PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr HAWKE (Mitchell) (11:43): I thank the member for Holt for that contribution and for putting this motion forward. It is well premature for the government to be claiming any success on the industrial relations front by positing that its not-even-draft legislation will somehow prove efficiency in the workplace relations system in Australia today. We've just heard a series of arguments from Labor members that this is purely administrative—that this will just help us get through what is an overloaded and complex work system.

We couldn't agree more in the coalition that the fair work system has taken Australia backwards 10, 20 or 30 years, in a legislative sense, to a point where matters are now so delayed and complex and so difficult for Fair Work to arbitrate on. Every single matter that has to come before any agreement or bargaining between an employer and employee has to go through Fair Work.

No wonder the system is seizing up. No wonder it is slow. No wonder it can't be done.

But to say the solution is to also go backwards 30 years—and here we had the member for Holt saying the Howard government removed it. Yes, that was 30 years ago. We're not keeping pace with the modern industrial relations system or the modern workplace by going back 30 years and restoring a court that was abolished 30 years ago.

No-one has missed the specialist Industrial Relations Court—nobody at all. And I can tell you that the employers do not. 'Do not verbal them,' I would say to all Labor members here. They are extremely sceptical of the government's actual motive in bringing back a court that nobody misses and that nobody has missed.

The Federal Court has continued to do its job in this country, as the Labor Party well knows. Of course there are court delays. Yes, Member for Deakin, there are listing delays in every court in Australia.

Resource the courts properly. There are easier solutions before you get to this legislative change. Why don't you propose to the Attorney-General a massive increase so the listings can be finalised and the matters can be dealt with and the court can do its function?

That would be a much more efficient and easier way—and a cheaper way—to get those matters arbitrated. No, the government's motive in restoring this court of 30 years ago is to enable their paymasters—their actual political masters—the union movement of Australia, to bring forward industrial relations matters and to punish companies through the process. More delays, more threats of court action give the whip hand to the Australian union movement.

That is the absolute motivation of this government in doing this; make no mistake. So, while we have record insolvencies, business conditions the worst they've ever been, the lowest levels of investment, a government tax regime that is punishing free enterprise in Australia, the lowest productivity in the world, the highest wages in the world, a system where employers are now punished and criminalised for employing people in many aspects and one of the most complex industrial relations systems in the world, they're proposing to add another layer.

The Labor Party is saying that's for efficiency purposes. I can tell you one thing: absolutely 100 per cent—you don't have to be Nostradamus; you don't have to be in the business of predictions—this will not make the industrial relations system in Australia more efficient. It will not make it work better.

It will not deal with that listings issue. It will certainly allow the union movement the platform they have sought for 30 years to take further action in favour of the unions—not in favour of employees, but the unions—giving them the whip hand over the industrial relations system even further. That will lead to one thing: unemployment.

You can go back to the speech of Peter Reith when he abolished this to get the real truth about why this motion is here before us. Peter Reith gave a master speech on the removal of this court and about why it happened. He also quoted Paul Keating, and I'd throw this back at the Labor Party as a final point for them to understand.

Even Paul Keating, when he was talking about industrial relations, understood the need to cloak his words, in fact. He would say things such as that Australia needed a model of industrial relations: … which places primary emphasis on bargaining at the workplace level within a framework of minimum standards provided by arbitral tribunals … compulsorily arbitrated awards and arbitrated wage increases would be there only as a safety net.

Prime Minister Paul Keating went on to argue, for the best situation: For most employees and most businesses, wages and conditions of work would be determined by agreements worked out by the employer, the employees and their union. That, too, was only 30 years ago. Fast forward, and now we have a modern system where, to keep pace, as the member for Holt says, what we need is the court from 30 years ago.

Absolutely we don't, because the Fair Work system is failing for its own reasons. It is too complex. Even unions are breaching the Fair Work Act in their pay to their own employees.

Are they criminals? Should they be criminalised for that behaviour, or is the system too complex? Is it failing?

Is it letting us down? We would argue that complexity is what's killing this system.