Mr MARTIN FERGUSON (6:13 PM) —The Workplace Relations Amendment (Right of Entry) Bill 2004 is in my opinion just another example of the Howard government’s narrow-minded industrial relations agenda. The objective is to undermine and wind back the hard-won rights of Australian workers. As we have already heard, this bill is about one thing and one thing alone—in essence, restricting the ability of union representatives to enter the workplace to go about their normal duties. It reminds me of another bill recently introduced by the government, a bill that discriminates against Australian working people with respect to unfair dismissal law merely because they are employed by small businesses. As is the case with the unfair dismissal bill, the right of entry bill is about discrimination on the basis of union membership. It is a bill which, without a doubt, fetters the rights of employees to genuine freedom of association and an effective right to bargain collectively, and it is a bill that offends their right to privacy.

It is also a bill that furthers the government’s insidious moves to undermine the states’ rights and one that places Australian law further in breach of international labour conventions. I refer particularly to ILO Convention 87 concerning freedom of association and protection of the right to organise. One should appreciate that ILO conventions are not drafted by union officials but by a tripartite organisation that meets on a regular basis, with an equal number of workers and employer representatives in association with government representatives. Conventions such as the convention concerning freedom of association and protection of the right to organise represent basic laws that we should have in place in any decent society—in this case, with respect to workers’ rights. Alternatively, there are also in place a number of conventions going to the rights of employers in different countries around the world.

For those reasons, the opposition is correctly opposing the proposal by the government, as are a wide range of unions and state and territory governments. It is interesting to note that there has been no consultation with stakeholders—state and territory governments, employees or employers. I suppose that reminds us of what we are seeing on a regular basis this year with respect to how the Howard government is conducting itself—the government’s pure arrogance during question time and its attack on the rights of state and territory governments.

If you consider the second reading speech, you see that there is no case whatsoever made out for a policy change and no legal case laid out for a change. The bill serves no useful purpose. For example, it does not fix any problems that exist with respect to the right of entry. One of the problems most notably concerns the fact that employees covered by AWAs currently have no rights to visits from a union official at their workplace, yet this problem is not sought to be remedied by the bill before the House this evening. That effectively means that those workers have fewer rights to access assistance and information from unions than do employees subject to awards or other industry arrangements. It means that those employees covered by AWAs are being denied the information they need to make objective choices about the conditions of their AWAs; they are being denied the opportunity to properly weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of an AWA compared to other industrial instruments. So much for so-called choice, in terms of government policy; it is about denying choice with respect to being able to be presented with information concerning a comparison between what might be laid out in an AWA and what might be laid out in an alternative industrial instrument, be it a state or federal award. Choice is not on the government’s agenda. It is about a few ministers sitting in a room and pursuing their ideological attack on the union movement and the rights of workers. In essence, it means that those workers have no way of knowing what the industrial benchmarks are or whether or not their conditions and wages are being eroded—if anything, whether they are being sold out by signing up to such AWAs.

Why does this government and why do employers want to restrict the right of entry of unions to the workplace? Where is the evidence of problems for employers with the operation of the current right of entry provisions? The commission and the registrar have already shown an ability to deal with inappropriate behaviour by permit holders, including the withdrawal of permits. The fact is that this bill is aimed at appeasing the minority of employers who have something to hide—those who want to avoid scrutiny and accountability. The truth is that most employers are good employers, but unions should have right of entry provisions to guarantee their right to actually pursue those employers who choose to do the wrong thing by their workplace.

That is what the right of entry provisions are about. For example, they are pursued to raise issues regarding the conditions of employment, but also, importantly, they have been used on a regular basis to pursue genuine problems with respect to health and safety. They could be issues relating to improper attention to the use of asbestos or to a failure to maintain one’s workplace with respect to the fact that the building is made of asbestos. These are serious issues that union officials have a right to pursue on behalf of workers to guarantee what I consider to be a fundamental right—that is, the right of workers to go to work at the commencement of a shift and come home at the end of the shift in the knowledge that they work in a safe environment and their life is not threatened or endangered. Historically, that is the fundamental use of the right of entry provisions by the union movement.

