Rushed Industrial Relations Reforms risk wrecking workplaces

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia and to the workers and small businesses of our nation, I want to firstly thank the minister’s staff and the departmental staff for their briefings. I want to thank the many companies, unions, employer entities and workers. We listened.

The Hawke-Keating years broke the previous harsh, adversarial, mutually assured destruction policy in industrial relations in this country. Then we went back with the Fair Work Act from Julia Gillard in 2009—complex, prescriptive. The creators of this act do not understand industrial relations. A senior practical Labor MP whom I regard very highly said that Gillard’s Fair Work Act was a ‘backward step’, damaging Australia. It’s failed. Many want it changed. I know that union bosses like David Noonan and Michael Ravbar, for whom I have some regard, and Alex Bukarica and the ETU’s Michael Wright say that we need to change, that we need to get back to basics. Employer and industry groups say the same. Parliamentarians in this chamber say the same. How hard is it for workers to know their entitlements with this? It’s impossible. How hard is it to run a small business these days? It’s very difficult. This thing justifies the industrial relations club’s existence. Workers now kowtow to the industrial relations club.

Let’s go back to basics. Unions were formed in the 19th century to protect workplace basics; to protect pay, safety, entitlements, job security, retirement; to ensure fairness; and to strengthen workers’ bargaining power. Then we got laws to protect state and federal workers. Unions were doing a vital job. Politically they were omitted from being held accountable the way other organisations and company directors were. After successful union campaigns, governments legislated worker protections in employment, safety, industry and health legislation. Unions were no longer needed for those basic protections because they were enshrined in legislation, yet they had immunity from many provisions under the law and were effectively monopolies, with no competition among unions within industries. As with all monopolies, this was the result of government legislation. As with all monopolies, they faced no accountability from competitors. As with all monopolies, some union bosses abused this privilege.

In recent years, in this cosy life with no competition and no accountability, we saw abuses in the HSU, the SDA, the AWU and the CFMMEU in which union bosses stole workers’ money for personal, financial and other benefits, including brothels. In the 1990s I was good friends with Jim Lambley, the then CFMEU vice-president. He shared with me his thoughts that the union, which was once strong and powerful and genuinely committed to miners, was sloppy and not providing a service to its members. Times had changed; it needed to lift its game because traditional services were already legislated. As a result of neglect of union members, union membership in the private sector outside the Public Service is just nine per cent and falling.

Not all large unions have a monopoly or bosses that want to exploit them. I single out and compliment the TWU. They’ve had turmoil, just like every entity, but they’ve sorted themselves out. They’re represented here by Senator Sheldon and Senator Sterle—excellent advocates for the trade union movement, excellent advocates for workers, excellent advocates for Australians. One of the reasons is that the TWU contains not only employees and truck drivers but small businesses. The TWU is the largest entity with the largest membership of small businesses in this country. They work together to provide a service.

I was going to discuss the sheer abuse and exploitation of people in the Hunter Valley at the hands of the CFMMEU, combined with BHP, combined with Chandler Macleod, which is part of Recruit Holdings from Japan, the largest labour hire company in the world. Instead, I will ask a few questions of anyone watching today.

Labor titles its bill the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill. Let me give you facts and ask you what you think. Firstly, the new bill omits any hint at the Fair Work Amendment (Equal Pay for Equal Work) Bill, my bill that has been pushed for months now and which aims to lift casual pay rates. Why? The Senate committee of inquiry agreed on the need for my bill. They said, ‘Let’s wait for Labor’s version,’ but it’s not in the bill that we see before us. My bill is ready to go, with certain awards that found no issues with it. How long do abused miners and airline staff need to wait? Let’s get the experience before widening it. Why not include my bill in this? We’ve researched it thoroughly. I asked last week and the minister’s staff said, ‘They’ve barely started consultation.’ Then they did so with the perpetrators of the heinous acts in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland. They’re not interested in better pay. They’re not interested, and they’ve done nothing to include it.

Let’s look at job security. Well, look at COVID mismanagement; the phasing out of the coal industry and jobs under the Liberals, Nationals and Labor; the erosion of our rights and freedoms under COVID mismanagement; increasing energy prices; killing manufacturing and hurting agriculture; the lack of much-needed tax reform and much-needed economic reform; increasing debt; work health and safety systems being bypassed; Australia’s productive capacity being destroyed; the failure of our industrial relations systems and more; tax reform; high immigration flooding in and putting downward pressure on wages; and inflation. They’re not interested in job security at all.

Then let’s have a look at the summit. It was a sham. It was not a genuine, Paul Keating-style consultation. The government knew beforehand what they were going to do after the summit. The key items in this bill that they’ve now got in front of us in the chamber were not even raised in the summit topics. I wrote to Joel Fitzgibbon, the previous member for Hunter, on the abuses in the Hunter valley, and he refused to reply to me. It was the same with his replacement, Dan Repacholi, and the same with Minister Burke. They are not interested in job security, fairness or the law.

Now we’ve got a bill before us that is another 249 pages plus government amendments—150 amendments to their own bill in the lower house. That’s another 34 pages. They’re going to add more complexity, make it thicker, make it more difficult for people to understand. These 150 amendments confirm that the bill was hastily introduced and not thought through. If there are so many amendments needed and so many flaws can be identified in such a short time, how many will implementation in the real world expose, and who will pay for that? Workers will pay for that. Small business will pay for that. This is so flawed the government is making amendments to its own amendments!

