Press Conference
Parliament House, Canberra - 10th October 2005
E & O E - PROOF ONLY
BEAZLEY: Well, thanks very much
for coming this morning. This morning I read the newspapers and
as a parent, I'm very concerned. John Howard calls it
WorkChoice. Every Australian knows that that is simply a
joke. There is no choice under John Howard's extreme industrial
relations system for many workers, young workers in particular.
I'm deeply concerned about the next generation of Australian
workers. Australian parents know that their young people have no
choice. You know that an 18 year old with a few skills, sitting
down with the boss, is not going to negotiate with the boss on an equal
basis. It's not possible. You know that a 20 year old
youngster who maybe has just completed their skills training and had
done very well at it, terribly anxious to start a job, they're not
going to bargain on an equal basis with the boss. They're going
to do exactly what the boss wants so they can get a start in life.
Most people in this country remember back to when they were young and
how hard it was to get the first job. I don't think John Howard
remembers that but most people do remember how when they were young,
how difficult it was to get their first job. They know how
impossible it would be for them, not protected by collective agreements
or awards, to come to any sort of conclusion with a person you want to
employ you and who sits there holding all the cards in the negotiations
with you.
Well, parents in this country want their kids to get decent jobs.
That's what they want. They want their kids to have decent and
promising future and to be reasonably rewarded - and they simply won't
be. No parent wants to see their young people exploited and under
this legislation that John Howard proposes, it's as clear as night
follows day that young people, among others, will be exploited.
John Howard, for four years, has said that he's been looking for a
barbeque stopper in the legislation that he's put forward. Well,
John Howard has found the weekend barbeque stopper. Those weekend
barbeques will stop as workers are obliged to negotiate away their
weekends, their hours, their penalty rates under the legislation that
he's put forward. This is very family unfriendly legislation that
John Howard is proposing.
You know darn well when you're trying to sell a piece of completely
unacceptable legislation that you're going to try and sell it with the
maximum use of taxpayers' dollars. If John Howard was confident
in this legislation he would not be spending $100 million worth of
taxpayers' funds - effectively an open-ended cheque - in order to
mislead absolutely everybody. If he was selling something easy he
wouldn't be after $100 million worth of taxpayers' funds.
But think about that $100 million. It comes on top of more than
$900 million spent so far by this Government on advertising - over $1
billion. Think of the hospitals, think of the schools, think of
the training programs, think of the security that that would buy us if
we were putting in place around our regional airports proper
surveillance, proper surveillance of baggage - that $1 billion down the
drain for the Liberal Party to sell the completely unacceptable.
Now this is $100 million on top of that, $100 million that should be
going to skilling our young Australians.
Now, if John Howard wants to compete with India and China by slashing
wages in a period of time when our cost of living is going up as a
result of petrol prices, as a result of increased health costs, child
care costs and the like, in a period of time when our cost of living is
going up, he wants to push our wages down. This is about slashing
wages; make absolutely no mistake about that. It's not about
productivity, it's about cutting wages. Productivity comes from
skills, the labour market changes that we need now to increase the
skills of the Australian labour market. You compete with India
and China not on wages, but on being able to do things very well
because you are skilled to do them.
The Labor Party's alternative to this is our skills package about which
I've had a great deal to say recently and will have a great deal more
between now and the next election. Australian workers must have
better skills than their regional counterparts and that'll be the
objective of the Australian Labor Party.
So, to conclude my remarks here, this is not about choice. That
is just totally and completely misleading. It's about cutting
wages. It's about cutting wages, reducing conditions. It
will have an immediate impact on young people entering the
workforce. It will have a substantial impact on those in a weak
bargaining position in the workforce, particularly women and the
semi-skilled, and of course in an economic downturn it will have a
major impact on everybody. Over to you.
JOURNALIST: Would you be more specific, would you wind back, if and when Labor is elected, if Labor's elected?
BEAZLEY: I'm not satisfied with
the industrial relations system as it now stands. I don't think
it allows sufficient powers for the Industrial Relations Commission to
ensure fair bargaining, to ensure good faith bargaining. I don't
think the disadvantage test works effectively either. So,
irrespective of what John Howard was doing, I'd be going to the next
election with propositions for change. What we'll do when we
finally see what the Parliament passes, is work out precisely the
rights that we need to see restored to ordinary Australian workers so
they have some capacity to bargain with their employers in the
workplace.
