The SPEAKER ( Hon. Bronwyn Bishop ) took the chair at 09:00, made an acknowledgement of country and read prayers.
That standing order 31 (automatic adjournment of the House) be suspended for this sitting and that, after the Leader of the Opposition completes his reply to the Budget speech, the House automatically stand adjourned until 10 am on Monday, 26 May 2014, unless the Speaker or, in the event of the Speaker being unavailable, the Deputy Speaker, fixes an alternative day or hour of meeting.
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:
(1) when the order of the day for the resumption of debate on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015 is called on, a cognate debate take place with the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2013-2014, and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014;
(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate, including a Minister speaking in reply, and thereafter, without delay, the immediate question, or questions, necessary to complete the second reading stage to be put, and when resolved Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015 then being considered in detail and then any question or questions necessary to complete the remaining stages of the Bill to be put without amendment or debate;
(3) at the conclusion of the proceedings on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, separate questions to be put without further debate on the motions for the second readings and any further motions necessary to conclude consideration of the Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015, Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015, Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2013-2014, and Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014; and
(4) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
That, in respect of the proceedings on the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Family Trust Distribution Tax (Primary Liability) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Fringe Benefits Tax Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (Bearer Debentures) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (First Home Saver Accounts Misuse Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Income Tax (TFN Withholding Tax (ESS)) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Departing Australia Superannuation Payments Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Excess Non-Concessional Contributions Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Superannuation (Excess Untaxed Roll-Over Amounts Tax) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-Disclosure Tax) (No. 1) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-Disclosure Tax) (No. 2) Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Tax Laws Amendment (Interest On Non-Resident Trust Distributions) (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, the Tax Laws Amendment (Untainting Tax) (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, and the Trust Recoupment Tax Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014, so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring:
(1) the resumption of debate on the second readings of the bills being called on together;
(2) at the conclusion of the second reading debate, including a Minister speaking in reply, any questions being put on any amendments moved to motions for the second readings, and then one question being put on the second readings of the bills together;
(3) the consideration in detail stages, if required, on all the bills being taken together;
(4) at the conclusion of the detail stage, one question being put on the bills together and one question being put on the third readings of the bills together; and
(5) any variation to this arrangement to be made only by a motion moved by a Minister.
That, in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969 , it is expedient to carry out the following proposed work which was referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works and on which the committee has duly reported to Parliament: Development and construction of housing for Defence at RAAF Base Tindal, Northern Territory.
Australian National Preventive Health Agency (Abolition) Bill 2014
That this bill be now read a second time.
Health Workforce Australia (Abolition) Bill 2014
That this bill be now read a second time.
Energy Efficiency Opportunities (Repeal) Bill 2014
That this bill be now read a second time.
Corporations Amendment (Simple Corporate Bonds and Other Measures) Bill 2014
That this bill be now read a second time.
Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014
That this bill be now read a third time.
Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014
… unions can seek entry to a workplace if … the union is a bargaining representative seeking in good faith to make an agreement to apply in that workplace.
That all the words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “the House declines to give the bill a second reading because:
(1) of the need to provide sufficient protections in Individual Flexibility Arrangements and the impact that losing protections will have on employees; and
(2) of the Greenfield agreement making process being heavily skewed in favour of employers; and
(3) of the provisions of the bill undermine the right for Australian employees to be represented at work including a requirement that an employee tell their employer if they want to speak with a union; and
(4) of the need for a full examination of all amendments within this Bill that may unfairly impact on employees.”
Fair Work, in complete contrast to Work Choices, allows for Individual Flexibility Arrangements (IFA) which ensure that employees are always better off overall against the underlying award or enterprise agreement. Individual Flexibility Arrangements are not individual statutory agreements.
We will make sure that current right of entry provisions stay. We understand that entering on the premises of an employer needs to happen in an orderly way. We will keep the right of entry provisions.
… happy to do whatever you would like. If you'd like me to pledge to resign, sign a contract in blood, take a polygraph, bet my house on it, give you my mother as a hostage, whatever you'd like.
We would not want to see changes to the right of entry systems that jeopardise work performance.
As of today—
federal Labor will maintain the existing right-of-entry rules without exception.
Industrial disputes are serious. They hurt workers, they hurt businesses, they can hurt families and communities, and they certainly hurt the economy.
