Mr RUDD (4:15 PM) —I support the remarks just made by the member for Blaxland in stating his opposition to the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999 . I rise to speak on the bill because it goes to the very heart of the industrial relations system of the country. It also goes to the very heart of fairness in this country—fairness not just in the management of relations between employers and employees but also fairness in the distribution of the national taxation burden and fairness in the allocation of national public resources to those who are in greatest need. In fact, what is on trial in this bill today in this parliament is fairness itself and whether this government, beyond rhetoric, gives any passing attention to the notion of fairness itself. Fairness is not simply some political construct of the Australian Labor Party; fairness goes to the very core of our national ethos as Australians. And it is that ethos which is under fundamental threat and challenge in the legislation before us.

The government has its own view of fairness. When you strip it all away, its concept of fairness is this: it should be arbitrated and determined by markets alone. In this context, the only function of government is to ensure that those markets operate competitively. This is the core of the Liberal capitalism which this government stands for. It is neoclassical economics, it is Hayek, it is John Howard, it is Peter Reith and it is Peter Costello; but it is not us. We stand for something completely different.

Let us look briefly at the overarching government philosophy that lies at the heart of this legislation before the House. Let us look at it as it reflects itself through the clauses of the industrial relations bill before us. Let us also see how it has been reflected in the other tenets of government policy, in its consideration of both consumption tax and currently business tax. These legislative initiatives of the government are not a series of random events. They are linked by a common philosophy, and that common philosophy has as its core organising principle this very simple proposition: a redistribution of wealth and power in our economy and in our society away from the poor and towards the rich, away from the weak and towards the strong.

Those opposite have asked why we have opposed the consumption tax. It is very simple: because the consumption tax, the goods and services tax, is a redistribution of wealth tax which redistributes wealth away from poor people to rich people. It is a $32 billion redistribution tax. You ask why we have reservations about certain aspects of the business tax proposals currently before us as well. The reason for that is that once again there are certain elements of that package which give rise to concern on the part of a number of us in terms of yet a further redistribution of wealth away from the poor to the rich, away from the weak towards the strong. Not to mention, in the case of the business tax proposals, the ultimate impact which they will have on the overall integrity of the taxation base and the capacity of the nation at large, through the budget sector, to deliver social programs to those most in need. And today you ask us again in this place why we oppose this bill. The reason again is equally simple, and that is that what we have before us is a naked redistribution of power away from the weak and towards the strong.

One of the disturbing elements of all of this revolution in taxation and all of this revolution in industrial relations is the two personalities driving it, P1 and P2. Sitting on this side of the chamber, you get the distinct impression that what Mr Costello and Mr Reith are busy doing all the time is out- Ramboing each other in order to achieve the most dramatic headlines out there in the newspapers the following day. What we have on the other side of the chamber at the moment is an undeclared leadership dispute. What we have is Mr Costello, the Treasurer, already declaring his hand in the article published the other day in the Australian Financial Review under Peter Hartcher's name. What we have is an equally displeased Peter Reith concerned that his own leadership prospects might at some stage be threatened by Mr Costello's own ambition. What we have as a consequence of this is a process of almost permanent policy one-upmanship, a competition you can see on a daily basis here as they compete one against the other for who is going to get the most questions on what.

What is all this about at the end of the day? It is about who ends up being the top dog in the show represented by those opposite. But who are the casualties of this political competitive process, the casualties of this race of naked political ambition? Who are the victims of this process? They are those who at the end of the day suffer the consequences of this redistribution of wealth and power through the tax system and through the industrial relations system—the poor and the weak. They are the casualties of this leadership dispute which seems to be driving so much of the government's policy agenda as we speak.

When we go to this bill and we go to its title, the title itself sums everything up: More Jobs, Better Pay. It is as if we have taken leave of ourselves and this place and we have entered into the world of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, the land where everything is in fact upside down. Or, more sinisterly, I think it is more likely to be the world of George Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-four. Remember that in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four the Ministry of Truth was the ministry which told the lies and the Ministry for Peace was the ministry which made war. What we have now is a government which says, `We are going to give you a piece of legislation which delivers more jobs and better pay.' For that, read `less jobs and less pay'. What we have now is a set of political protocols on the part of those opposite which simply has as its organising principle: tell them one thing, deliver the other; pretend something is one thing while in fact doing quite the reverse. When they say `fairness', in fact the enduring reality is unfairness.

