HANSARD EXTRACT
|
Grievance Debate: Workplace Relations |
| 13 February 2006 |
Mr HAYES (Werriwa) (4.51 p.m.)—It
seems as though the business community may not be as supportive of
the government’s extreme industrial relations changes as the Prime
Minister may have first thought. Sure, there are going to be a
number of big business operators from around the country who will go
along to Liberal Party celebrations commemorating the 10th year of
the Howard government—no doubt a long continuation of
fundraising—but, when it comes to small businesses, people who make
the economy tick, there seem to be some serious doubts emerging. Not
surprisingly, businesses are not waiting to see the detailed
regulation under the Work Choices scheme but rather are making sure
that their businesses at least have certainty locked in now. In the
December quarter alone, some 2,083 union negotiated agreements were
registered in the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. This
is up from 1,308 union agreements registered in the September
quarter, which is nearly three times the 776 agreements registered
in the June quarter.
Essentially, employers are not waiting around to see the detail.
It is
not just the larger organisations with unionised workforces that are
starting to speak out against these extreme changes. I will take a
little time to read a letter that appeared in one of the local
Campbelltown newspapers, the Macarthur Chronicle, in November
last year. It was written by
Sarah Ditton,
who is a small business proprietor in the area. She says:
Work Choices? One choice, I must abandon the State Award and
negotiate AWAs with my staff.
Simpler? One award covered all seven of my employees. Now seven
individually negotiated contracts need to be drafted, signed and
lodged, and legal advice sought.
Fairer? My competitor down the road is a more ruthless negotiator
so will now have staff working around the clock, seven days a week,
at no extra cost.
Small business, take a closer look. There is no Choice and this is
going to hurt worse than the GST.
This is the view of just
one small business operator working in the south-west of
Sydney, but I assure you that
it is not a unique view.
Recently I had the opportunity to participate in the Labor Caucus
Industrial Relations Taskforce when we met in
Tasmania. We assembled to allow people to
express their concerns about the government’s extreme industrial
relations agenda. Among them were people who had been denied the
opportunity to present evidence before the Senate inquiry into these
changes, and there was a local businessman who went into great
detail to indicate that, at his own personal expense, he had taken
out a newspaper advertisement against the changes. This small
business operator was worried that these changes in the industrial
relations laws would impact on people, certainly would impact on
wages and would change the values within our society.
Let me tell you about one other person who appeared, a young woman who
happened to work in a cafe. She came along with her mother. The cafe
proprietor decided at some stage, with a view to cutting costs, to
engage a labour hire provider to provide a workforce. All he did was
to transfer all his existing employees to the labour hire contract
and then renegotiate the contract with the labour hire provider.
This girl, who was working her way through school and using the
money for music lessons—and I have to say that that is a credit to
the young woman—was offered fewer hours and a reduction of $2 an
hour. Because she did not sign the contract, she was not allocated
any
further time with that employer. Effectively, whilst not sacked, she
just disappeared from that proprietor’s business—from the cafe.
It is
not a case of saying that people will not act abusively when it
comes to these laws; we know that people will, and what we have done
is remove the checks and balances that applied within the system to
stop people from exploiting people such as the young woman that I
just spoke about.
Last
week I accompanied the Leader of the Opposition to a meeting with
the Police Federation of Australia, to discuss various aspects of
their concern about what they see as possibly unintended
consequences of these industrial relations changes. Put simply, the
industrial relations changes under the Work Choices provisions could
have a very deleterious impact on the way that police carry out
their work, particularly in the AFP. Individual contracts do not fit
well with a police force that needs some consistency between its
officers. Individual contracts do not recognise that these officers
have independence in discharging their office of constable. They
take an oath of office which compels them to discharge their duties,
as opposed to being directed to discharge their duties. An
individual contract would not recognise that. It would be something
like putting magistrates on individual contracts. I am sure that
would lead to slightly less impartiality, particularly when it came
to contract renewal.
This
government is likely to put considerable pressure on the states to
implement individual contracts in the next public sector round of
wage adjustments. We have already seen it in relation to the higher
education sector. We have seen it in relation to TAFE colleges. If
you want to access Commonwealth funding, you will offer your
employees individual contracts—or you need not apply. That is the
way this government has sought to induce parties to put into effect
the finer touches of its industrial relations regime.
To
return to policing: the underlying premise of the normal activities
of police and police disciplinary procedures is that similar tasks
and decision making will be carried out by people of particular
ranks. If these were reduced to individual contracts, I am not sure
what that would do for the line of command within the police force.
There is no doubt that having individual police on contracts would
erode the situation, and without doubt it would have an impact on
the way police go about their duties, as well as threatening the
very independence of their office, as I said.
Any
situation whereby the way police go about conducting their
front-line activities is threatened simply because of the
introduction of an ideologically driven agenda not only makes no
sense but is abhorrent to anyone who has a view about social conduct
in this country.
These
are extreme industrial relations laws. They can impact on police, as
I have indicated. Evidence is mounting that this industrial
relations system is not welcomed, not even by elements in the
business community. Despite this, I know that employers will
continue to push the envelope. The only logical reason for doing
that is that workers are a cost and costs have to be minimised—and
if that means sacrificing the social and financial wellbeing of
workers in Australia, then so be it; if that is what produces a
better financial balance sheet for a company, then so be it.
It is this sort of attitude that seemed to colour the ACCI’s submission
to the recent award review task force, in which it proposed to slash
the number of awards in our award system to just four. This proposal
would see up to 800,000 skilled workers on lower wages, denying them
access to wages and rates of pay that properly reflect their skills
and experience. The Work Choices legislation puts us at serious risk
of being the
first generation in Australia’s history to leave
to future generations a set of conditions and way of life that are
worse than what we inherited from our parents. (Time expired)
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