Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (17:19): I rise to speak to the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026. The bill makes a series of technical but nonetheless worthwhile and important changes to Australia's industrial relations framework, clarifying jurisdictional processes, streamlining how the Fair Work Commission handles disputes and establishing more appropriate income thresholds for road transport contractors.

The Greens approach industrial relations from a simple but firm foundation. Work should be dignified, fairly rewarded and conducted in conditions where workers have genuine power to advocate for themselves. Workers should not go backwards and workers must be safe at work.

Collective bargaining, strong union rights and accessible dispute resolution aren't bureaucratic conveniences; they are the mechanisms through which working people exercise democratic voice in their economic lives. This bill advances that framework in modest but meaningful ways, and the Greens support it. I want to acknowledge that there are workers here with their representatives in this room.

I recognise those from the United Firefighters Union. Thank you for being here in your parliament, and you've come to witness our work this afternoon. You're welcome, and you have a right to expect this parliament to keep you safe and ensure that you don't go backwards.

At a time when too many workers feel they are working harder for less, when wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living and when insecure work continues to spread through large parts of the economy, strengthening workers' rights is essential. For decades, the rules of our economy have tilted towards those with the most power and the deepest pockets. This parliament has a responsibility to start restoring some balance and to fix loopholes in our system.

The Greens support the general protections exemption provisions in this bill which allow the Commonwealth to consider an employer's workplace practices when making procurement decisions. These provisions recognise a simple truth—government spending should be used to support good union jobs that pay a good wage. Every year, the Commonwealth spends tens of billions of dollars procuring goods and services from private companies.

That is public money. It is taxpayers' money, and taxpayers have every right to expect that their money is not being used to subsidise insecure work, low wages or poor employment practices. Why should a company that undermines collective bargaining, strips away conditions or relies on insecure work be rewarded with lucrative government contracts?

Public procurement is a legitimate lever for governments to shape the economy and to shape the labour market. We should be using that leverage to lift standards, not drive them down. These provisions recognise that, when the Commonwealth enters into contracts, it's not merely buying a service; it's making a choice about the kind of labour market, the kind of workplaces and the kind of workers' rights and workers' safety that it wants to support.

The Greens make no apology for saying that public money should support secure jobs, fair wages and decent conditions. For too long, governments of both persuasions have handed out public contracts with little regard to how workers are treated, and the results have been a race to the bottom, where some businesses gain a competitive advantage by cutting wages and conditions.

That's not market failure; it's policy failure. If companies want access to public money, they should meet community expectations. Government procurement should reward employers who do the right thing by their workers, not those who treat their workers as disposable or cut or minimise their conditions to win contract work.

No business has a right to a Commonwealth contract. Access to public money is a privilege, not an entitlement, and with that privilege should come obligations, including treating workers fairly and respecting their rights to organise and bargain collectively, to bargain within their enterprise as a group. The Greens will be moving amendments to this bill to improve cooperation in Australian workplaces.

Cooperative workplaces rely on workers and employers reaching agreement through genuine bargaining. Cooperation cannot exist where one side holds all the power. These amendments go to a simple principle: workers should never come out worse off because bargaining has broken down.

These amendments seek to improve arrangements around intractable bargaining workplace determinations. The amendments ensure that mandatory terms included in an intractable bargaining workplace determination cannot be less favourable than the equivalent provisions in the existing enterprise agreement. That is, you can't be ratcheted downward just because your employer is holding out in bargaining.

Why is that important? Because enterprise agreements are not gifts from employers. They are won by workers.

Every consultation clause, every flexibility provision, every delegates' rights clause and every dispute settlement clause has usually been secured after months—sometimes years—of negotiations, bargaining, organising and compromise. Workers have sacrificed pay rises, undertaken industrial action and invested enormous time and energy in so many cases to secure these conditions.

It would be fundamentally unfair if, after bargaining becomes intractable, workers could lose conditions that they've already won simply because the process moved into the hands of the Fair Work Commission. Without these amendments, there is a real risk that employers could view intractable bargaining as an opportunity to strip back conditions. Workers need certainty that the law cannot be used in that way.