Frightened “mum and dad” operators have revealed members of the CFMEU are using “safety concerns” to enter retail outlets, which have been handed over from developer Multiplex, so they can coerce the small operators into signing enterprise bargaining agreements and join the union. The issue hit breaking point last week when police were called to the shopping centre, which is undergoing a $450 million redevelopment, after about 200 members of the CFMEU launched an impromptu rally where they howled “go home scabs’’ at independent shopfitters.
… criticised the industrial relations system for “dragging Australia down” and fired a broadside at “criminals” who betrayed the union movement and hijacked its agenda.
Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes has called for a “grand compact” between business and unions to take the heat out of the industrial relations debate and admitted wages in some sectors had increased too quickly.
Mr Howes urged his comrades in the union movement to concede there had been a pattern of unsustainable wages growth in some sectors of the economy, adding “we could be pricing ourselves out of the market”.
He said "the leap-frog wage outcomes in the offshore sector, in particular, are not going to be sustainable for the long-term".
But he urged business to concede that on an economy wide basis, industrial disputes had fallen and wages growth had slowed.
The union national secretary said the industrial relations see-saw in Australia, which has seen a range of legislative changes in the last decade and a half and contributed to a "perpetual instability" in the IR system.
"Some will tell you that our industrial relations system is dragging us down.
"And I won't be popular amongst my friends in the labour movement for saying this - but I agree," he said.
''High labour costs and low productivity are an unsustainable mix,'' Mr Ferguson said. ''And therefore elements of the Fair Work Act must be looked at.''
Mr Ferguson said the Coalition's plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission should be seen as a step that would encourage investment in Australia.
''Rather than seeing the ABCC as a tool that allows one side to get an upper hand over the other in some never-ending ideological skirmish, it should be seen for what it was: a mechanism that holds both sides to account and which can help deliver projects on time and on budget,'' he said.
''As the son of a bricklayer, I know a thing or two about the building industry.
''But it is time that some in today's union leadership recognised that their members' long-term interests are aligned with their long-term job security.''
In letters to union leaders he—
reaffirmed his commitment to a host of policies that go further in unwinding bipartisan workplace reforms of the past two decades than the Fair Work Act did.
For its part, the trade union movement must recognise ... the right of an employer and an employee, freely, to enter into individual contracts underpinned by an independently determined safety net.
Under Labor's new collective enterprise bargaining system all collective agreements will be required to contain a flexibility clause which provides that an employer and an individual employee can make a flexibility arrangement.
I haven't had one for seven years, and that hasn't f**king stopped me.
Benefits other than an entitlement to a payment of money may be taken into account.
Industrial disputes are serious. They hurt workers, they hurt businesses, they can hurt families and communities, and they certainly hurt the economy.
Unions currently have too much power to refuse to enter into a greenfields agreement for a new project unless all their demands are met.
When John Howard decided to go after workers with his WorkChoices legislation, he did so not out of any economic necessity, as the economic record for wages and inflation attests. He did it simply to break the back of the unions. His motivations were ideological and spiteful, telling us he had learned nothing from the fact that there had been no wages breakout in Australia for 26 years …
… seeing something akin to the wages explosion of the pre-accord era when unsustainable wage growth simply pushed thousands of Australians out of work.
If we’re about to see a wages explosion, then someone better hurry up and light the fuse.
Wages increased in 2013 by less than inflation did, which suggests that real wages actually fell last year. The last time this has happened was during the GFC.
The record low wages growth fairly destroys the arguments of the Liberal and National parties and certain sections of the media who, even before Kevin Rudd was elected in 2007 and well before the Fair Work Act was introduced in July 2009, have been predicting a wages boom, blowout or explosion.
Piers Akerman in the Daily Telegraph, for example, wrote in 2007 that the policies proposed by then opposition leader Kevin Rudd risked a “breakout in wages growth that would inevitably force the RBA to impose interest-rate hikes of a magnitude not seen since the Hawke-Keating era”.
Instead we have record low wages growth and record low interest rates.
This insecurity creates first and second-class citizens, with temporary migrant workers relegated to an even lower rung on the ladder.
It is sometimes argued that workers like casual jobs because they are more flexible. Submissions to the ACTU's Inquiry on insecure work detailed the experiences of many people who found that the opposite was the case. One such testimony highlighted the lack of flexibility available to casuals. The worker recounted being unable to take time off work because, as the breadwinner, she needed to make money while she could, and with no permanent position she couldn't be sure when she would have a job again.
