Page 3422 - Week 11 - Thursday, 15 November 2007
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mainstream agreement making, indicating employers were determined to take advantage of the legislation. The report concludes that, given the reduction in pay and conditions that has occurred during what you would have to argue has been a period of relatively good macroeconomic conditions across the entire economy, future industrial relations policy development must be evidence based, with the aim of tracking what could happen in an economic downturn. So if this can occur during a period of economic growth, what would happen if we went into a recession?
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (10.49): I have not participated in a debate such as this for some time. Last time I spoke on this matter, I was concerned about a select committee being set up to investigate what is primarily a federal issue. I note that we are now talking about the committee’s report 10 days before the federal election, and I suppose that is no accident, either.
There is no doubt that Work Choices is going to be a significant factor in deciding how people cast their vote in this election. All the polls and all the evidence indicate it is one of the main concerns and definitely still a point of differentiation between the two major parties. However, I think what is happening with Work Choices is similar to what has been happening in other areas in the run-up to this election. We have seen a compromise in the Labor Party position on Work Choices, but at the same time we also see the coalition government clawing back some of the most severe aspects—or perhaps I should say appearing to claw back some of the most concerning aspects—of its legislation. Of course, this is in recognition of the fact that Work Choices will play a significant part in the decisions of many voters about how they will vote.
Let us think about this. Until recently, we all felt that the government had made it fairly clear that Work Choices was something to be ratcheted up. What is happening now? For instance, in a policy release by Joe Hockey today, 15 November, it looks as though the government is going to provide more entitlements for workers, including more access to unpaid parental leave, including for grandparents. It is very good that Mr Hockey recognises that many families are patching together childcare in any way they can and that, where they can find a cheaper option that is still high quality, they will go for that. The cost of childcare is ballooning out, while we know the wages of childcare workers are not exactly ballooning out. The key thing here is that we are talking about unpaid leave. There is still a huge issue in terms of access to parental leave. To me, it seems to be something that the federal government does not want to grapple with.
The one-off payment—I think it comes in instalments now—of a few thousand dollars per child is not in any way a replacement for paid parental leave. In fact, you might just call that another injection into the economy and another way of giving people more disposable income. I would love to know whether the federal government ever evaluates these kinds of decisions and policies, rather than reacting to polls. Does it ever look at the impact of the $6,000 grant per child on the welfare of those children, on the care given to those children, on the ability of parents to care for those children adequately? So let us consider that matter.
The federal government wants people to have more children, it wants women to be at work and it leaves the problem of grappling with that, of keeping those balls in the air, totally up to the family involved. It is an extremely difficult thing to do. Perhaps the
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