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Mr STEVEN CHAYTOR: My question is addressed to the Premier. What is the latest information on this Government's efforts to protect New South Wales residents from the impact of the Commonwealth’s WorkChoices legislation?
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: I thank the honourable member for Macquarie Fields for his efforts to protect workers against the attacks of the Howard Government. I can inform the House that I have formally asked the Government members of the Legislative Council’s Standing Committee on Social Issues to move to examine the effects of the Commonwealth’s WorkChoices legislation on the most vulnerable workers in our community. The committee will examine the impact of WorkChoices in the following areas: on families, young workers, women workers, rural workers, injured workers, employees on low wages, compliance costs and red tape for business, work and family balance, and gender equity.
John Howard's WorkChoices legislation shuts the gate on a range of important employee protections. Families and their pay packets stand to suffer the most. Put simply, Work Choices will remove the conditions, hard-won over many decades, that help workers and their families pay the bills. The constant threat that will prevail now is that workers will have more and more of these hard-won conditions taken away through individual contracts, and the legislation fails to protect them if they are outside the five minimum standards. As we can already see from media reports employers are seeking to urgently change and reduce workers’ employment conditions. Workers are being fired then immediately re-hired with reduced conditions, supported by these laws. Just look at the reports! The inquiry will provide workers with an opportunity to reveal the impacts on them.
Mr Peter Debnam: Point of order: My point of order is relevance. What about the workers—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will direct his remarks to the Chair.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition is wasting the time of the House. I order him to resume his seat. When he takes a point of order in future he will address the Chair.
[Interruption]
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Minister for Police to order.
[Interruption]
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Why do members opposite not ask a question about workers compensation—say on Wednesday? Did we hear from the member for Murrumbidgee when the Government announced late last year an additional $36 million in extra benefits under the scheme for the most catastrophically injured workers? No, nothing at all. Ask me a question on Wednesday about workers compensation. I will be more than happy to give you even more information about workers compensation later this week. The inquiry should receive bipartisan support. Here is an opportunity for the Leader of the Opposition to stand up for workers in this State. That is something he has refused to do, as he made clear two weeks ago that he would still hand over the State's industrial system to John Howard.
Mr Brad Hazzard: Point of order: The workers of this State remember—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Wakehurst will resume his seat. I have just given a direction to the Leader of the Opposition and the honourable member for Wakehurst is now deliberately flouting the standing orders. I call him to order.
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Will Opposition members stand up for the workers of this State? Will they vote with the Government to support this inquiry? Will Opposition members support the members of the inquiry throughout the course of the year as they examine the impact of WorkChoices on the conditions of workers in this State? Will they stand up for the workers of this State—not just public sector workers but all workers in this State? They have an opportunity to support this legislation, they have an opportunity to support the work of the committee, and they have an opportunity to stare down their friends in Canberra and say that they will support the State's legal challenge, that they will support the maintenance of a State industrial relations system with an independent umpire, and that they will support all public sector workers in this State. That is something they have failed to do. At the end of the day they will never stand up to John Howard and his attack on workers, in the same way as they will never stand up for the taxpayers of this State to get back their GST money, or stand up for the clubs after the latest attack on them by John Howard and Peter Costello.