Division
Brendan O'Connor I return to the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017. Labor will oppose this bill for the reasons I have outlined and also for some other reasons, and I will go to some of those. I will recap. As I have said, this bill will bring forward a code to apply to the building industry and will have a number of implications, not least of all employers, their workforce and unions will be unable to bargain in exactly the same manner as every other employer, workforce and union in every other sector of our economy. In particular, the code, if implemented, will restrict the capacity for those parties to enterprise agreements to bargain on a range of things, including the ratio of apprentices. That is currently allowable under the Fair Work Act but would be disallowed by the code for this industry. For example, it would not allow an employer, workforce and union to strike a deal to have a ratio of apprentices for a number of workers. We think this will limit or diminish the efforts by some in the industry to improve the ratio of apprentices and give young people an opportunity to work. That is why we are so surprised that Senator Xenophon, who likes to say he supports workers, Senator Hinch, One Nation senators and others are supporting this bill. It also will deny employers, unions and workers the ability to regulate the forms of employment in any way. Therefore, it will not allow some restrictions about temporary worker use. We know temporary workers are often exploited in many industries in this country. We have seen recently some awful examples of exploitation, but so too some employers may seek to employ them over and above and instead of local workers. There are provisions currently in enterprise agreements, for example, in Queensland and Victoria that restrict that use or at least ensure that there is some preference for local workers. If it is the case that temporary workers are used to supplement areas of deman
House of Representatives, 2017-02-14. affirmative: ayes 75, noes 67.
Question
Brendan O'Connor I return to the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Amendment Bill 2017. Labor will oppose this bill for the reasons I have outlined and also for some other reasons, and I will go to some of those. I will recap. As I have said, this bill will bring forward a code to apply to the building industry and will have a number of implications, not least of all employers, their workforce and unions will be unable to bargain in exactly the same manner as every other employer, workforce and union in every other sector of our economy. In particular, the code, if implemented, will restrict the capacity for those parties to enterprise agreements to bargain on a range of things, including the ratio of apprentices. That is currently allowable under the Fair Work Act but would be disallowed by the code for this industry. For example, it would not allow an employer, workforce and union to strike a deal to have a ratio of apprentices for a number of workers. We think this will limit or diminish the efforts by some in the industry to improve the ratio of apprentices and give young people an opportunity to work. That is why we are so surprised that Senator Xenophon, who likes to say he supports workers, Senator Hinch, One Nation senators and others are supporting this bill. It also will deny employers, unions and workers the ability to regulate the forms of employment in any way. Therefore, it will not allow some restrictions about temporary worker use. We know temporary workers are often exploited in many industries in this country. We have seen recently some awful examples of exploitation, but so too some employers may seek to employ them over and above and instead of local workers. There are provisions currently in enterprise agreements, for example, in Queensland and Victoria that restrict that use or at least ensure that there is some preference for local workers. If it is the case that temporary workers are used to supplement areas of deman
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