 headcount, and that doesn't include seasonal workers or irregular casuals. There's also a new safeguard for medium-size businesses of 50 people or fewer that makes it harder to get in and easier to get out of multi-enterprise bargaining. In this there's a recognition that if you have a business with under 50 employees it's unlikely that you have a dedicated HR person or department and that you have less resources. The onus is now on the applicant, which in most cases will be a union, to provide a case as to why it is in the common interest for a smaller employer to bargain in a multi-enterprise stream, taking some of the onus off businesses with under 50 employees.

There's the requirement for conciliation to take place before arbitration when you're dealing with working arrangements, unless there are exceptional circumstances—another clause that's had some work today. There's also removal of the absolute right that unions have to veto an agreement. This was another concern raised through the committee process and has been raised with me personally. Where there are two or more unions involved and they withhold their vote, the commission can now determine whether they are unreasonably withholding agreement and it can be put to a vote. There's also a statutory review no later than two years after the passage of this bill so that we can see what's working and what isn't. That will be ahead of the next election. The Australian people will be able to decide what they think of this based on that review and what people are seeing. I would really like to see a lot more reviewing and adapting legislation as we go. I don't think the approach of setting and forgetting things is appropriate, given how big many of the decisions in this place are.

Then there are other parts of the agreement I'd like to speak to. Senator Cash rightly pointed out that it was struck late at night. I was here for the College of Nursing ball, and we'd been negotiating for a couple of days and finally landed in a spot where I can now hand on heart vote for this bill and believe I'm voting on behalf of the ACT people in good faith. One of the things I would like to address is that there was no secret deal. I've been very upfront about the terms, how it was agreed and whom it was agreed with.

This morning I met with local ACT firefighters, who will now find it much easier to access workers compensation benefits for eight additional cancers, including women's reproductive cancers. This is included in this bill and is incredibly important for people who put their lives on the line not only through bushfire season but every day in towns and cities across the country. We go from having decent coverage for firies to now having world-leading coverage when it comes to firefighters and presumptive legislation to do with cancers.

The week after next I'm meeting with subcontractors, who will be better protected and who will stand a better chance of being paid on time every time, following a commitment from the PM to respond to the recommendations of the Murray review. This is something unions and businesses across the sector want dealt with. The review has been languishing on a desk somewhere since 2017 and hasn't been responded to.

Then there's the commitment to a new legislated expert committee that will finally give the more than three million people living in poverty a shot at getting out of it. I understand there are a range of views in this place saying that the last thing we need is a committee. For me this is about transparency and being able to see not only expert advice but advice that is produced by a committee that includes experts, people with lived experience, someone from the unions and someone from business to look at social security payments and provide advice to government, and then we'll be able to see what is being done with that advice by this government and by future governments. Clearly it's a great thing to get wages moving.

We have to remember the people who aren't in the job market, who are currently unemployed for whatever reason. Despite the rhetoric that you'll hear from various people in this place, during COVID when the former government lifted the rate of JobSeeker, we saw people coming off JobSeeker. All of a sudden people had more time and they had more money to think about getting into work. They weren't constantly scrambling just to put food on the table. They weren't under chronic stress. This is really about the kind of future that we want to create together. I'm really pleased and proud to have put this into this agreement, and it will be acted on. I'd really like to address again just how important it is that we get wages moving for people in our communities who clearly need it—the highly feminised industries; the people who are educating future generations, are looking after the generations that are at the end of their life and are cleaning our offices here in Parliament House and the Senate floor.

I understand that there is criticism from the big business lobbies. I'm not here to represent big business; I'm very open about that. I'm happy to cop the criticism. I've engaged with them, I've been upfront with them and I believe that this is the right decision on this bill.

I want to thank fellow senators on all sides of politics for their engagement in the committee process. I really do find it such a valuable process. It is a real privilege to be able to interrogate and ask questions of experts and people with lived experience. It really has been fundamental to being able to ask better questions, to have questions answered and then to form a position on this bill.

I would urge and ask the government in future to allow more discussion and scrutiny on big pieces of legislation. This has been rushed. Big changes do warrant more scrutiny. I've made that clear throughout. As I said, I moved a motion to push the reporting date back. That was unsuccessful. So I've made do with the time allocated, and I will be supporting this bill.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. This bill is about secure jobs and better wages. It's a bill to reform Australia's workplace relations framework in relation to gender equality, to gender equity, to workplace health and safety, to jobs and wages, to security for those jobs and those wages, to bargaining and to industrial action. This bill is about the future of jobs in Australia, the future of fair pay and conditions for Australian workers and the future of take-home pay in every household across the nation.