When we go to the substantial provisions of the bill, we see that a large part of it goes to the emasculation of the powers of the trade union movement. What is it about those opposite that they have such an experience and such an attitude towards trade unions and trade unionists? Have you all had bad experiences in childhood somewhere with trade unions? I fail to grasp the level of animosity, anxiety and vitriol which we see pour forth from those opposite almost on a daily basis when one simply mentions the words `trade union', as if trade unions, in the history of our country and in the history of the broader civilisation of which we are part, have not played a positive role. Have you all forgotten the role of trade unions in the 19th century and the early 20th century in the basic conditions of safety in the mines and in the basic conditions in the workplaces? Those most elementary conditions of safety and entitlements, as far as the wages and the like that were guaranteed, were delivered through the trade union movement.

The challenge which those opposite have never answered in this debate or in their daily outpourings of vitriol against the trade union movement is this: has human nature changed? Do those opposite genuinely believe that, as a consequence of this legislation, mystically human nature will change and that employers in the future will be a permanently virtuous set of humanity, never once again in the future doing anything nasty or negative to any employee in any workplace across the country? Dickensian England lies in the 19th century. It could never recur. If you went to visit some of the sweatshops of suburban Melbourne, you would find it is alive and well in this country—not just in Melbourne but right across this country—and the only force that working people have working for them at the end of the day to defend their conditions against exploitative employers where they exist is an active and vibrant trade union movement.

I am proud of the Australian trade union movement, in its history and its current practice. I have never worked for a trade union in my life, but I recognise, through everything that I have experienced in work and in my dealings with friends and fellows, the impact which they have on underpinning basic conditions in our life and in our workplace. It strikes me as passing strange that we had in this place for months on end this vitriol and this diatribe, particularly by Mr Reith, the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, as he sought to name, one by one, those on this side of the chamber who at some stage of their life had worked for a trade union, as if that were some crime against humanity. I would regard such employment as in fact being a badge of honour, given the role which trade unions have played in the life, the work and the social equity of this country.

There are also the substantive changes to the powers of trade unions themselves contained in this bill. Removed from trade unions is their ability to inspect records. Removed from trade unions is their ability to visit workplaces unmolested. They must now seek a written application from a member of a trade union in a particular workplace, forgetting that such a process is almost impossible given the fact that so many employees in industrial workplaces do not have English as their first language, let alone any passing familiarity with the industrial laws of this country. Then we have the sheer impracticality of going to the commission registrar in order to obtain a certificate to gain access to a workplace if such a letter of invitation cannot be obtained from a member of a trade union in the first place.

What we have in this bill is an attack on the powers of trade unions. We also have an attack on awards and what they contain. We see the continuation in effect of award stripping. We see changes in terms of what awards are capable of providing for casual workers. We see no longer any protection offered for workers who would normally have been in receipt of notice pay when a business folds. We see no protection for workers when companies go into insolvency. We see no protection for workers when there is a corporate restructure. We see no protection for workers when we have a transfer of business, as in fact once was the case.

Finally, we have through this bill the further emasculation of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. If there is anything that goes to the core of our national sense of fairness in this country, it is an independent umpire, be it in sport or any field of life but most particularly in the workplace where so much of our basic earning of income and most of our basic conditions are so much at stake. Strip away the power of the Industrial Relations Commission, remove from it the ability to perform the independent function that it has performed in years gone by, and what you are left with at the end of the day is employers pitted singly against employees. We have proposals here which say that there will now be fee-for-service arrangements for certain functions historically performed by the commission free of charge. We have in fact the privatisation of certain other functions of the commission: for example, in mediation.

We now have greater recourse to the courts. When individual workers are forced to go to the courts, how many of them can afford to pay the extraordinary fees which are levied on them when they go through the formal legal process? What we have under challenge in this bill is a total attack on the cost of industrial justice itself, placing it beyond the reach of individual workers. In conclusion, what we have in the bill is a fundamental assault on the Australian traditions and practices of fairness. We see that reflected in the bill's attack on the powers of unions. We see that in its attack on the independence of the Industrial Relations Commission and we see that in its further emasculation of awards. For these reasons, the bill in its present shape should be opposed and the amendment moved by the honourable member for Brisbane should be supported.