Page 649 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 28 March 2006
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forum at which ministers for industrial relations meet around a table with the commonwealth minister and talk through issues of mutual interest. They were not invited even to discuss the preliminary announcement of Work Choices. Clearly, what were hailed as the most radical changes to industrial relations required an unprecedented level of secrecy. Once revealed, these changes needed some $50 million of PR spin to make them close to digestible.
Here we come to the necessity for this committee and the inquiry that it has undertaken. The federal government’s Work Choices proposal is indeed the most radical change to industrial relations this country has seen and should be scrutinised by all who wish to do so. The federal government ignored the recommendations of the states and territories. That may be at its peril, with a High Court challenge in process concerning the federal government’s use of the corporations power. Further, and of greater concern, the federal government failed the people of Canberra with its own extremely limited inquiry. It had a clear agenda and would not even let its constituency get in the way.
This committee’s inquiry has given the people of Canberra the opportunity to examine Work Choices. It has given employer and employee organisations a place to highlight their sentiments on specific aspects of the legislation. As stated in the report, the committee received 10 submissions in total. Of those 10 submissions, nine raised grave concerns about the impact Work Choices will have on working families in the ACT; that is, 90 per cent, Mr Speaker.
Seventeen witnesses appeared before the committee at public hearings held on 1 and 8 December last year. Of those 17 witnesses, 16 raised grave concerns about the impact Work Choices will have on working families in the ACT; that is, 94 per cent. It would be a great error to ignore these statistics, for it is here that we, as a committee, see the immediate effect of Work Choices; the increased level of fear and anxiety about what these changes will do to workplaces, to schools, to disadvantaged individuals and to families.
The report lists the array of fears and concerns expressed by 90 per cent of the submissions and by 94 per cent of the witnesses giving evidence at committee hearings. To give some greater understanding of these concerns, I think it fitting to read from the committee hearing transcript. On the matter of evidence from the New Zealand school system post the Employment Contract Act, Clive Haggar from the Australian Education Union said:
The income gap between rich and poor grew at a very serious rate during the previous National government in New Zealand. You had real poverty appearing once again, the diseases of poverty. This is reflected in what children at school were exposed to back in their home environments, particularly if they were of Island or Maori extraction.
Scott Connolly from the Transport Workers Union said of increasing price competition in the transport sector:
They will do whatever it takes to get the job done. They do that for one of two reasons: firstly because they have got to put food on the table. People have a choice of putting food on the table by doing extra shifts or working six or seven days.
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