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The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE: My question is directed to the Minister for Industrial Relations. Will the Minister outline the next entitlements to be removed from New South Wales families under the WorkChoices laws?
The Hon. JOHN DELLA BOSCA: I thank the honourable member for his question and commend him for his ongoing interest in industrial affairs. Honourable members know that the Howard-Debnam WorkChoices laws have produced a raft of Australian Workplace Agreements [AWAs], which strip away historic entitlements. A survey in the first couple of months of WorkChoices by the Commonwealth's own Employment Advocate demonstrated that every AWA had traded away at least one protected award condition. Sixteen per cent of individual contracts traded away all protective award conditions. Workers now placed in a very weak bargaining position have been forced to trade away holiday and sick leave, penalty rates and overtime.
The Commonwealth has spent more than $50 million of taxpayers' money advertising the protections in WorkChoices. We now know that those advertising dollars were misspent and that the guarantees of the Prime Minister and his Minister for Workplace Relations are meaningless and worthless. The Commonwealth's own survey showed that 64 per cent of workers did not retain leave loading; 63 per cent did not retain penalty rates; 52 per cent did not retain shift loadings; 44 per cent did not retain substitute public holidays; 41 per cent did not retain gazetted public holidays; and 27 per cent had public holiday pay removed altogether. But this is just the start.
Under the Howard-Debnam laws a series of important employment conditions will remain under so-called transitional arrangements only until March 2009. The following State award workplace protections are not allowable matters under WorkChoices: payment for jury service; reasonable notice of termination of employment; annual and sick leave for long-term casuals; annual leave provisions; industry picnic days; minimum hours for part-time employees; and provisions for people working late at night and transport arrangements, particularly for women workers. Some workers, such as hairdressers, for whom there is no current Federal coverage, may well fall back to the bare five minimum standards under WorkChoices.
Today I met with Federal Labor's spokesman on industrial relations, Stephen Smith. Mr Smith has given me an undertaking that a Federal Labor government will consult with the States in drafting fair and balanced industrial relations legislation. This is in stark contrast with the way WorkChoices was drafted: in secret. The Commonwealth refused to consult the States, who run systems used by millions of employees and employers. It refused to consult the nation's union movement, representing millions of employees. Kevin Andrews refused to consult real employers—people who actually employ people. Instead, he went and consulted some spivs down in Melbourne from the big end of town and a few spivvy lawyers around Sydney, and he rammed the legislation through the Senate in an arrogant abuse of power.
This legislation has been proven now to be unbalanced, unfair and riddled with errors. It has required a series of amendments, but it is so hopelessly flawed that it is unworkable. The effective remedy to replace it is a political remedy—to oust the Howard Government. We need a new system based on Australian values such as a fair go for all. We need genuine consultation and collaboration, with input from the States, from employers and from unions. Only Kim Beazley offers that collaborative, balanced approach. We know John Howard will not listen and he will not change. Members of the Opposition are laughing now but they will not be laughing in March. The devil has given the Opposition what it wished for. This will destroy the Opposition and it will destroy the Howard Government. The Opposition keeps laughing, but no-one in the gallery is laughing because their living standards, employment conditions and services have been stripped away. They all know Debnam will not stand up to Howard. They all know that the Federal Government's silly laws will destroy services. [Time expired.]