This is a spit-and-hope bill. When the Australian Building and Construction Commission was introduced, there were months of consultation. When it was abolished, there was none. The same should apply to the whole bill. It needs debate. It needs to be deferred and considered properly. Who pays for this mess? The people: union members, small businesses, workers, communities and the nation.

Let’s have a look at the bill now. There are 27 parts, 13 substantive. Some are simply tidying, and that is good. Some are worthy improvements—minor but worthy—and that is good. Some big issues are not thought through. Some big issues have been thought through yet deceptively hidden because they don’t want the people to see them. Some issues were designed deliberately to confuse and to obfuscate. All is slapped behind the false labelling of enabling a pay rise and more secure jobs. This is what you get out of the south end of a north-facing bull. There is no mandate for stuff that’s been hidden—no mandate at all.

On 22 November 2022, Minister for Small Business Julie Collins failed to answer two core questions: how many small businesses will be drawn into wage bargaining and how much it will cost. They added another definition to the already 140 definitions of ‘small business’ across government departments. The government tells the people of Australia that the whole rationale behind this bill is to get wages moving, yet there’s no specific detail: how, when, who? There is nothing concrete, just broad, fluffy statements, typical of the Labor-Greens-teal coalition governing the Senate. Labor claims it will improve the bargaining position of small business and workers, so why do thousands of small businesses oppose it? Could it be due to this?

Why are union bosses given the power of veto to frustrate the bargaining process? Even if employees agree with the employer, they still can be vetoed by remote union bosses. Why are smaller employers locked into a process they do not support if they have a head count of more than 19 people, including those who choose to work only a few hours a week? Why isn’t the full-time equivalent used? As a result, large businesses can negotiate conditions smaller businesses cannot compete with. That aids large businesses to kill off smaller competitors, leading to fewer jobs, plus small businesses lack the resources to deal with the red tape.

The abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission illustrates the government’s aims and intent: rewarding union bosses with power. That’s what’s behind this bill. It means a return to the damaging days of industrial thuggery. Remember the BLF? The Dyson Heydon royal commission revealed so much thuggery in the CFMEU. There were court cases and criminal convictions. The ABCC worked. Labor abolished it. The coalition reintroduced it. Labor is now abolishing it. There were millions of dollars in fines. What will happen to them? There was violent behaviour, industrial blackmail, killing small businesses and restrictive work practices that cost taxpayers an additional 30 per cent on building costs. Who’s going to enforce the law now?

This bill will in the long run harm unions. It gives more power to union bosses over members and industry and generally in the community. Monopolies discourage responsibility and competitiveness of service and they reduce accountability. This bill entrenches the monopoly and makes it stronger.

Unions may receive a short-term boost, yet, long term, it will accelerate, sadly, the slide of declining union membership. Look in Queensland. Premier Palaszczuk aims to kill the Red Union. She is protecting the Queensland nursing union, who are big donors to Labor. She is trying to kill the Red Union, which is starting freely, because she wants to kill any competition to her union bosses that donate. This is not about higher pay and job security; it’s about giving union bosses power over industries, over companies and employers and over workers. Instead of returning to the pre-Hawke days, we need the reverse. We need to restore the primacy of the workplace, the employer/employee relationship, with employees free to bring in unions when they choose.

The big picture is that industrial relations needs comprehensive reform. We need to get away from the industrial relations adversarial approach that has plagued this country. It locks managements, executives, union bosses, consultants and lawyers into industrial relations games and not into improving businesses. Instead of having the brightest and best lawyers and accountants focused on how we can smash the opposition in this country, we need to focus on how we can smash the opposition in South Korea and Japan and China. They are our overseas competitors.

Industrial relations reform needs to be comprehensive, focus on the primacy of the employer/employee relationship and return to the days of Hawke-Keating, at least for a start. People need to focus on their business, not the corporation. Always around the world in workplaces people are focused on their workplace—that’s what people love. We need industrial relations reform that develops responsibility for the business. We need a short bill, instead of this monstrosity. We need about 20 pages of basic entitlements, and, instead of getting off the hook through lawyers with this monstrosity, we need clear provisions so that, if these basic provisions are violated, people go to jail. Workers are getting abused in this country. Small businesses are getting abused in this country. We need simple provisions and severe penalties.

Let’s consider the teals—David Pocock as a teal and the Labor-Greens-teal governing coalition. The governing coalition in this Senate is Labor-Greens-teal. Fifteen amendments he announced on Sunday. The government was going to do nine anyway! Four are corrections and another four are corrections to government oversights in the bill! The JobSeeker rate is irrelevant to the bill—horse trading! That leaves one amendment that Senator Pocock initiated. Union bosses will still be able to drag small business into multi-employer bargaining, and to get out of multi-employer bargaining those businesses will have to engage in expensive litigation. Welcome to the new Labor-Greens-teal coalition running this country, where the love of power is more important!

In conclusion, instead of the lies and pretence of this bill, we need honesty. Instead of boosting union bosses’ power, we need to make the employer/employee workplace relationship the focus to get Australia’s talent to the fore and to make us competitive again. Instead of adding more complexity and regulations, we need comprehensive industrial relations reform—simplicity, honesty, efficiency and real protection. This mess bypasses protections and leaves workers vulnerable and exposed. Above this building, we have one flag. We are one community, we are one nation and we work like hell to protect workers, protect small business and restore honesty in governance.