Last week in Canberra I was unable to give this speech in the Senate so I recorded so you could hear. The government is proposing changes to the the Industrial Relations system and I wanted to put my views on the record and say to the government that the IR system is broken and needs fixing. And simplifying.
Transcript
I serve the people of Queensland & Australia and want to discuss our shared need for:
- Improving industrial relations to protect honest workers and employers
- the bigger picture and a vision for a secure future.
And I will shine a light on the Industrial Relations Club, known as the IR Club. The root cause of most IR conflict.
We have listened to workers – casual and permanent – across Queensland and Australia. From Thursday Island to the Hunter to Tasmania, from Brisbane to Perth. We have listened to union bosses and union bodies. We have listened to small and medium sized businesses. We have listened to employer and industry groups.
We have listened to the government and to the opposition. I’ve worked underground at the coalface in five regions across our country, managed mines and negotiated and introduced IR changes improving safety, productivity and security. As a mining executive I introduced the Australian coal industry’s first radically new enterprise award, one proudly based on matching employees needs and employers’ needs.
Our people set records that stood for decades with extremely high worker retention and Australia’s best safety performance for large underground coal mines. Listening reveals that across our country, people are hurting, feeling vulnerable. Afraid for their jobs, afraid of the future.
Add to that Australians are hurting from the economic fallout from COVID with restrictions and lock-downs keeping us away from our jobs, businesses and loved ones. People feel confused, often despairing, even hopeless. Many feel powerless to improve their situation or their business, frustrated that this government didn’t listen and just listens to the IR Club.
And people like HV miner Simon Turner crippled, exploited and discarded due to abuses proving the complete failure of current Industrial Relations laws. People are angry. The “Industrial Relations Club, the IR Club” is alive and well. It keeps its members fat, well paid and secure – lawyers, courts, employer peak bodies like the BCA, major UB’s.
Driven to perpetuate conflict so they have something to “fix,” a reason for staying in existence. Using complexity to conjure issues that need lawyers and UB’s to sort. The primary workplace relationship between employee and employer has been shoved aside. The IR system is broken. And that’s destroying Australian industry and exporting jobs to China.
The IR Club perpetuates artificial restrictions that needlessly destroy productivity and job security and suppress wages. Restrictions hurting workers and employers. The Building & Construction General On-Site Award is almost 150 pages long with 80 separate allowances on top of the prescribed wage schedule.
Australia’s cabotage is another IR Club casualty – and guts national security, sovereignty and tax revenue. The IR Club’s other victims are small and medium sized business. Our economy’s engine room. The IR Club insists on a one size fits all from large multinationals with huge teams of lawyers through to small businesses. Queensland’s 445,000 small businesses are now under even greater pressure as a result of the govt’s COVID response.
And, as a result of the IR Club, small businesses are left with complex, unworkable IR rules that are not fit for purpose. The IR Club is one reason why small businesses and honest big businesses are angry. We need honest, competent leadership making decisions based on solid data and facts with strength of character and a willingness to serve our country’s people, Australians. A Prime Minister who tries to do good, not just look good.
One Nation protects workers’ rights and knows that only employers, entrepreneurs, small businesses and workers create jobs. The govt’s COVID restrictions have done enormous damage. Yet the govt-induced collapse is not an excuse to cut pay or job security. Instead, let’s reform IR together properly.
