Scott Morrison walks away from unionbusting 'integrity' bill
The Coalition will not pursue unionbusting legislation as a sign of good faith, as Scott Morrison encourages business and unions to join a fourmonth Accord-style negotiation for widespread industrial relations reform.
In an outing at the National Press Club on Tuesday, Morrison put the states on notice the federal government will attach conditions to $1.5bn of skills funding and announced five priority areas to reform workplace pay and conditions to be considered in a consultation process overseen by Christian Porter.
Morrison said negotiations will consider changes to awards, collective bargaining for workplace pay deals, casuals and fixed-term employment, compliance and enforcement to ensure workers are “paid properly” and greenfields agreements for new projects.
Morrison said the government has already reached out to employer groups and unions, who Guardian Australia understands made junking the “ensuring integrity” bill a precondition for their support, for a process to be concluded by September.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary, Sally McManus, cautiously welcomed the initiative, telling reporters in Sydney she was “glad to see the 20-year ritual of union-bashing stop”.
But McManus warned job creation will take more than industrial reforms, arguing the government must reconsider cutting off wage subsidies in September and reinvest in skills education.
The Australian Industry Group welcomed the priority on workplace relations and skills training. “A more flexible and productive workplace relations system can be achieved, without compromising fairness,” chief executive Innes Willox said.
Business Council of Australia chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, suggested there are “too many” conditions in workplace pay deals, and removing some to improve business productivity could result in employers sharing “higher wages” with workers”.
But finding common ground will be difficult. The ACTU has emphatically rejected employer wish lists calling to remove the Better Off Overall Test from workplace pay deals and conditions such as annual leave, personal/carer’s leave, redundancy pay and public holidays from awards.
Consultation groups will include employer and union representatives as well as experienced individuals representing “small businesses, rural and regional operators, multicultural communities, women and families”, Morrison said.
The prime minister said employers and unions will be invited on the basis taking part is “without prejudice to their positions”, and was sanguine about the prospects of uncovering productivity-boosting reforms.
“It may succeed. It may fail. But I can assure you, we’re going to give it everything we can.”
Morrison encouraged employer groups and unions to “put their weapons down” and insisted that the Coalition’s policy “never has been” to weaken trade unions.
One of the first bills reintroduced after Morrison was re-elected was the ensuring integrity legislation, designed to increase powers to deregister unions and disqualify their officials.
The bill was narrowly defeated in November due to union lobbying of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation – ending the Coalition’s biggest intervention in industrial relations since it lost an election on the WorkChoices legislation in 2007 and called a royal commission into trade union governance and corruption in 2014.
Despite historical antagonism, the ACTU and Morrison government have cooperated well since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Union lobbying was pivotal to the creation of the $70bn jobkeeper wage subsidy and unions have won praise for negotiating increased flexibility in awards to adapt to Covid-19 trading restrictions.
Morrison told reporters in Canberra the government has decided it “will not pursue a further vote in the Senate” on its ensuring integrity bill.
Although the Coalition had not abandoned its commitment to “lawful behaviour of registered organisations”, he said it would reconsider the “simplest, fairest and most effective statutory form” to give effect to that in future.
“But our first – the here and now – priority … is to take this opportunity to work together through a genuine goodfaith process to get some real outcomes and to make the jobs that Australians need.”
Morrison said the industrial relations system was “not fit for purpose” and had settled into a form of “complacency”, with “unions seeking marginal benefits and employers closing down risks, often by simply not employing anyone”.
“This will need to change, or more Australians will unnecessarily lose their jobs, and more Australians will be kept out of jobs.”
Asked about whether workplace agreements should retain the Better Off Overall Test, Morrison said he would not “prescribe” solutions or deliver “an IR shopping list”.
Morrison briefly flagged other elements of reform – including deregulation, taxation and federation reform – will follow.
He labelled the projected 34,000 decrease in net migration as “concerning” and said the government was working on initiatives to boost international students and New Zealanders’ return to Australia.
Asked about the intergenerational equity aspect of the pandemic – with younger Australians shouldering most of the job losses and future debt – and the possibility of reforming tax concessions for older Australians, Morrison warned against “setting one group of Australians against another”.
Labor responded by saying it has an open mind, but questioned the lack of detail in the government proposal.
The deputy leader, Richard Marles, argued that “slogans and marketing” like “simplifying awards” could reduce workers’ job security.
“If you look at the history of Liberal government, every Australian worker is justified in feeling a chill down their spine,” he told reporters in Canberra.
Marles said all the government had done so far is “book a room” and did not deserve praise merely for talking to the ACTU, which it should have done from “day one”.