Page 3785 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 October 2005
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I would like to hear someone talk about what type of flexibility it is, because what is outlined in WorkChoices is certainly a choice for the employers across the country. But in relation to working people there is no choice in WorkChoices. Nowhere in the document can you see the choices available to working people in relation to moving to a simpler national system of IR reform.
Look through the detail of this book, but that is all we can go on because, in typical commonwealth government style, the legislation will remain secret until it is introduced and none of us will have the opportunity to consult with our communities over the legislation—including here in the ACT, where it will come into effect as soon as it is enacted. We have been after this legislation since the federal government was returned to power.
We have got commitments from the federal workplace relations minister that he will consult on legislation that will have a direct impact on the territory—this being a key one—and we have had no discussion with him. He will not consult with us; he will not show us his legislation. It is, very similar to the anti-terrorism legislation. They do not want anyone to see it; they do not want anyone to have the time to go through and see the detail of the legislation. All we can go on are these 67 pages and a few bits of PR.
But if you take that and you take the detail of what is in this book, what the federal government is proposing to create is a much more complicated system. How are they going to regulate the system they are going to set up where it is going to become unlawful for a union to be mentioned in an agreement that involves them in dispute resolution? It is unlawful to raise the issue: “I would like a union included in dispute resolution in this agreement.” The fine is 33,000 bucks. How on earth they are going to regulate that and enforce the system they are going to create is inconceivable.
We have just had the same thing in the training sector, where they have abolished the ANTA organisation, again moving towards a simpler national system. One hundred ANTA staff have just been replaced by 200 staff in DEST to manage the simpler national system that they would like to see. I would argue there is no simplicity in this; this is going to be a very complicated system, particularly for working people, to understand. Maybe for employers it will be easy, because once you have ticked off your average hours of work, a bit of annual leave, a bit of personal leave and parental leave as your minimum standards, there is not too much else to do.
But even if you look at the condition “maximum ordinary hours of work”, the detail says that the maximum ordinary hours of work is 38 hours. Okay. Everyone goes, “Great, that stays the same.” But it also says “on average through a year”. What does that mean—that you do not work for six moths but for the other six months you have to work 76 hours a week? This is the flexibility that is being created, which is not flexibility for working people at all.
In relation to young people, the federal government says, “It will be simpler for young people.” It will be simple for young people all right, because their parents have to sign their AWA; their parents have to sign away their rights. When you are 15 or 16 and you want to get a job at your local supermarket, your big supermarket chain or your video shop, you have to go to your parents and say; “Mum and Dad, what are you going to
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