16-October-2005
Speeches, Workplace Relations
GREG TURNBULL: Well Liberal MP Andrew Robb is a former federal director of the Liberal Party and now Chairman of the Government’s industrial relations taskforce, and he’s our guest this morning. Mr Robb, welcome to the program.
ANDREW ROBB: Yeah, good morning Greg.
TURNBULL: Well first to the claim from Labor today that the industrial relations changes you’re proposing will reduce average earnings, and that’ll have an impact on pensioners. Should pensioners be worried?
ROBB: Look, this is just a further example of the sort of scaremongering that they’re raking over. Day by day we’re coming up with all of this deliberate deception.
The fact of the matter is with pensioners, the pension is related to average male weekly earnings, and overt he last nine and a half years, average male weekly earnings have gone up in real terms by nearly 15%. Now that compares with about 2% over the previous 13 years of Labor.
And the reason we are embarking on these changes is to try and maintain that growth in real take home pay, and therefore the sort of underpinning of pensions.
The real risk, the real risk to lower pay, fewer jobs, higher interest rates and pressure on pensions comes from us doing nothing, comes from us doing what the Labor Party is suggesting that we do nothing. So unless we embark on these changes, pensions would be under threat.
TURNBULL: I notice you trumpet the rise in real wages over those years, but the fact of the matter is that your government was opposed to increases in the Industrial Relations Commission every time. And now you’ll have a so-called Fair Pay Commissioner whose English counterpart by the way is called the Low Pay Commissioner, and that’s that office that he’s modelled on.
ROBB: Well the Commission in the UK has increased minimum wages by I think it’s 30% since they came into existence in 99, and they have looked at the sustainability in the economy, and they have seen real increases.
And again, the furphy is that as you say, it’s just a repeat of the Labor line that, that we have opposed every – we have advocated increases at every national wage case since we came to power. And people know, people know that the way in which the minimum wage is altered is it’s a very artificial construct. It’s 100 years old, it’s based out of disputes.
They can only resolve a minimum wage claim, the Commission, by the creation of dispute. The ACTU puts up some unrealistic figure. Employers and the Government come in with another level and everyone knows it ends up somewhere in the middle. It bears no relationship invariably to what’s going on in the economy.
And we have supported wage increases, and we will continue to support wage increases, and the only way we’ll have significant wage increases in this country is if we make the changes that we’ve got on the table.
TURNBULL: Well let’s look at one of the cut through messages of the last week from the people expressing concern about these changes, in this case, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen.
[Excerpt Played]
PETER JENSEN: There won’t be time for relationships. And after all, I would have thought that’s what life is about, rather than the economy. Without shared time we may as well be robots. I have to admit I wait anxiously to see what a new workplace relations system is going to mean for our community.
[End Excerpt]
TURNBULL: Andrew Robb, do you have enough Government advertising dollars up your sleeve to assuage the concerns of people like the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney?
ROBB: Well that’s not a question of advertising. The advertising is seeking to explain the detail of what we’re doing.
The fact of the matter is that we want what the churches want. We want strong families. And I do think that, you know, ten years of a coalition government, if there’s one hallmark, if there’s one great achievement, it has been a whole raft of initiatives to make families stronger.
And if you look at the impact of the changes we made in 96 to the workplace, which built on the changes Paul Keating started in 1993, we have seen in the last ten years, and you look at it, if you look at the workplace agreements, there are an increasing number of family friendly arrangements that are building into these agreements. We’re just trying to extend that.
We understand what the bishop’s on about. We want stronger families, and we are convinced we wouldn’t be doing this, we would not be doing this, if we thought this was going to put more pressure on families. Quite the opposite. We want stronger families.
TURNBULL: Let me put one specific example to you which Labor raised through the week. Tancred Fresh in Queensland, I think you’re familiar with the case. There was an enterprise agreement put to them that was going to include taking away their penalties and holiday pay for 16 cents an hour additional. That was knocked back because of the no disadvantage test.
You want to scrap the no disadvantage test. Yes or no, will, under your system will people be open to losing their holiday and penalties for as little as 16 cents an hour?
ROBB: Well again, that was, again, that was a misrepresentation and a deliberate deception. It was, the figure that, the example they brought up related to casuals. The permanents were several hours, several dollars an hour more for their arrangements, which they were trading away, and which the workforce were happy with.
But the thing about the no disadvantage test Greg is that it is impossible to use. It just doesn’t work. I would say in excess…
TURNBULL: It seemed to work for Tancred Fresh. It bumped them up from 16 cents an hour to $1.31.
ROBB: No, in Tancred Fresh the workforce – they sat down with the workforce and negotiated an increase arrangement. It wasn’t to do with the – you look at the no disadvantage test. It’s totally subjective, it’s totally subjective – let me finish – it’s totally subjective.
In most cases someone comes up with a 10 or 15 page document and agreement with their workforce, they then try and compare that with literally hundreds of pages of an award. No one can do it. Even the commissioners say that they just make a judgement, they don’t really compare these things.
And what it has meant is that the unions use this no disadvantage test to impose hundreds of requirements into an agreement which are not wanted by anybody, which increase the regulation and which increase the costs and which reduce jobs and reduce terms and conditions. It has worked against good conditions.
TURNBULL: Andrew Robb, we’ll come back to that. When we return with the panel, Government advertising and Kim Beazley at his angriest.
[Advertisement break]
TURNBULL: You’re on Meet the Press with our guest Andrew Robb, and we’re joined by our panel this morning, Louise Dodson from the Sydney Morning Herald, and Brad Norington from The Australian newspaper.
Well here’s how cranky Kim Beazley got in Parliament on Wednesday on the subject of the Government’s IR ads and the abolition of that no disadvantage test.