In my home state of Tasmania people are doing it tough right now. Wages are historically low in Tasmania, compared to the mainland. The costs of living continues to place great pressure on family budgets. House prices remain high, and mortgage repayments and rents are increasing.

We have two options for how we deal with this situation. We can sit on our hands and make no changes—those opposite would have us go down that path—or we can act decisively to bring greater fairness to workplaces and people's livelihoods across the country. The Labor movement has always fought for better pay and conditions for the Australian people, and that is what this bill entails.

I thank unions in my home state of Tasmania—the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, the Australian Workers Union, the Transport Workers Union and Unions Tasmania—who visited me in my office last week. They care about their fellow Tasmanians. They fight every day for better pay and conditions for Tasmanian workers.

Just as it is in my DNA to fight for better wages and conditions and equality and equity for Tasmanian workers, it is in the DNA of those opposite to keep wages low. That was their government's policy over the last 10 years. That's what they said. They said it and they acted upon it. That's why, after 10 very long years, they allowed the economic drift, and they kept wages low by design.

The Albanese Labor government is taking significant action with this bill, which will improve the lives of working Australians. The Albanese government is putting jobs and skills at the top of the government's agenda, which is what we promised during the election campaign and is what we are going to deliver, because we know the importance of a job to an individual's life. A secure, well-paid job not only provides Australians with dignity and purpose but serves our community and our economy.

For too long workers have had to deal with a situation where their wages had stagnated. It is a too-common situation where a business can employ a fellow Australian as a permanent casual for more than 14 years, when the employee actually want more hours or a part-time contract, but the business is unwilling to make them permanent and give them job security. How can it be that someone can work for the one company for 14 years as a casual, working every single weekend, without ever being offered a permanent job? These practices are shameful and they must stop. Australians are crying out for leadership on wages in this country, and therefore the Albanese government does not want to waste any time before making improvements to the workplace relations system so that it can work better for everyone.

Ten years passed under the former Liberal government, and it was their deliberate intention, as I said, to keep wages low. They have admitted that that was a feature of their industrial relations architecture: to keep wages low in Australia, to keep the take-home pay of Australians to a minimum. But now they dare to debate this bill in here and will, ultimately, vote against this legislation. That is in direct contrast to what the Albanese government wants to do. It is in deliberate contrast to what the Australian people voted for. They voted for a new government and voted for change. We want to get wages moving and, within days of being elected, the Prime Minister wrote to the Fair Work Commission, urging a pay increase for those on the minimum wage. And it was granted.

There can be no fair criticism that there has not been consultation on this bill. The government was consulting before the election and during the election; consultation on this bill has been extensive and underway since then. As a result of that ongoing consultation, further government amendments have been made to this bill. These amendments will support the government's objectives. This bill will be good for individuals, good for the community, good for the economy and good for national productivity.

There has been much debate and commentary about this bill in the media, but if anyone wants to see the stark difference between the two major parties in Australia right now then this is the bill which demonstrates that clearly. We are a government that is fighting for the rights of working Australians; a government that is unbridled in its passion and perseverance to bring down the cost of living and to get wages moving. However, those opposite want to leave this bill until next year. In fact, they would rather that we not debate it at all. They want to go away from this place and come back after Christmas while wages remain stagnant and the economy continues to place greater pressure on Australians who are struggling with the cost of living.

While those opposite are sitting back at Christmas barbecues, drinking their Penfolds out of their crystal, Australians will still be seeking a pay rise. I note that Senator Lambie pretends she is standing up for working people but is not supporting this bill. It isn't a secret anymore, Senator Lambie and the Jacqui Lambie Network: you are not standing up for wage increases for Australian workers and you're not supporting Tasmanian workers. The coalition of the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party and the Jacqui Lambie Network wants to allow wages and take-home pay to be cut. That's what they stand for, there are no ifs or buts about this. They have put this sentiment in writing.

The Australian people have been waiting now for too long for a government to stand up for their interests—to stand up for better pay and conditions, to stand up and say that wages are too low in this country. Our wages are not in line with the rising grocery and fuel prices, or increasing rents, mortgages and inflation. We, on this side of the chamber, have waited 10 long years for this bill to reach this place. Now is the time to pass it and to vote it into law. This bill will make the pay equity and job security objectives so that our system works. It's a bill that will allow a pathway for enterprise agreements and for multi-employer agreements in order to get wages moving.

