Abbott signals shift on workplace laws

By Ewin Hannan    

Tony Abbott has signalled that a Coalition government would increase the ability of employers and workers to directly strike flexible workplace agreements without the involvement of unions.

In his strongest indication yet about how a Coalition government would seek to wind back Labor’s workplace laws, the Opposition Leader said his approach to industrial relations would be about “freedom” and trusting businesses and workers to strike agreements “which suit themselves”.

The Labor Party and unions seized on the comments to claim Mr Abbott was intent on reviving the Work Choices laws and bringing back individual statutory employment contracts that would allowreductions in workers’ pay and conditions.

But Liberal sources insisted the Coalition was not preparing to support the return of individual contracts, particularly given the unpopularity of the Australian Workplace Agreements that operated under Work Choices.

Instead, it is understood the Coalition is devising changes to the workplace flexibility provisions – known as individual flexibility arrangements – that already exist under Labor’s Fair Work Act.

Mr Abbott gave his support yesterday to former prime minister John Howard, who said on Monday

night that Labor’s re-regulation of the labour market would have to be wound back “at some point”.

“It’s blindingly obvious that one of the worst mistakes Julia Gillard has made is to re-regulate the labour market,” Mr Howard told ABC1’s 7.30. “It is affecting our productivity and it will therefore affect our competitiveness.” Mr Abbott told Melbourne radio 3AW’s Neil Mitchell that Mr Howard was essentially right.

“I think there is no doubt that the Fair Work legislation took the pendulum from one side and swung it right back to the other side, but in the end it’s got to be about practical problem-solving,” the Opposition Leader said.

Pressed on whether he was talking about further deregulation, he said: “Well, I think we need freedom.

“I think we ought to be able to trust the businesses and the workers of Australia to come to arrangements which suit themselves.

“Now, there’s got to be minimums. There’s got to be fairness. But there’s also got to be freedom.”

Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans said Mr Abbott was “now using words like `flexibility’ and `freedom for employers’, which is code for Work Choices”.

“It’s code for individual contracts, it’s code for going back to the proposition that he said was dead and buried. When the Liberal Party talks about freedom for employers, they mean individual agreements, they mean conditions which saw workers stripped of their award entitlements.”

Steve Knott, the chief executive of the Australian Mines and Metals Association, said while the principles outlined were encouraging, they “need to be backed by a substantive IR policy for business to evaluate . . . Notwithstanding the spectre of a resurrected, factually incorrect and tired, back-to-Work Choices campaign, the business community is in search of an alternative IR legislative value proposition,” he said.

“Currently, none exists.”

ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence said the plans put holidays, penalty rates and sick leave at risk.

Article from The Australian, September 1, 2011.