This isn't some obscure theoretical point. It's having real-world impacts now. In Victoria, for example, as the firefighters here, present in our chamber, know from bitter experience, an employer is using the law to try to take away firefighters' rights to be consulted on and have a real say about what uniforms they wear into a fire.

This is no trivial matter. This is a matter of life and death. It's a matter of safety for workers.

It's a life-and-death matter that deserves our clear protection. It's a serious health and wellbeing issue for firefighters. I'll give you another example.

In December 2025, the Fair Work Commission intractable-bargaining decision in the Endeavour Energy case showed exactly why this amendment is essential. The CEPU/ETU had long maintained a detailed consultation clause requiring the employer to meaningfully engage with workers before major operational changes. In arbitration, however, the commission replaced this with a narrower provision closer to a statutory minimum.

It stripped things back, and as a result workers lost elements of their superior consultation rights under the previous enterprise agreement. The commission reasoned that the 'no less favourable' requirement under section 270A of the Fair Work Act would not apply to mandatory terms like the consultation clause. As a result, CEPU members lost their hard-won consultation standard.

This issue also has big implications for many state public sector workers, who may get pushed into federal arbitration, and others, like staff in universities, for whom hard-won clauses around consultation are critically important. These clauses shape the experience of working life. They bring a voice of workers to the bargaining table when changes are introduced, and they need protection.

The Greens believe that collective bargaining only works when workers bargain from a position of strength. They need decent legislation free of loopholes to underpin their standing when they come to the bargaining table. We know that Australian workers have experienced decades of declining bargaining power, stagnant wages in too many places and growing insecurity.

Too often, working people have been told to accept less while corporate profits have continued to rise. Too often, unions and workplace delegates have been treated as obstacles rather than as the democratic representatives and voice of working people. Too often, governments speak about productivity while ignoring the fact that decent wages, secure conditions and the right to have a say in your workplace are themselves the foundation of productive workplaces.

These amendments send a different message. They say that workers' rights are not disposable. There must be no slipping backwards.

The Greens' amendment clarifies that, where there is an agreement in place and parties are negotiating for a new one and one party has applied for an intractable-bargaining workplace determination, that determination can't take workers backwards. Each term of the determination must be no less favourable than the corresponding term of the agreement. It restores the position that your current agreement stays in place until you negotiate a new one.

It's not about giving workers and their unions new terms and conditions. It's about saying they can't go backwards. It's urgently needed, and it's in line with the intentions of this bill.

That is a fair and balanced approach. It protects the integrity of enterprise bargaining; it provides certainty to workers, employers and unions alike; and it reinforces a principle that should command support across this chamber: that arbitration should not be used as a vehicle to diminish existing workplace rights. I want to acknowledge the assistance of a number of unions in helping us to get to where we are today—the United Firefighters Union, the public sector unions, the National Tertiary Education Union.

They have brought attention to this issue, they have illuminated the way in which it's affecting workers and bargaining, and they have worked hard to assist to find a way forward. I also acknowledge the support and assistance of Minister Rishworth and her staff, and the department, in working through a way of managing this amendment to close this important loophole.

I especially acknowledge the persistence and hard work of Eliza Littleton and Sophie Eller, on the Greens side, in amongst our staff. They have worked so hard with others in the union movement and in ministers' offices to make sure we get to a place that moves us forward in a positive way and properly protects and keeps safe our workers in a wide range of occupations and a wide range of unions.

The Greens know there are employers who will always look for every loophole in a law to cut wages or take away conditions, and the law needs to make sure those workers don't go backwards, whether it's pay or conditions, hours of work or safety. That's why the Greens were pleased to work with the government to close this loophole and strengthen collective bargaining for Australian workers.

These amendments ensure that cooperation at work is built on fairness, not on the erosion of conditions or holding out in bargaining to try and ratchet conditions downwards. For those reasons, I commend these amendments to the Senate.