I'd like to place on the record my thanks to Senator David Pocock for his contribution in negotiating and in finally coming to support this bill. As he said, so many of the frontline workers that we relied upon during the COVID pandemic are the people who will benefit most from this legislation. As I said, people have been waiting for far too long for this pay rise. They should not have to wait a day longer, and I urge those people in this place who are on the opposite side and on the crossbenches to actually support this bill, because it is in the interests of all Australians and particularly of working Australians. I'm proud to be part of the Albanese Labor government, who will deliver this for Australian workers.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Clear! Let's be clear: this Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022 is an election promise. It's a secret promise; it's a secret deal with the union movement and a secret deal that Australians didn't know about. Australian employers didn't know about it and this is the greatest breach of trust and faith that could have been delivered to the Australian workforce. Before the election the Treasurer said that multi-employer bargaining was not a part of their agenda—another Labor lie. This is only about delivering for union membership. Union movement membership is down to 14 per cent, because Australian workers say, 'I am not spending my hard-earned dollars on this lack of representation where my money is hived off for donations, for big fat salaries, for union reps'—who end up here. The union reps end up here. I would love to know how many of those sitting on the other side have not been on a salary paid for either by workers, hard-working Australians, or by some other union deal. Show your hands. How many years since you've sweated over a mortgage and paying people yourself? That's what I'd like to ask those on the other side.

This is a pay-off for donations from the unions. Unions do not create jobs. Government doesn't create jobs—except with taxes. Businesses and employers do create jobs. Unions reckon this is about feminized workforces—to get wages moving. If they were serious about this, this would not be the way they'd go.

Multi-employer bargaining is about paying off highly litigious lawfare driven unions, like the mining unions, like the construction unions. This is not about women who are working in retirement homes and cleaning jobs. This is about making big unions fatter. It reflects how out of touch this government is. The talking points are all they know. If you listen to everyone on the other side you'll get rolled out about getting wages moving, about the lack of action. Do they ever talk about how tough it is to take out a mortgage; to sweat over how you're going to take income from people you are earning your income from to pay your workers to secure their future, to secure your customers future, to pay your suppliers? They said nothing about growing jobs and securing the very people who provide jobs.

Medium-sized businesses—not big businesses—are captured by this extreme legislation. What about businesses doing it tough? What about those people? There is no reflection at all for businesses who have been shut down over the last two years; businesses who are stressed to the extreme, who can't find workers, who are working seven days a week, who cry to me when I speak to them about another public holiday being given by the Labor government, who cry to me about how are they going to do the work for their customers who are coming in who they feel so passionately about? How are they going to provide enough work and enough income with their limited workforce to pay the bills, to pay the wages and still be treated like the big end of town? Who's thinking about them? It's not this Albanese government. It is not them.

It is tough. They are low margins. There are higher electricity costs. There are higher fuel costs. Transport costs are crippling businesses. There are higher costs of food. The uncertainty of this legislation will be the last nail in the coffin of so many of those businesses.

I've got letters from small businesses and medium-size businesses across Queensland. Sally says she will have to review staffing to stay below the 20 employee threshold or sell the business. She already pays staff above the award wage. She is heartbroken. After dealing with COVID disruptions, over-regulation and taxation she does not need this as well. She actually names Senator Pocock as the 'Judas of small business'.

Leslie, another small business owner, says, 'Restaurants, cafes and catering businesses were some of the hardest hit venues during the COVID pandemic and now face crippling staff shortages. With the rise in costs and supply chain disruptions now is not the time to punish business owners. Multi-employer bargaining is impractical and alarming. It would introduce uniformity in an industry that is, by its nature, diverse, creative, innovative and constantly changing.' Leslie finishes with, 'Please save the 58,000 restaurants, cafes and catering businesses and their 357,000 employees across Australia.' I don't hear the unions talking about those business owners.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those women.

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those women, yes. Another small business owner: 'The rush of this bill is extremely concerning. At present, every business is short staffed and facing difficult circumstances. We're all trying to find our feet after COVID, and to rush through a bill without adequate understanding from the business community is unreasonable. This is another issue where employers will be forced to enter into a new agreement within 12 months, creating disharmony, hardship, costs and upheaval at a time when that is the last thing that is needed.'