[Excerpt Played]
KIM BEAZLEY: The last [indistinct] is ripped away by this legislation and he has the hide to stand in this chamber and tell us that nothing has changed, when that is the very essence of his legislation, the very heart of his legislation is that that no disadvantage test gets ripped away.
[End Excerpt]
TURNBULL: Brad Norington.
BRAD NORINGTON: Good morning Mr Robb.
ROBB: G’day. Hi Brad.
NORINGTON: You said that there’s been a lot of scaremongering about the campaign and complaints about your workplace relations package, but these workplace relations changes your proposing, they don’t give employees anything, but they take a lot away. So that’s a pretty hard sell isn’t it?
ROBB: Well that’s just not true, that’s just not true. But it gives employees the opportunity in tens of thousands of workplaces to sit down with their employer and work out arrangements which will suit them. Not a set of conditions, 400 pages of conditions that are imposed by some group of industrial bureaucrats at the top end of town, and that’s what’s happened. We’ve had 100 years of conditions determined by a bunch of industrial bureaucrats at the top end of town imposed on every workplace around this country, the 1.5 million.
What we are providing is an opportunity to make agreement making easier so that we get a culture where employers sit down with their employees and work out what’s going to work for you. Can a young mum start half an hour later so she can drop the kids off at school and make that up some other way in the workplace, not have some nine to five stricture which has been imposed by a bunch of suits somewhere at the top end of town.
This is what we’re doing. This is really important for families.
NORINGTON: With respect, Mr Robb, you can do those things right now, but the minimum conditions for employees are going to change so that no longer will it be guaranteed that workers can get public holidays, rest breaks, penalty rates, shift loadings, that kind of thing. They’re the minimum conditions that are going.
ROBB: Well as you say right now some of those things, if it works to trade off some of those penalty rates and whatever for productivity improvements for a higher rate of pay per hour, that’s happening.
But where is it happening? That’s how we’ve had the big improvements in the economy, but it’s happening often in the bigger workplaces where they can afford to sit down and negotiate with the unions and come to some arrangement.
But in most of the small business workplaces and medium sized businesses across the country they have not got that opportunity. If they try and strike an agreement and sit down with their workplace, when they submit that to the Commission, the union stick their nose in. They frustrate it.
They use the no disadvantage test in a quite incorrect and malicious way to force all sorts of arrangements, force themselves into the deal, so much so that employers say it’s not worth the candle. I’ll stay with this rigid award based system. I won’t take the advantages I could and I’ll just stay with what I’ve been doing, and they’re denied this opportunity in tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of workplaces across the economy.
If we don’t unlock this potential we will not keep he growth going in this economy. We’ve got to keep making these changes, or otherwise the wellbeing and the good fortune we’ve had the last few years will be lost.
LOUISE DODSON: So Mr Robb, you’ve said that this depends on employers being good guys, but you’ve also admitted that about 5% will be bad apples. How will you – will the penalties be tough enough to get to those bad apples?
ROBB: That’s been a very important focus of ours, that we want genuine bargaining in the workplace. I think you’ve raised a very good point here Louise. I think the unions, they’re focused overwhelmingly on the 5% bad apples, and there’ll always be bad apples amongst employers and employees. Always will be, always has been. They’re focused on that 5%.
We’re focused on the 95% of good employers and good employees and trying to free them up to really make arrangements which work.
Now what the unions want to do is to impose a raft – as they have done for 100 years – of major regulation, choking regulation on the 100% of workplaces to catch the 5%. We’re putting…
DODSON: So will there be big fines, or…?
ROBB: There’ll be, there are serious fines, there’s a doubling of the inspectorate, there’ll be 200 inspectors out there, hotlines for people to make contact if they feel they’ve been coerced, which is unlawful, if they feel they’ve been under duress, which is unlawful, if they feel the arrangements that they’ve entered into are not being adhered to, that’s unlawful, they’ll be able to make a call, inspectorates will come out.
Even last year, last year there were 4,700 cases which were taken by the inspectorate, and we’re going to, we’ve improved on those protections. It is very important that people, if they’re going to bargain, that they can genuinely bargain.
NORINGTON: Mr Robb, you seem to be pinning a lot of what you’re saying on the unions, but in fact 80% of the workforce doesn’t even belong to a trade union.
So therefore, in that case, how do you sell the package to the non-union voters? They’re the ones you have to persuade for the next election, and they are the people who, without union backing or bargaining power or whatever you want to call it, face the prospect of looking at an employer across the table and the employer says well, here’s the contract, I want you to sign for your new job, and it doesn’t have rest breaks, penalty rates, meal breaks, public holidays, and so on. Nothing to do with unions.
ROBB: Well, one of the problems with the current system is that it still allows for the union movement, whether they’ve got members or not in lots of cases, to stick their nose into agreement making and to frustrate it and to discourage many workplaces from embarking on that, with the Commission, with the aid of the Commission in many cases.
So the system, the regulation and the existing parties that have been there for 100 years continue to frustrate a lot of agreement making. So that’s one point. The unions and other parts of the system are important to free that up.
But in terms of the workforce, it is a workers market out there, and in many respects what we’re doing will enhance the bargaining position and the capacity of lots of workers with skills and experience to cut really good deals, cut better deals, things that are more relevant to them, more family friendly.
The people who are doing a good job in this community, and overwhelmingly that’s the case, will be better off with these changes, and yet we’ve put in protections, we’ve put in protections for others. The minimum conditions are important protections and we have put in a floor, a strong safety net for everybody, and those that’ll do a good job will be better off under this system. And that’s fair. That is far.
TURNBULL: Well fair enough then - fair being the operative word. Thanks very much Andrew Robb for joining us from Melbourne this morning.
ROBB: My pleasure Greg.
[ends]
Media contact: Kathryn Hodges 0409 316 620