It is also about making sure that workers receive their proper entitlements of employment—for example, spot checks on employers to make sure that workers are receiving their just superannuation entitlements as provided for by legislation of this parliament. It is fair to say that there is not a rigorous requirement from government on a regular basis with respect to checking up on whether or not workers are receiving their superannuation entitlements. That is why from time to time you do have drives to guarantee that workers are receiving their entitlements, be they under an industrial instrument or under an act of this parliament such as the requirement for employers to pay in workers’ superannuation entitlements on a regular basis. I know of examples where those spot checks have revealed that not only had employees not been paid the requirement of nine per cent for superannuation but employees’ own personal contributions had not been paid in by the employers. It is the ability to actually check books to determine whether or not the requirements of the law of the land have been adhered to which is fundamental to the use of right of entry provisions.

I effectively argue that this bill is clearly about undermining the rights of working Australians and winding back their working conditions and wages. It is about putting up barriers to scrutiny with respect to the conduct of workplaces, going to that minority of employers who are not prepared to do the right thing by working men and women in Australia. It is a bill that allows this government and a minority of employers to abrogate the responsibility to seriously address productivity reform in this country—and that is what the debate this evening ought to be about. It ought to be about how we lift our performance on the productivity front. But those are the types of issues that the Howard government do not want to debate, because they have been unwilling to confront that huge challenge since they were elected in 1996. The facts speak for themselves.

Where do we hear from this government about our need for productivity improvements and our need to lift our game on the training front to increase the number of traditional apprenticeships? Where do we see any suggestion that the private sector in association with the state, federal and territory governments should be doing more to invest in the training of our work force? When do we ever hear the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations talk about the need for technological advances to improve productivity, in association with a better-trained work force—the issue of how, in essence, we achieve a cheaper cost of production? All we ever hear from them is about the need to lower wages and put in place poorer conditions for the lower-paid in the Australian community.

I think is about time we refocused the workplace relations debate in Australia in the 21st century. It should not be about trying to turn Australia into a low-wage economy; it should be about us as a nation lifting productivity, just as we did in the 1980s and 1990s. That is when we did the hard yards on the workplace relations front. That is when Australian industry actually became more competitive. We increased our export of manufactured products. All we have now is a government that, in terms of its trade problems, relies on exporting more raw materials which we do not process in Australia. That is not the key to Australia’s future—and we do not even have the tradespeople and the professional people to assist in that. Investment is now being held back in Australia because of the failure of the government to do the right thing about workplace relations and employers’ performance through investment in training and skilling of the work force. What do we get? We get a narrow-minded debate about right of entry provisions in order to take people’s attention off the real challenges that confront Australia.

I suggest to the House this evening that it is about time that we as a nation focused on the big issues that drive the Australian economy, like productivity growth and the training of the work force. They are the issues that will make or break the future employment prospects of all Australians, including those who are now required to work longer in order to exist in retirement, because of the huge changes in the cost of living that have been perpetrated by the Howard government. What do we get? We get a narrow-minded debate that is focused on union rights—a desire to undermine the right of workers to be properly represented in the workplace.

I believe in mutual obligation. It was the Labor Party in government that invented the concept of mutual obligation for our Working Nation employment program, saying to the business community in Australia: ‘We’re prepared to invest in getting people skilled and back to work, but we also require you to pull your weight, to employ some of these people and give them an opportunity in the workplace.’ I think it is time for us as a community, in thinking about what happens at the workplace, to also commence a new debate about mutual obligation. It will not focus on right of entry, if we are to make progress in increasing our exports and creating better-paying jobs in Australia. It will be about the rights and responsibilities of employers, workers, unions and governments—and I am talking about all three levels of government in Australia.

As I say, the proposal before the House this evening goes nowhere near that type of debate. It is not about productivity. It is not about the fact that our productivity now is well below that recorded in several OECD countries. When do you hear the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations take a dorothy dixer in question time to talk about those issues? They are too complex. The only dorothy dixers we ever get from the minister for workplace relations in question time are aimed at belting low-paid workers, denying their right to a proper consideration of an increase in minimum rates, or alternatively taking away workers’ or union rights in terms of access to a workplace. The government never raise the debate about productivity, about skilling, in a proper way. They are always trying to blame someone else on that issue rather than fronting up to their responsibilities.