These proposed workplace changes represent the most radical shake-up of Australia's industrial relations system in decades. Labor has made it clear they want to hand over workplaces to the unions. This is a breach of faith with the Australian voter and Australian businesses large and small who took the Treasurer at his word when he said last year that industrywide bargaining was not part of Labor's policy—and at a time when businesses are doing it tough.

They're struggling. They're struggling with staff shortages and rapidly increasing power costs, and union masters will not make it better. I know that in Townsville alone the number of small businesses that are closing or are up for sale is increasing every month. I had my hair cut the other day, and the hairdresser said she no longer employs anybody. She doesn't even have an apprentice. After the last dispute she had with an employee, it cost her $50,000 in legal fees for it to be thrown out of the court. This small-business owner has all of her savings gone because we are not a country that values employers anymore. We don't value the people who take out the mortgage and stress over how they're going to make ends meet, because we've got those on the other side calling late payment of superannuation 'wages theft'. What would they know about struggling to make cashflow stretch?

Unfortunately, the minor amendments between Senator Pocock and Labor do nothing to allay the concerns of small and family businesses across Australia. These businesses will still be forced to bargain against their will as part of the supported bargaining stream. Businesses with more than 20 staff will still be able to be dragged into multi-employer agreements with their much larger competitors. We've seen the modelling: the regulatory impact statement reveals how much that bargaining costs will impose on small and medium and large businesses.

This bill will lead to more strikes, more job losses and more uncertainty. This is a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. This is nothing about productivity. This legislation does not mention productivity. All it mentions is wages growth, without an understanding that somebody has to pay the bill. And I don't see anybody on the other side with any understanding of the stress of paying the bill. How much fairness is there in it for the people who take the risks, who mortgage their homes, who employ people and create these jobs? How much fairness is in it for them—for people who rely on the structure of awards, who rely on the structure of predictability? Because you're right: there's not an HR department for a business of 20 people. There's probably not an HR department for a business of 100 people with a three per cent margin that is struggling every week to pay the ever-increasing bills.

Not only is this attacking medium business and small business; guess what? We're going to take on the very businesses that pay the royalties and taxes and the incredibly highly paid wages in mining. It is mining who is going to have to pick up the pieces. It is always mining that Labor turns to for more taxes, risking up to 33,000 jobs. Remember, mining jobs are, on average, double the average Australian salary. The average Australian salary is $90,000, and for mining jobs it is double that. The administration clerks in mining companies are on double that. Truck drivers are on double that. Yet they're the jobs that this is going to risk—140 projects worth $77 billion at risk. Of these projects, 46 are critical minerals. Apparently we need critical minerals. But not under this government, because they say one thing to industry and another thing to suit the unions.

This will cost not just the business owner; this will cost the taxpayer, because for every week of strikes and lockdowns it is hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties, in company taxes, in PAYG salaries for these workers. In the last 20 years employment in mining has tripled. Wages have doubled, benefitting hundreds of thousands of Australians, especially in regional areas. Mining companies themselves are saying that these changes will slow down Australia's energy transformation and that while we need more lithium for batteries, more copper for solar panels and more cobalt for electric vehicles we do not need more uncertainty and risk that will chase away investment.

Simon Trott of Rio Tinto said:

I do have concerns, serious concerns about the legislation as it's currently drafted. It will be a handbrake on economic growth. It'll be a handbrake on productivity and ultimately a handbrake on wages in the rest of the economy.

Hancock Prospecting Chief Executive Garry Korte said a six-week period of strike action at Port Hedland would cost $9 billion in lost iron ore export revenue and an estimated $551 million in lost mining royalties to the Western Australian government. That is a six-week strike period. He said:

If the Bill were to pass in its current form it would open the door to a confrontational industrial relations system that could cripple our industry and result in poorer wage outcomes for our workers.

Finally, from BHP—and I know those on the other side don't like hearing from these big employers, who employ thousands of Australians and pay them more than double the average wage, who pay the royalties and the company taxes that allow us to have roads and schools and hospitals, but I'm still going to quote them—Mike Henry says:

There simply is no case for multi-employer bargaining in the mining industry. This is an industry where the current approach has been working well, wages have been on the move.

He went on to say:

We are a business that competes globally.

