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Education, Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio

Julia Gillard

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The Hon Julia Gillard MP

Minister for Education. Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Minister for Social Inclusion. Deputy Prime Minister

17 June, 2008

Transcript

Radio Interview ABC774, 830am Tuesday, 17 June 2008

National Employment Standards

JON FAINE:
Just when the Federal Government was under incredible pressure over its attitude to petrol pricing. Basically saying its an international problem, nothing we can do anything about. They have gone and perhaps disappointed the trade union base of the Labor Party by introducing a ten point National Employment Standards; a test which includes maximum and minimum hours, flexible working arrangements, parental leave, annual leave, personal, carers leave, compassionate leave, community service leave and so on. The devil, as always with these things is in the detail. The Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment & Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard can explain to us just how devilish the detail might be. Julia Gillard, good morning.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thanks Jon and thanks for that intro. [Laugh]
JON FAINE:
Well the issue in this is all about reasonableness but can you run through first of all, is your trade union base going to be disappointed here because you’ve pretty much given the employers what they wanted with this set of standards, have you not?
JULIA GILLARD:
What we’ve done with these National Employment Standards is we have delivered on our pre-election promise. We published an exposure draft on the 14th of February. That was a significant date because it was also the date that we introduced into the Parliament our Transition Bill to end the making of Australian Workplace Agreements, it was the first day the Parliament was open for Parliamentary business. So everybody has had the benefit of the exposure draft. We got 129 submissions and there were a range of views put, we’ve taken some of that on board. I always thought when we launched these National Employment Standards we would probably hear unions say that they weren’t enough and we would probably hear employers say that they’d gone too far and I’d have to say Jon, that actually reassures me that we’ve got the balance right.
JON FAINE:
The Standards are going to require some negotiation over what is and isn’t reasonable. Do you think employers and employees can themselves determine what is reasonable?
JULIA GILLARD:
I think people work through a number of issues in their workplaces each and every day. We have got to remind ourselves this is one part of the safety net. This is the safety net for all employees, so it doesn’t matter what your income or occupation is, this is the safety net for you. For employees that earn $100,000 or less they will also be protected by simple, modern awards and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission is working on those at the moment. Yes of course there will be ways of resolving disputes but when you look through the detail of these National Employment Standards we’ve done everything we could to spell it out. We’ve brought it to 50 pages. Now, that might sound like a lot until you compare it with the old Work Choices standard which only had 5 minimum conditions and many of them when you held them up to the light they were really only illusions and they managed to run to 149 pages. So we think this is a fairer and simpler system.
JON FAINE:
What is reasonable?
JULIA GILLARD:
Obviously Jon, it depends on the context and in defining reasonable we’ve listed a range of factors that people would have a mind to look at. So when it comes to hours of work, what is reasonable in part is going to relate to patterns of work in the industry. If you work in an industry that’s been historically fly-in-fly-out, that’s the known pattern of work, then obviously that pattern of work would be viewed as reasonable. If you suddenly tried to uplift that pattern of work and put it on office workers in CBD Melbourne then it would be rejected as unreasonable. The pattern of work in the industry obviously matters. The status and remuneration of the employee obviously matters. These are employment standards for all Australian workers. If there is an employee lawyer who is earning $200,000 or $250,000 a year, what is reasonable for him or her in terms of working hours expectation is obviously very different from someone who is making coffees in the local coffee shop.
JON FAINE:
So it means everything and it means nothing?
JULIA GILLARD:
No it means that reasonable is defined by reference to a series of criteria that are important to Australian workplaces.
JON FAINE:
That might be fine for someone like you who used to practice in industrial law at a city law firm. I am not sure what it is going to mean for people in the workplace. Aren’t we left with exactly what we had under the Howard Government rules which is that by and large the boss has all the cards and the employee is told well I think this is reasonable – take it or leave it, go find a job somewhere else.
JULIA GILLARD:
There will be ways of settling disputes Jon but I would absolutely reject your contention this is anything like Work Choices. At the centrepiece of Work Choices was that the safety net didn’t matter because at anytime an Australian Workplace Agreement could come along and strip the safety net away for no compensation or no proper compensation. The centrepiece of Work Choices was the example the then government gave to us in its own propaganda, the Liberal Party’s poster boy of Billy who got a minimum wage job, lost all his award conditions; overtime, penalty rates, rest breaks, all the rest of it and didn’t get a cent of compensation…
JON FAINE:
They’ve got the Fairness Test now…
JULIA GILLARD:
That can’t happen under Labor’s system.
JON FAINE:
So If I rock up to the boss and say, I think its reasonable that I be allowed to leave at 330 to pick the kids up from school early everyday and I am happy to work through my lunch time to do it and the boss says, no I think you have got to be here to answer the phone till 5 o’clock. Who is right?
JULIA GILLARD:
Those things are going to be worked through in conversations in workplaces. Jon you are using the word reasonable, throwing it around as if all we have defined is reasonable. These National Employment Standards contain specific conditions that have to be given to employees and my point before about Work Choices; the central difference with the Liberal Party is there is nothing in Labor’s system that allows the safety net to be stripped away. Every Australian worker will walk into a workplace knowing that they’ve got the benefit of the safety net and no one can take it away from them. Now, will there be negotiations in workplaces about individual flexibilities? Is it ok if I go to school sports on Wednesday? Well of course there will be. But at least this will be in a context where people have a safety net, no one can take it away from them and when we’ve dealt with the substantive industrial relations legislation we will have addressed the problem of unfair dismissals.
JON FAINE:
Lots of callers joining in. I will get to you in just a moment, Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard with me first. Just one more thing before I move on to some comments from employers who are waiting also to speak. Julia Gillard you brought in 12 months unpaid parenting leave for each parent. This is all fine while the economy is bumbling along or burbling along at a phenomenal rate of growth but what happens when things turn sour? How can the economy cope when all of these same rules about but there is a downturn?
JULIA GILLARD:
At the moment, if a couple has a baby then each of them has an entitlement to unpaid parental leave for 12 months, they have just got to take it in the first 12 months of the child’s life and they can’t take it together. So what that means in the ordinary course is more likely than not, obviously people make different arrangements but in the ordinary course mum stays home for 12 months and dad doesn’t exercise any of his entitlement to unpaid parental leave. We think it would give families a new option if you could sequence those entitlements so in a typical example mum would take off the first 12 months and dad might take off the second 12 months of the child’s life. Why does that work for modern workplaces? Well you’ve probably noticed Jon, we are in an era where skills are short, where people are desperate to retain skilled staff, where everyone is looking for better ways to balance up work and family life and this we think is one option that would make a difference. We’ve also got in there a right to request flexible or part time work. And the evidence from overseas is that if you structure a conversation in the workplace about are there ways to help each other out when you are looking after children then things become possible which were formally dismissed as impossible.
JON FAINE:
Ok but would you agree this is an impost on the economy, there is just no avoiding that surely? And then what happens if the global economy with record fuel prices and perhaps a further subprime collapse or credit crunch in the US triggers a recession in the US which is widely expected and that knocks onto the Australian economy. Do you think our economy can cope with it then?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well Jon, I’ve never had any employer say to me that they thought the key to economic prosperity in this country was having a workplace relations system that allowed sixteen year old kids in their first job to be ripped off and that’s what Work Choices did. What employers…
JON FAINE:
There is a lot of room in between. My point is…
JULIA GILLARD:
Yes, yes there is but what employers say to me when I talk to them is the skills shortage has got them tearing their hair out. They would put more people on if they had people present with the right skills, but they just can’t find them. The battle in today’s workplaces is to retain their skilled staff. So that if they lose a highly trained woman because she can’t find the right way of balancing work and family life, she can’t get child care – she’d quite like to come back to work but the pieces of the puzzle which would make that possible for her aren’t fitting together. That’s a disaster for her and a disaster for her employer who would be desperate to get that highly trained staff member back. These Employment Standards are providing new flexibilities which will make that possible.
JON FAINE:
Alright. I am grateful to you for your explanations this morning. We have lots of people wanting to comment. Thank you.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thank you.
JON FAINE:
Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment & Workplace Relations.
ENDS

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