When do we hear the government talking about how we can increase participation rates? We made huge gains on the issue of women’s employment under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments. What is the government doing about that other untapped manpower resource in Australia: the Indigenous community? Very little. It has now been largely left to major resource companies such as BHP and CRA to show the way, because the Howard government has failed in terms of Indigenous employment. There is a huge untapped work force out there to be trained to overcome the skilling problems in Australia. But what do we get now? It is always the short-term fix by the Howard government: ‘We’re just going to increase migration.’ That is the easy option, rather than fronting up to the hard decisions and the real effort that have to be made to turn around the economic situation that is now confronting Australia: the fact that we could actually start to go backwards if we are not very careful.

I raise these issues because I want to remind the House this evening of a recent OECD country report which highlights what the opposition has been saying for some time—and it has now been supported by a number of key economic commentators in Australia—that is, the Howard government has been living off the Hawke-Keating reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s for the last nine years. They talk about a reform program, which the report says ‘was remarkable, and is still producing benefits’. It has produced a lot of benefits. The Howard government has lived off the benefits of those huge changes for the last nine years.

It is about time the Howard government took up the challenge. It was the Hawke and Keating governments that left Australia with a terrific economic foundation. We now have to build on those productivity gains. We are currently squandering them, and the cracks are starting to appear in the economy. Interestingly, the OECD report also goes on to say ‘the reform agenda needs reinvigorating’ and ‘maintaining high productivity growth and raising economic and social participation are key’. In other words, the OECD is suggesting that the reform agenda has stalled. If this government were really serious about employment reform and job creation, it would do something about the skills shortage in this country, a shortage which unions and employer groups both say is holding back economic growth.

Neither our governments nor our businesses are investing enough in education and training, particularly for trade skills. According to ACTU research, last year only one in 10 private sector employers delivered structured industry training that would lead to a national qualification. That is a national shame. The research also showed that between 1996 and 2002 investment in structured training fell from 1.7 per cent to 1.5 per cent. These are facts that the government cannot escape.

The ACTU report also notes that rising labour force skills and competencies help achieve higher levels of productivity, with OECD research showing that a 10 per cent increase in the average number of years of education of the working-age population would increase per capita GDP by between four per cent and seven per cent. Contrast that with the suggestion by the Prime Minister last week that our young people should leave school at 16. Not only is ongoing education good for young people and their potential employment and earnings prospects but it is also good for the nation. We have to start fronting up to these debates.

The position of the opposition is clear: we do not support this draconian piece of industrial legislation. We further call on the government to start tackling the real policy challenges that face Australia with respect to labour market reform. Think about the issues. They ought to be bread and butter to any government, especially a national government that is expected to lead us in the economic challenges confronting Australia. We must have a proper debate about education and focus as a nation on training and skills development. We must do more to increase labour force participation and to lift the participation of the Indigenous community, which is out there waiting to be tapped into and gainfully employed when properly trained.

It is also about how we treat state and territory governments. If you want progress on the economic front, it is about cooperation not confrontation. It is about a real process of federalism not only in industrial relations but in all the areas I have discussed this evening: skilling, lifting productivity, increasing exports and achieving further downstream processing in Australia, which will create even better jobs.

The opposition believes government policy should provide a fair go for employers, workers and unions. The opposition opposes the bill because it erodes the rights of working Australians to freedom of association, to collective bargaining and to effective workplace representation when and if they need it. The aim of this bill is to replace simple, effective, non-controversial state legislation with a bill that adds red tape to the system and confusion about existing state and federal legislation. It does nothing at all to actually improve workplace relations. This bill will unnecessarily and arbitrarily restrict employees’ rights to collective organising—using representatives of their own choosing—contrary to international obligations. The bill will open the floodgates for discrimination against employees on the basis of union membership, contrary to the principles of freedom of association.

In winding up, I simply say to the House that the government will probably have its will—so be it—but working people will find their own ways to counter this narrow-minded agenda. I also say that working people have just about had a gutful of this ideological approach. They are prepared to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay provided they have the right to be represented. Let us start focusing the industrial relations agenda in Australia on the real issues: the economic challenges confronting Australia at the moment. This bill does nothing to resolve those problems and does not help us to confront the economic difficulties that are staring us in the face. (Time expired)