JOURNALIST: But now we know more about the AWAs, would you retain individual contracts?
BEAZLEY: We would eliminate the
capacity of individual contracts to undermine award conditions and
undermine collective bargaining. Frankly, whether it be AWAs,
individual contracts that are the so-called common law contracts,
whatever, if they're not in a position to slash people's wages, by and
large employers don't use them. By and large they don't use them
because that's their purpose. The purpose of AWAs and individual
contracts in the main, not exclusively but in the main, is to slash
wages and conditions. You eliminate their capacity to slash wages
and conditions then you restore basically employers are not interested
in pursuing them.
JOURNALIST: On that point of individual contracts, do
you have facts and figures to back up your assertion that they've been
used to slash wages? And secondly, by the time you became Prime
Minister the Fair Pay Commission would be up and running, would you get
rid of that again and restore that wage fixing power to the IRC?
BEAZLEY: Let me take your last
question first. Absolutely. That Fair Pay Commission will
go and we will put in place that power in the hands of the Industrial
Relations Commission to be exercised publicly and independently of
government. That is an absolute rolled-gold guarantee as far as
we're concerned.
Now, do I have evidence? I'm a Western Australian
politician. That has been the pilot scheme for John Howard's
legislation. I have actually sat in my office in Brand and have
had people bring individual contracts into me that their young people
have been presented with under Western Australian legislation.
When, both in that legislation and in the Queensland legislation, the
Labor Government came in and ended the capacity of AWAs under their
system to undermine conditions and to basically exploit the workers
concerned, they just disappeared. They just stopped signing them
up. So, do I have evidence? Absolutely.
SMITH: If you look at the ABS data
which traditionally makes a division, or a distinction, between what it
describes as those people in managerial positions and those people in
non-managerial positions, and for the purposes of AWAs the managerial
positions are, in the main, mining company highly paid employees or
managers and senior public servants. The managerial positions,
the ABS data shows, that they do quite well, but non-managerial
positions, the ABS data shows, that they do quite badly.
JOURNALIST: Against what benchmark?
SMITH: Against the benchmark of
people on either awards or collective agreements. I'm happy to
stand corrected on the detail but I think the most recent set of ABS
data, for example, says that for non-managerial positions they work six
per cent longer hours for five per cent worse pay.
JOURNALIST: Mr Beazley, in terms of what you'd wind
back and what you wouldn't, what about unfair dismissals? Do you
think small businesses (inaudible) than the 100 employee rule need
greater flexibility? What would you do to those changes if you
were elected?
BEAZLEY: You simply cannot
wholesale make people easier to sack. I mean, what you've got
here is a three-pronged approach: weaken the capacity of people to
bargain for decent wages and conditions; weaken the independent umpire;
make people easier to sack. The three of these things working
together mean that you've got no power, no weight, no capacity to
negotiate in the system. That's the whole point of this exercise
that the Government is going through.
So, for unfair dismissals which is part of that process, we think that
we have put forward reasonably alternatives to it. The reasonable
alternative would mean that unfair dismissal cases would be taken at
the place of work so the bosses didn't have to shut down the workplace
for the course of the hearing of that before the IRC and would have the
IRC come to them, if you like, rather than them have to go to the
IRC. We've said, too, that lawyers would not be permitted to take
these cases on the basis of a success outcome for a fee. They'd
actually have to charge a fee. Now, you do those things.
You eliminate the capacity by and large of unjust things being taken
against the employer by a recalcitrant employee. But this is
throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
JOURNALIST: So, would a Beazley Labor Government
commit to repealing legislation that would exempt businesses with up to
100 employees from unfair dismissal laws?
BEAZLEY: We would go through wholesale change in this
legislation, wholesale change to its basis. We don't agree with
this law at all. And in relation to unfair dismissals, we would
put in place the things that we believed, not the things that the
Government believes.
JOURNALIST: You did promise some years ago massive
changes, or substantial changes, to the Government's tax reforms and in
practice once that was bedded down that became an impractical concept
of the election after that. Isn't there a danger that the same
thing will happen with the industrial relations changes?
BEAZLEY: Absolutely none. This is very
different. What you say about things like the GST is quite
true. When, ultimately, if they succeed in selling Telstra, it'll
be true about that as well. Yes, governments can create - that's
why you don't want to elect governments you don't like - but
governments can create in all practical terms, situations which are
irreversible.