The transformation of the labour market has created an underclass of workers who miss out on many of the protections offered by employment regulation. Their reality can include chronic uncertainty, inadequate income, lack of access to mortgage and credit facilities, inability to afford health care, no paid access to family, carer's or annual leave, limited savings and a general slide into debt and potentially poverty. They report being victimised if they raise their concerns and they are less likely to be unionised.
This is a stark reality for too many Australian workers today … as business owners sidestep regulation by entering into arrangements that limit the rights of workers and take them beyond the protection of Australia's employment standards.
Migrant workers, particularly those on 457 and student visas, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation through insecurity.
… spiralling upwards at a rate that makes opening on weekends simply unaffordable for many small businesses.
The lure of penalty rates is meaningless for staff …
Within political parties we see diminishing numbers of reform minded individuals and even more worrying, we have seen the emergence of political parties and politicians whose views no longer describe the reality we face.
Before the loophole was closed in 2013 by the Labor government, companies in the mining, construction or IT industries were hiring hundreds more workers than they had applied for. In one example, an employer was granted approval for 100 visas over three years yet in 18 months had brought in 800 workers on 457 visas.
These secretive changes come on the back of the government's announced review which has been stacked to deliver a predetermined outcome that will hurt Australian workers.
Clearly the direct effect of spending cuts is less spending in the economy and there will be less employment as a result …
… The question is whether the potential benefits of that less spending, lower interest rates for example, provide a bit of an offset. While they might provide an offset, usually the benefit is further out. Whereas the spending cuts start affecting employment negatively immediately.
The current laws are working well and the system of enterprise bargaining underpinned by the national employment standards and modern awards is delivering fairness to employers and employees.
That clause gets the balance between fairness and flexibility right. It provides very, very strong protections for working people, as it should, but enables limited flexibility arrangements for work and family life matters, for example, to be entered into.
… the terms of reference for the Productivity Commission's review of workplace laws were deliberately broad enough to cover ''a full and thorough analysis of all aspects of the Fair Work Act''. And the draft terms of reference explicitly mention ''pay and conditions'' and ''industrial conflict'' - which is widely understood to include penalty rates …
'I'm not going to get into a debate about penalty rates. That's what I did for 12 months of my life when I was workplace relations minister and I've expunged it from my memory.'
Members of United Voice rely on overnight and weekend pay rates. Nationally, more than 4.5 million Australians are in industries where these rates apply.
Improvements in productivity require existing resources to be used more efficiently … So if we are to improve efficiency and advance technology then innovation is required …
… … …
This means there is likely to be more of a premium on getting policies right in some key areas ...
• The way in which we finance innovation …
• The incentives for innovation …
• The way we support human capital accumulation and research.
• Our business culture and the way we promote and support entrepreneurship.
• The way in which we promote competition in our markets, for it is often competition, or the threat of it, that is the driver of innovation.
To The Honourable The Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives
This petition is from persons who reside in the Federal Electorates of Moreton and Forde and surrounding areas.
Draws to the attention of the House: That a Korean mother, Ms Eunsil (Chloe) Park and five year old Australian citizen daughter, Ari Illingworth, are being forced to separate because the Department of Immigration and Border Protection is deporting the Mother on 5th June 2014. It is not in the interest of the child to remain here in Australia without her mother, nor for the child to be made live in a strange country (Korea) as a non-citizen.
The mother has been in Australia for eight years and has been gainfully employed for three years, paying taxes and bills, while integrating into Australian society. The interests of the child are not served unless the mother and child remain together in Australia as a family.
The undersigned, therefore ask the House of Representatives to: Support granting permanent Australian residency to Ari's Korean Mother, thus keeping the family together here in Australia and giving this five year old the opportunity she is entitled to as an Australian citizen.
Further: If the House is serious about its commitment of caring for its people and in the interest of the people and in this case a loving Mother and Australian born child, then it must support this petition to grant permanent Australian residency. We have until the 30th May 2014 for commonsense to prevail.
I am a single mother of three who is employed full-time, therefore not relying on benefits other than the Family Tax Benefit and child care concessions.
However my work is on rolling contracts and so I am only ever one step away from unemployment and poverty. This amount helps me, as a single parent on less than the average wage, to save money for emergencies or potential job loss.
Additionally, the increase in interest on HECS debt impacts on women unfairly. As the primary carer for my children I watched as my ex-partner repaid his HECS debt with salary earned whilst I raised our children. At 31, I have only just begun to pay mine and on an income of 60 thousand per annum, will be doing so for many years to come.
There are chronic problems in the western suburbs in terms of egress, and I'm keen to see it get better connected … there is a shortage of east-west links.