It's just so essential that Australia remain competitive and any aspects of the legislation that run the risk of reducing flexibility, giving rise to increased industrial action and so on, that's all going to harm Australian competitiveness in our sector.

If this was truly, as Labor likes to say, about the feminised workforce, if this was truly about low-paid workers in our society, if this was truly about allowing more people more flexibility to get their kids to school and care for people, this would not be the way they'd go about it. This is the way that you will threaten the jobs of thousands of Australians as small business owners shut their doors, saying: 'Enough. We cannot keep paying for the social demands of this Labor government. We cannot keep paying for the union demands, the union payoffs of this Labor government.' As Senator Brockman said, every job that is lost, every small or medium business that closes its door, every mining company that doesn't reinvest in this country and goes offshore, and every electricity transmission project that does not proceed because of this legislation, along with the millions and billions of royalties that are lost because of this legislation, is on this government's head.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, which the Greens are pleased to support with the changes secured through our negotiations with the government. Industrial relations in this country have been firmly stacked against workers for too long, so it's good to see some movement in the right direction to give workers more power to organise, particularly in lower-paid industries. Workers haven't seen a pay rise in real terms for a decade. People on low incomes are being forced to endure inflation on essential items and housing costs and are being hit hard by interest rate increases while corporate profits continue to skyrocket.

We support industrial relations changes that shift the dial back toward power for working people. The Greens have worked hard to secure changes to the bill, and we're also pleased to see several longstanding Greens positions within the legislation. These include an enforceable right to a better work-life balance, banning of pay secrecy clauses and abolishing the ABCC.

The government's original bill attempted to remove prospective workers from being considered under the better off overall test when agreements are approved, something we were concerned could have led to prospective workers being worse off. The Greens have ensured that the test will remain in the legislation, protecting workers' conditions. I am particularly pleased that hospitality workers and those in retail will be protected under the agreement that we secured on the better off overall test. We had real concerns that some workers could be sidelined from being covered by the test, and I'm very pleased to see these protections remain in place.

For workers in feminised industries, especially early childhood educators and people in aged or disability care, a pay rise cannot come soon enough. Workers throughout Queensland and my home of Central Queensland deserve a pay rise. These care industries are the backbone of our society. In my view, the work they do is amongst the most important in our community. Respecting these industries is critical. Respect means a significant pay rise and better conditions. Critically, it also means the right to organise and bargain collectively.

I'm also pleased to see the end of pay secrecy clauses in employment contracts, which have also contributed to the persistence of the gender pay gap. I'll never forget how shocked I was when I discovered that a young male colleague in the law firm I was working for was being paid more than me, despite me acting as his mentor. I'm also proud to support a bill that secures the right to flexibility for workers with caring responsibilities. The work that my colleague Senator Barbara Pocock has done on the Work and Care Select Committee revealed the importance of an enforceable right to request unpaid parental leave and the right to request flexibility. That is now enshrined in the legislation.

This is just the start of industrial relations reforms in this parliament. There's a lot more to do. We need to get sick leave for casuals, we need to move towards a four-day work week and we need to outlaw insecure work. That is now the next fight.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, a bill that will deliver secure jobs and better pay for Australians, a bill that puts respect for women workers at the heart of our workplace laws, a bill that makes better wages a deliberate design feature of our government's agenda. This bill will modernise our bargaining system, opening up the process of making agreements and expanding access to multi-employer bargaining, making it easier for employers and employees to come to the table and end the race to the bottom on wages. It will help close the gender pay gap for millions of working women. It will create two new expert panels in the Fair Work Commission, one for pay equity and one for the care and community sector. It will make gender equity a central object of the Fair Work Act and open up bargaining to millions of low-paid women in sectors like aged care, early childhood and disability services through the supported bargaining stream.

The bill also delivers so much more than this, because delivering secure jobs and better pay means delivering a better life for working Australians. A secure job means finally having the ability to plan your life, to apply for a loan or a lease, to choose to start a family, or just know that you'll be able to be with them for the holidays. Better pay means being able to make ends meet, to live without the constant stress and impossible choices of poverty wages and instead be able to afford the little luxuries which make life enjoyable and which we all deserve. It means a better life with choice, with dignity and with respect, and working Australians deserve a better life now. In 10 years of low wages as a deliberate design feature of the current opposition's economic policy, with growing gig work and casualisation, we've seen a race to the bottom on wages and conditions across some of our most essential sectors.

Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Walsh. There is tomorrow. The time for the debate has ended.