Page 3971 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
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equally confused. But all of the situations we see at the present time are basically old systems. They are old systems characterised by awards of several hundreds of pages.
Minister, members and Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker: we need to look at the facts. We have to realise that the weekly earnings of people who are on AWAs are, on average, 13 per cent more than those of employees on collective agreements. We need to note the fact that non-managerial AWA employees’ weekly earnings are, on average, three per cent more than those on collective agreements that the unions are so fond of. Private sector AWA employees’ weekly earnings are, on average, nine per cent more than those of private sector employees on collective agreements. Public sector AWA employees’ weekly earnings are, on average, 57 per cent higher, that is, $1,378 compared to $878, than those of public sector collective agreement employees.
Given the clear advantages of AWAs over collective agreements, employees have responded how you would expect them to: 761,000 have been approved since their introduction in 1997 to the end of September 2005; indeed, 214,000 have been approved in the past 12 months. This represents a 38 per cent increase on the previous 12 months.
I have little time remaining but I would like to conclude with a few points. The evidence is also that workers are satisfied. More AWA employees are satisfied that they are rewarded for their efforts than collective employees—44 four per cent is the figure—in those categories, and 38 per cent of AWA employees are more satisfied with the change in their pay and conditions, compared to 28 per cent of those on collective agreements.
Yesterday, the minister made something of the fact that she felt that I had an advantage in terms of briefing in relation to what the Australian government was doing in this regard. I have made further inquiry on this matter and I understand that Minister Andrews wrote to the ACT government, to the acting IR minister at the time, Mr Hargreaves, and told him the government remains “open to input on its reform plan from state and territory governments”. At the last workplace relations ministerial council meeting the minister agreed with state and territory ministers to continue consultations on the proposed new framework.
State and territory governments have an open invitation to contribute. States have been invited to refer their powers to enable them to have the benefits of a single IR system, as the ACT, the Northern Territory and Victoria currently do. It is interesting that there has been very much an open-door policy extended to the territory government and to the minister, and I sincerely hope that she will take up the invitation that has been extended to her and become familiar with this legislation.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children, Youth and Family Support, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (4.35): I must say that you can never tire of the discussion. I keep standing up and thinking I will talk on certain aspects of the laws. Then I listen to Mr Mulcahy and he knows how to get me going. As I said, the beauty of Hansard is that all of that remains there for use.
In relation to Minister Andrews’s offer of open consultation, Minister Andrews has refused consistently, at every meeting that I have attended, to give the legislation to the territories or the state governments to consult with him over it. That is what we have
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