… welcomes the announcement in the Budget of an ambitious program of reform for higher education …
We are particularly pleased that the Government has decided to keep the demand driven system for bachelor places and extended it to sub-bachelor places. This will assist in providing pathways and lift participation in higher education in regional Australia for less well prepared students.
We recognise that, in a deregulated fee environment, the Government has chosen to ensure that scholarships are available for low SES and other students from backgrounds underrepresented in higher education.
This is an extraordinary investment in our health, and an emphatic declaration about the importance of medical research to Australia’s future health and prosperity.
It is a landmark initiative in the history of medical research in Australia.
… it is positive for Australia's long-term sovereign risk profile that the planned fiscal consolidation will be driven primarily by structural reforms to spending.
These include increasing the pension retirement age to 70 by 2035, indexing pensions to CPI as opposed to wage growth, increasing petrol excise taxes, introducing medical co-payments, and tightening the requirements for unemployment and family tax benefits.
The pain that Australians and their families will feel from the Prime Minister’s broken promises.
I don't necessarily accept that premise, that limiting people coming to the doctor's is a good thing.
Commonwealth spending on health and education now approaches $90 billion a year, or about a quarter of its total spending.
… any withdrawal of Commonwealth involvement or spending in these areas would rightly be seen as a cop out.
Creation of this $20 billion fund into perpetuity is amongst the most significant initiatives in the history of medical research in Australia.
Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill 2014
Statute Law Revision Bill (No. 1) 2014
Tax Bonus for Working Australians Repeal Bill 2013
Tax Laws Amendment (2014 Measures No. 1) Bill 2014
Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Submarine Cable Protection) Bill 2013
Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Bill 2014
Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014
We will make sure that current right of entry provisions stay. We understand that entering on the premises of an employer needs to happen in an orderly way. We will keep the right of entry provisions.
I haven’t had one for seven years and that hasn’t f***ing stopped me.
A union will only be entitled to enter a workplace for discussion purposes if:
1. they are covered by an enterprise agreement, or
2. they have been invited by a member or employee they are entitled to represent.
Low wages are often associated with low skill jobs. A vicious cycle can develop where low wages subsidise inefficient, low productivity jobs giving management no incentive to increase competition on the basis of quality and overall firm level productivity. Some of the most troubling analysis of the UK experience indicates that this could be one of the lasting legacies of the Conservatives' rule.
Millions of Australians will face new conditions of employment as the Prime Minister realises his vision for radical industrial relations reform.
Fair Work Amendment Bill 2014
We will make sure that current right of entry provisions stay. We understand that entering on the premises of an employer needs to happen in an orderly way. We will keep the right of entry provisions.
That the debate be adjourned and that it be continued at the next date of sitting.
Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015
Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 2014-2015
Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2014-2015
Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2013-2014
Appropriation Bill (No. 6) 2013-2014
The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 9.30.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Prior to calling the first constituency statement, I understand it would suit the Federation Chamber for constituency statements to be for one hour today and I will allow that.
… any proposal for the construction of the alignment of Roe Highway Stage 8 through the Beeliar Regional Park would be extremely difficult to be made environmentally acceptable.
… the EPA is of the opinion that the overall impacts of construction within the alignment, or any alignment through the Beeliar Regional Park in the vicinity of North Lake and Bibra Lake, would lead to the ecological values of the area as a whole being diminished in the long-term. Every effort should be made to avoid this.
Where is the commitment to keep Aboriginal women and children safe? Where is the commitment to ensure Aboriginal women's access to justice? And where is the commitment to reduce vulnerability to violence?
Following years of intolerable conditions and struggle to deal with the tens of thousands of bats now seasonally taking up residence for up to 8 months of the year, an established group of residents in Bairnsdale are stepping up their efforts and going national.
From an immediate health perspective, the constant 24/7 noise and putrid air quality, both of which exceed … OH&S standards, have put many residents in a state of constant ill-health.
Enough is enough if I don't get a full night's sleep soon I'm likely to kill someone.
Between the dog barking at the bats, the incessant noise and the stink from bats I can't put up with it any more.
On our regular early Sunday walk this morning the noise was massive and the smell was putrid as usual, and it extended throughout the CBD. With rain forecast in the imminent future one wonders how much worse the sickening smell can get.
I do think it will have some effect on some people and unfortunately it will be the people who are most vulnerable, I suspect.
The people who are the poorest, people who are older and socially disadvantaged.