But the battle for decent and fair working conditions is a battle which
has lasted since the day the Labor Party was founded. We were
founded for these reasons: to protect ordinary Australians in the
workplace, that's why we were founded. Sometimes we've succeeded
when we've been in office and sometimes our opponents have come in and
pared back the things that we have done. So, this is part of an
ongoing struggle by the Labor Party. If this legislation is
passed in the Parliament, as I expect it will, it'll be another episode
in the Labor Party's century-old struggle for decency for ordinary
Australian families. We will have absolutely no compunction about
walking into the next election campaign with a wholesale series of
changes to this to protect the rights of our people.
JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister says that these laws
will (inaudible) higher wages and even more jobs and in a healthy
economy he's got a point, hasn't he?
BEAZLEY: No, the Prime Minister is not telling the
truth. We do have a healthy economy now and the fact of the
matter is for those who are workers who are on individual contracts,
their experience is not as good as the experience of those on awards
and those on collective agreements. That's the economy now.
Because even though the economy is good, it doesn't necessarily mean
that all people have equal bargaining positions in the economy.
If you're a very skilled worker, in most circumstances, you've got good
bargaining positions. But if you're a person whereby your family
is immobilised because you've got a house, you've got a district in
which you live, you've got other obligations, if you're a young person,
if you're a woman entering the workforce, if you're a casual worker,
even in today's good economy your bargaining is very weak. And
that's been seen already with the laws as now exists, or the problems
with the laws that now exist that will be repeated massively if we
enter into a period of downturn.
The Prime Minister is not telling the truth about this. The
reason the Prime Minister is not telling the truth about this is that
this has got nothing to do with something good for the Australian
economy or something good for the Australian people. This is his
Liberal Party ideology writ large. It is appearing before us for
one reason and one reason only - they now have the votes in the Senate
to get it through. There was nothing about this in the last
election campaign. If they didn't have the votes in the Senate we
wouldn't be standing before you today.
JOURNALIST: Do you think it's his swansong?
BEAZLEY: That's only a question he can answer but I
certainly think this: if it is his swansong, it is an
extraordinarily damaging one to the people of this nation who have done
him the honour of electing him to lead them for a decade.
JOURNALIST: As the population ages and Australian's
are looking down the barrel of shortage of workers, isn't there a
danger that a wages break-out could come to pass and that could feed
into inflation and interest rates, so couldn't these reform actually
shift the balance and, in that way, protect the economy? And
secondly, would a Beazley Labor Government also commit to rolling back
the essential services provisions? Would you roll back those
Ministerial powers that they're talking about?
BEAZLEY: Firstly to take that first question.
There is an answer - and it's absolute - that there is a danger of
wages break-outs in this country that is a result of this Government
neglecting skills for 10 years. The simple fact of the matter is
we've gone backwards in our training agenda, backwards in the number of
people in the workforce with skills. If you've got skills, got
the skills we need, we've got the economic competitiveness we
need. It's not just Kim Beazley and Stephen Smith saying
this. That's what the OECD said. That's what the Reserve
Bank has said. That's what the IMF has said. They've all
said Australia has a problem regarding the skilling of their workforce.
Now, on the essential services thing, yes I would roll that back.
I would change that. I would eliminate that and the reasons are
simply this - and I will not use that phrase, I must say, in connection
with these, so I've amended it immediately, I've amended it immediately
because this is not the exercise that we're engaged in. We have a
different tact from the Government on this activity. There is
essential services legislation in every State administration, every
State authority, that is true, but that is exercised within a framework
of rights and an independent umpire of great strength and an awards
system and all the rest of it - an independent umpire of great
strength. Now, in a situation where there is no strength in the
bargaining position of the workforce, none whatsoever, the
possibilities of abuse here in emergency provisions is very
great. Unlike the situation at the State level, it is very
great. Therefore, whatever they put in place on that we would
substantially modify.
JOURNALIST: But could you see a situation (inaudible)
in times where the essential services, or whatever you want to call it,
(inaudible) for example, a war effort or the fight against terrorism,
that you would like to retain some powers in a future Beazley
Government (inaudible) under those powers to eliminate them entirely?
BEAZLEY: We go into a declared war - all the sorts of
things that happened in World War II would happen here, there's not
question about that. So, read back over your history of the
Curtin Government and the war you'll find, yes, there were war powers,
emergency legislation in that context. But this is not a
situation for all time.
ends