PRESENTER: The Rudd Government has confirmed it will push ahead with its workplace changes next year.
PRESENTER: Some union officials have expressed concern about Labor delaying the scrapping of Work Choices. But the Workplace Relations Minister, Julia Gillard says bills will be put to Parliament next year to ban the signing of new AWAs and to reinstate unfair dismissal provisions.
PRESENTER: And the Minister joins us now on the line. Well, yesterday Ms Gillard, it did appear that you were indicating that it could take until 2010 to implement all of the workplace changes. What has changed your mind? Or was that simply a misunderstanding?
JULIA GILLARD: It was a misunderstanding. Nothing has changed and our policy, which we published before the election, will be delivered in full. What I think confused people, is there are some aspects of the system that will come online on the 1st of January 2010. The things that will come online then are our new, modernised awards. We need 2008 and 2009 for the Australian Industrial Relations Commission to modernise those more than 4300 awards. And our new industrial relations umpire, Fair Work Australia, will come online on the 1st of January 2010. Obviously that new industrial umpire will take some time to build. But other aspects of the system will come through as soon as the legislation is dealt with by Parliament. That was always our plan.
PRESENTER: But can employers still use operational reasons to sack workers? And, if so, for how much longer?
JULIA GILLARD: I can’t change the law about unfair dismissals until Parliament sits and we are able to present a bill to the Parliament. I understand that Australians have been victim to the extreme laws of the Liberal Party. The only way of changing the law is to present a bill to the Parliament. We are working on that substantive bill. We’re working on it in a consultative way, with employers and with all the industrial relations stakeholders. We don’t want to make a mess, the way Work Choices was a mess, where the legislation was badly drafted and then amended time and time again. But we are getting about the task of drafting that legislation as quickly as it can be done, given we want it to be done carefully as well and that legislation will be in the Parliament next year.
PRESENTER: So that legislation then will effectively ban the signing of new AWAs and also will reinstate the unfair dismissal provisions. Now, if you put into the Parl…
JULIA GILLARD: If I can I just clarify: there will be two bills in the Parliament next year. The first bill is our transition bill. That will end the ability of anyone to sign an Australian Workplace Agreement. We don’t want people having the safety net stripped away from them.
Then there will be a second bill, the substantive bill, which will deal with all other aspects of the system, including unfair dismissals.
PRESENTER: So if you get that legislation drafted, as you say, as quickly as possible – will you introduce it into Parliament while the Coalition still has control of the Senate? Or will you wait until after the middle of the year?
JULIA GILLARD: We will introduce the transition bill, the bill that ends Australian Workplace Agreements, in the first sitting week next year. That is on the first occasion that the Parliament meets. After the election, that bill will be in the Parliament. We can’t do it quicker than that. And we want to end Australian Workplace Agreements, because we know how much they’ve hurt Australian working families.
We will be drafting the substantive bill and we will get that into the Parliament as quickly as we can. Bearing in mind we want to do it carefully.
PRESENTER: Have you had any talks with the Family First Senator Steve Fielding, or the incoming independent Nick Xenaphon about these changes that you want to make?
JULIA GILLARD: No, obviously we will present the legislation to them. I am sure that any Senator – Senator Fielding, Senator Xenaphon – would want to see the legislation. But we will be saying to everybody in the Senate that we are more than happy to provide briefings to them and information to them. There will be the transition bill first and then the substantive bill second. We will take an open approach. We will always be prepared to sit down and explain to people what we’re doing.
But they can understand already what our intentions are, because they were in our very detailed published policies before the election.
PRESENTER: Well, we’ve seen of course in the last few weeks since the election that the Coalition has said, well, the message was loud and clear from the public; hey did not like our environmental policy and they did not like Work Choices. That seems to be admitted now by the Liberal Party in particular. Will you open up discussions with the Liberal Party now and talk about them possibly going along with your draft legislation?
JULIA GILLARD: What we will do is we will of course provide briefings to the Opposition on what’s in our legislation. As I’ve say, they could work it all out for themselves today if they choose to by reading our policy documents, which were published well before the election campaign. So we’ll obviously be prepared to provide briefings.
But at the end of the day, the decision for the Liberal Party is whether they will continue to embrace industrial relations extremism and stand behind their deeply unpopular and unfair Work Choices laws, or whether they will listen to the message of the Australian people and support Labor’s fair and balanced changes. Now that’s a decision for them. Different Liberal Party members seem to be saying contradictory things. It’s a matter for the Liberal Party to work out. Whatever internal processes it chooses to use to do that is a matter for it.
But the choice is very clear: do they want extreme industrial relations laws in this country like Work Choices, even though they have been rejected by the Australian people; or are they prepared to support Labor’s fair and balanced alternative?
PRESENTER: Just before we let you go Julia Gillard, could we ask you to pull on your hat as Education Minister…
JULIA GILLARD: Certainly.
PRESENTER: What specifically do you want COAG to achieve on education tomorrow?
JULIA GILLARD: Well there is a broad range of measures going to COAG tomorrow on education. Computers in schools – we obviously want to work in partnership with State and Territory governments to get those computers to kids in years 9 to 12. Trades training centres in secondary schools – we want to work in partnership on the delivery of that. Universal preschool for all four year olds, 15 hours a week, 40 weeks a year – that’s on the agenda. Asian language is on the agenda, particularly close to Kevin Rudd’s heart. And, of course we want to be talking about national curriculum.
PRESENTER: Alright, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, thank you very much indeed.
JULIA GILLARD: Thank you.
ENDS