PRIME MINISTER
STATEMENT BY TIlE PRIME MINISTER, THE lION PJ. KEATING MP
OPPOSITION INDUSTRIAL REI ATIONS POLICY
The Opposition's Industrial Relations policy is one week old today, and already it is
riddled with contradiction.
Dr Hewson told us that this policy would put the Industrial Relations Commission in tile
" dustbin of history".
But now in a bizarre attempt to cover his leader's mistakes on the Sunday program, the
Opposition spokesman tells us he will open the bin and dray the Commission back out
again.
The resulting contradictions in Opposition policy show that it would be in practice
unworkable. Mr Howard put out a press relCasC yesterday in which he said that pay levels in contracts
will have to be increased whenever the Commission increases the rate in the award which
formerly covered the employees.
In other words, whenever anen ployment contract is renewed it must pick up whatever
increase the Commission has decided for the award.
Mr Iloward says a union can apply for such an increase at any time.
The Commission would be able to determinc the frequency and size of changes in the
base rates. It regains its old role as the national arbitrator of wages, with award increascs
automatically flowing into individual contracts as they expire and on renewal.
But the basis upon which the Commission would change a base award rate is not specified
by the Coalition. It may be changed work value for that classification, for example, or
changed relativity, or local circumstances factors that nced not be connected to the
employment contract which the dccision nonetheless alters. I
So in the attempt to find a plausible way out of the policy's failure to specify a way of
updating minimums Mr Howard has driven a semi trailer through the policy,
Clearly, the Opposition has given no thought to the implications of Mr Howard's
announcement yesterday.
First it was individual contracts, a disappearing Commission, disappearing unions.
Now the Opposition is saying the contracts will just reflect arbitrated changes in the award
minimum. Mr Howard is making policy on the run, trying to cover his leader's mistakes.
But in trying to repair the policy Mr Howard has raised more questions than he answers.
The policy released last week says explicitly that all awards will automatically terminate
except where both employees and cmployers indicate the award should continue.
This raises the possibility that in many areas there will cease to be an award at all. Mr
Howard's policy offers no way of updating the mniniums in contracts involving people
formerly covered by thcsc awards.
Even where an award rcmains, it will be on a shrinking base of employees and employers,
raising the risk that changes in the award minimum will reflect consent arrangements
which may bc inappropriate for enterprises not under the award.
However, under the Opposition's re-announced policy these increases would flow into
individual contracts.
The contradiction over the role of the Commission is just one of the problems revealed as
the policy is subjected to scrutiny.
The Opposition has still not explained how the $ 3.50 hour youth minimum will be
updated. Will the Commission do that too?
What is he telling small business, which is discovering that his policy would apply only to
incorporated cntcrprics?
And what is Mr Howard telling the business leaders who are telling him that the
Opposition policy provides no mechanism for rccognising either one or many bargaining
agents in an enterprise, and provides no mechanism upon which an enterprise bargain may
be negotiated?
In fact, it rejects a collective bargaining system under which a single agreement could
cover a single enterprise.
The truth is that the Opposition is not proposing a system of enterprise bargaining, in
which agreements are madc to enhance productivity in return for greater rewards from
work. It is proposing a system of individual contracts between the employcr and each employee.
And we now learn that these Individual contracts will be supposed to reflect changes in
awards changes which, as time goes on, would be made for reasons more and more
closcly connected with the residual coverage of the award, and less and less for reasons
connected with the circumstances of the employees under individual contracts who will
nonethelcss be affected.
Isn't it time Dr Hcwson held a press conference with the Canberra gallery to explain his
policies? CANBERRA 27 October 1992