We say to people here, 'Oh you need to drive to Wollongong from Milton for a specialist appointment' and they say 'I can't afford the petrol. I can't go this week because I don't have petrol'.
We don't realise there are people living on the edge. They've said people who are under 30 and unemployed aren't going to get the dole for six months. If they're not eligible for the dole, how are they supposed to make a co-payment?
… the demands of both supermarket chains through rebates contributed significantly to Gourmet's dire financial state.
… capable of causing significant detriment to small suppliers’ businesses. This could have resulted in these businesses becoming less able to plan and less able to innovate in the market, with resulting reduced economic efficiency and consumer detriment.
No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.
Of course I stand by all the commitments that this government made prior to the election. If there is one lesson that members opposite should have learnt from the experience of the previous term of parliament it is that you cannot say one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.
The funding cuts will be disappointing for audiences. The government gave repeated commitments before and after the election that funding for the Corporation would be maintained.
… the funding cuts would regrettably and inevitably—
result in redundancies and a reduction in services.
I don't intend on making promises that I won't keep.
We were really hoping the promise made before the election would be kept and there would be not cuts to the ABC or SBS. SBS is already an under-funded organisation and we have been using efficiencies to cover existing costs.
… … …
Any future cuts would have to impact on content and Australian content which is 10 to 15 times more expensive to produce.
It seems to be part of the DNA of regulatory bodies that they acquire their own interests and begin to grow.
Strengthening growth and creating jobs is our top priority and we are fully committed to taking decisive actions to return to a job-rich, strong, sustainable and balanced growth path.
Our most urgent need is to increase the momentum of the global recovery, generate higher growth and better jobs, while strengthening the foundations for long-term growth and avoiding policies that could cause the recovery to falter or promote growth at other countries’ expense.
We understand that sound and sustainable economic growth will be firmly based on increased and predictable investments, trust and transparency, as well as on effective regulation as part of the market policy and practice.
The Youth Connections Programme has been successful in preventing and addressing disengagement from education, training and employment and helping young people achieve long term outcomes. The strengths of Youth Connections include flexibility, capacity to provide intensive and holistic support, and outreach with the most disengaged.
… I have observed that in seeking to promote tolerance and protect against intolerance in a multicultural society, the Racial Discrimination Act must be taken to include in its objectives tolerance for and acceptance of racial and ethnic diversity. At the core of multiculturalism is the idea that people may identify with and express their racial or ethnic heritage free from pressure not to do so. People should be free to fully identify with their race without fear of public disdain or loss of esteem for so identifying. Disparagement directed at the legitimacy of the racial identification of a group of people is likely to be destructive of racial tolerance, just as disparagement directed at the real or imagined practices or traits of those people is also destructive of racial tolerance.
Australia is spending less than 50 per cent of what it should be on a common illness that is largely treatable, with recovery of a good quality of life possible for most people.
My son, who has worked from the age of fifteen, before school after school during holidays and every weekend, has just graduated from a double degree with honours.
He has been looking for a non-existent job in his field, or another job in any other field. While he is looking for full time work, he has been working in a casual, temporary job, being paid no superannuation entitlements.
Now he has been sacked from that job because of the downturn in business in Canberra.
My husband and I are retired and will now have to cover his expenses so that he is not homeless on the street.
He is desperate and depressed—and I am worried for his personal safety and his mental state.
Why is the Government trying to kill this young person with its harsh and unrealistic measures? It's not their children being put at risk, is it? It is not in their 'backyards'.
I am writing to you for support and as our elected Federal Representative at the request of my son who is an apprentice carpenter, in his third year to date. For him to become an apprentice he has had to commit to a number of financial burdens.
These are just the expenses that are the big ticket ones, there are many more.
His wage is the paltry sum of about $14.50 per hour—a pretty standard award for apprentices.
He and all apprentices are HIGHLY dependent on the apprentice tool allowance to assist in the purchase of tools. How the scrapping of this allowance and its replacement with the disgraceful proposal of loans up to $20,000 for them to buy tools can even be considered defies belief.
I ask you to consider all apprentices and understand that there is absolutely no way that my son can afford this outrageous impost of more loans if the tool allowance is lost.
If apprentices take out this ridiculous loan they are committed to a huge period of debt. We know there will be very little work for them when they finish their apprenticeships as a result of the Liberals' Canberra bashing and the inevitable downturn in the building industry and the local economy.
I urge you to fight this proposal tooth and nail in support of vulnerable low income working Australians.