PM fires up workplace war

By Matthew Franklin, Imre Salusinkszky    

Julia Gillard will fight an attempt by NSW Premier Kristina Keneally to welsh on a deal to create uniform national workplace safety laws, insisting that the reforms are central to her productivity agenda.

The Prime Minister said last night she would hold Ms Keneally to account on delivering the changes, insisting her attempts to wriggle out of the deal would hurt workers.

Ms Gillard’s passionate support for national occupational health and safety laws came as business groups savaged Ms Keneally’s demand for a special deal for unionists working on the Barangaroo development, an urban-renewal project on the western fringe of the Sydney CBD.

The deal would retain two provisions NSW had agreed to dump: that employers facing action over work accidents were presumed to be guilty of negligence and must prove otherwise; and the ability for trade unions to launch legal action against employers and retain half of any fine imposed.

Last night, Ms Gillard told The Australian she would not accept backsliding on the agreements achieved through the Council of Australian Governments and due to be put in place by all states by the end of next year.

“We will not let the NSW government stand in the way of this major economic reform designed to boost our economy, and we will not let them deny their workers of the economic benefits this legislation will provide,” the Prime Minister said.

“It is disappointing and difficult to understand why the NSW government would want to walk away from this reform, considering these benefits. A deal is a deal.”

Federal governments have pressed for more than a decade to make it easier for businesses to operate across state borders by urging states to harmonise laws in areas such as OHS and licensing.

The existence of different OHS regimes in different states has meant companies operating across borders have had to spend more on lawyers to ensure their operations complied with laws.

Yesterday, Ms Keneally declared national harmonisation of OHS laws “should not occur if it lowers safety standards for workers in NSW”. She said her cabinet had taken “a principled decision that we will not enact the legislation as it is currently proposed” — a clear backdown from the COAG deal reached last year.

As business leaders expressed rage at the NSW decision, ACTU secretary Jeff Lawrence backed Ms Keneally, whose government is deeply unpopular and is widely expected to struggle to win the election due in March.

Defending third-party prosecutions and a reverse onus of proof on employers, Mr Lawrence said: “The proposed national workplace safety laws should now be reviewed to lift standards and protections for all Australian workers.”

Ms Gillard, who on Tuesday told the Queensland Media Club she was determined to deliver economic reform in the tradition of the Hawke and Keating governments, was unmoved.

“A single national system will make it cheaper, easier and more efficient for businesses to work across borders, particularly in light of the fact we have an increasingly mobile labour force,” she said.

“These reforms will boost productivity, reduce business costs and, most importantly, they will make sure our workers are protected by the same high safety standards, regardless of which state you work in.”

Ms Gillard said Labor had worked tirelessly to deliver the reforms through COAG, placing the issue “at the core” of its economic reform agenda. “It was a reform that eluded five previous federal governments, but we got it done because we knew just how crucial this legislation was in our mission to move towards a seamless economy,” she said.

“It’s a reform that will generate growth, generate jobs and generate long-term job security for employees now and into the future.”

The Prime Minister said a recent Access Economics report found that the creation of a national workplace relations system for the private sector would deliver benefits to Australian business worth an estimated $4.83 billion over the next 10 years.

The model Australian OHS Act, replacing 10 pieces of legislation and more than 400 OHS regulations and codes of practice, would drive similar benefits.

Business Council of Australia deputy chief executive Maria Tarrant last night welcomed Ms Gillard’s position, saying business had worked too hard on the reforms to accept backsliding.

“Given the level of consensus that has been reached, and the effort and resources devoted to the process, the Premier’s apparent backslide discourages not only future reform but also the trust and goodwill needed to bring parties to the table in negotiating it,” Ms Tarrant said.

In a judgment in February, the High Court described NSW laws as unjust, oppressive and absurd.

The NSW Labor government attempted to abolish the reverse onus of proof and union prosecutions in 2006, but backed down in the face of union opposition ahead of the 2007 state election.

NSW Business Chamber chief Stephen Cartwright said the government was in its “dying days” and no longer cared about its legacy. “It appears the Premier is pursuing a scorched-earth policy that will see the very worst of government decisions made over the next 163 days as the unions, donors and special interest groups line up for their share of the spoils,” Mr Cartwright said. “A dreadful government is going from bad to worse.”

NSW Minerals Council boss Nikki Williams said the requirement for employers to prove their innocence under the state’s workplace safety laws put them in a weaker position than “murderers, child sex offenders or Guantanamo Bay detainees”.

Ken Phillips from Independent Contractors Australia told The Australian Ms Keneally had made a “breathtaking capitulation to one of the ugliest political power machines seen in the history of Australia”.

“This is the NSW Labor culture of obsessive, irrational class-based hatred, overriding principles of justice and the formation of truly forward-thinking workplace safety laws,” said Mr Phillips. “The national consensus that Julia Gillard has crafted inside the Labor movement for sensible, effective work safety laws has just crashed.”

Article from The Australian, October 15, 2010.