Page 4498 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 1993
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union in the bargaining process. But are we not talking about the non-union sector, about over 50 per cent and rising of the Australian work force? Some 71 per cent of employees in the private sector are not union members. The Minister's obsession with unions ignores about 50 per cent or more of the work force who are not involved in unions. The Federal reform Bill tries to set the scene so that the unions, with ever decreasing membership, can recruit members through enterprise bargaining. This is not the aim of enterprise bargaining. It is being perverted by desperate unionists concerned with their failing support base. There is nothing in the reform Bill which alters the monopoly the union has over the enterprise bargaining process.
Mr Berry went on to say that the deregulation of the labour market, as recommended by the Australian Prime Minister, is motivated by a desire to reduce the wages and conditions and the living standards of Australians. That is utter nonsense. Mr Berry accuses proponents of deregulation of being extreme and immoral. Deregulation is not some right-wing extremist ideology of economic rationalists in bunkers. It is called such only by people frightened of the challenge of making real and meaningful changes to the industrial relations system.
For example, the Minister has supported the Federal initiative of discounted wage rates for people with disabilities which may prevent them from working at full wage rates. Why cannot the Government also accept a similar principle and apply this to young people who, because of their youth and inexperience, may often not be fully productive at work and therefore are perhaps not worth full wage rates? A limited youth wage rate would immediately cut youth unemployment. That has been said not only by members on this side of the house or of this political persuasion but also by many other people, even members of the Labor Party from time to time. Sensibly limiting the youth wage to cover only a short period of inexperience would give incentive to employers to hire young people and experience to young people seeking work - a win-win situation all the time.
However, of more concern is the accuracy of the title "reform Bill". The Bill, which the Minister has supported, is perhaps more accurately called the pay-back Bill. The vice-president of the ACTU, Ms Jennie George, said:
What the employers have got to understand is that we won the election in March and this Bill is a pay back for the commitments that were made by the Government in the course of that election campaign.
It is pay-back time for political dues, quite obviously. Political dues have nothing to do with increasing employment opportunities. The pay-back Bill will increase the rigidity of the industrial relations system across Australia, in much the same fashion as Mr Berry is trying to do in the ACT. Rigidity in the labour force is a disincentive to employment. Today, the unemployment statistics again saw national unemployment above 11 per cent. In the ACT, the unemployment statistics remain on a governmentally approved 6.4 per cent. Let us not talk about 6.4 per cent; let us talk about 11,000 people out of work.
Industrial relations, commanding the business of employment, also commands the tragedy of unemployment. The nexus is direct and vital. You cannot govern industrial relations policy without affecting the employment/unemployment situation. The decisions made by this Government, and the Federal Government,
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