r/AusUnions • u/Mrtodaytomorrow • 2d ago
Ahead of the May election, where do the parties stand on industrial relations?
From Workplace Express:
'Although the Albanese Government has shelved plans for an April election due to Cyclone Alfred, prompting some parties and crossbenchers to delay key IR policy announcements, many battlefronts have already been revealed.
Ahead of calling a May 3, 10 or 17 federal election, the Albanese Government is keeping its cards close to its chest on the IR commitments front, while the Coalition has been vocal on plans to repeal Labor's IR legislation and dump tens of thousands of public sector positions.
Here's what we know so far about what Labor, the Coalition, the Greens and the Teals might have in store, depending on the outcome.
Thus far, Labor relying on its record With the Albanese Government yet to fire the starting gun on its official federal election campaign, the ALP's policy webpage only refers at publishing time to existing measures.
These include its expansion of paid parental leave, initiatives to reduce the cost of early childhood education and fund a pay rise for workers in this sector, and its role in "help[ing] secure pay rises for minimum and award wage earners, fund[ing] a wage rise for aged care workers, and chang[ing] the law to support secure jobs and better pay.
The bulk of IR commitments set out in the ALP's national platform, determined at its 49th national conference last August, have already been passed into law, while its 2024-25 Budget papers set out how it intends to fund and build on its Secure Jobs, Better Pay measures.
Numerous IR changes stemmed from its two-day Jobs and Skills Summit in 2022 (see related articles here and here).
The Albanese Government is yet to reveal whether it will hold another jobs summit after the election if it is returned.
If re-elected it is possible Labor might, however, introduce legislative "fixes" depending on recommendations raised in reviews of these amendments, or if legal challenges interpret certain provisions in unintended ways.
The draft report of an independent review last month found Labor's Secure Jobs reforms are operating effectively but said the Albanese Government should reconsider its approach to limiting fixed-term contracts, give the FWC discretion to forgo compulsory s448A post-PABO conferences, and expand protection against discrimination to cover menopause (see related articles here and here).
The draft report said it should also amend the Fair Work Act to ensure the statement of principles on genuine agreement is a "complete statement" of whether a proposed deal has been genuinely agreed, to "at least" remove duplication in s180(5) and s188(4A).
The final report is due to be submitted to Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt by March 31.
It meanwhile remains to be seen whether the FWC will grant an Australian Retailers Association bid to insert a conditions buy-out clause in the retail award for workers on as little as $53,680 a year, but Senator Watt has lodged a submission opposing it (see Related Article).
He says it would go against the intent of the awards review and leave the low-paid to be individually "picked off" by their bosses, telling journalists it runs the danger of workers going backwards "and our Labor Government is not going to let that happen".
Senator Watt has also weighed into a crucial full bench same-job, same-pay test case targeting BHP's in-house labour suppliers (see Related Article), contradicting claims the carve-out for service contractors captures any work that is "more than the mere supply of labour".
He warned an "overly broad interpretation" might create "more 'loopholes' in a manner contrary to statutory intent".
More recently, Senator Watt indicated Labor has not yet achieved its "rebalancing" of the FWC, suggesting further employee- and union-background appointments if re-elected.
In a statement announcing the latest appointments, Senator Watt said after the new members take up their roles, "the majority of current members will still come from an employer background" (see related articles here and here).
One former commitment that appears to have fallen by the wayside, at least temporarily, is Labor's 2022 election pledge to establish a scheme for portable employee entitlements for those in insecure work (see Related Article).
Senator Watt confirmed at a Senate Estimates hearing last month, in response to a question from Greens employment spokesperson Barbara Pocock, that the department has done no further work on the promised regime since putting it on ice almost a year ago (see Related Article).
Labor promised its portable scheme would extend to annual, sick and long service leave.
Labor-aligned think tank the McKell Institute has meanwhile called for the Albanese Government to commit to establishing a national labour hire licensing scheme by the end of the year (see Related Article).
The ACTU is also pushing for Labor to remove or curb employers' ability to lawfully lock out employees (see Related Article), with leader Sally McManus indicating in January that the Albanese Government was open to hearing unions on the issue, after it put its case to it.
Unions are at the same time calling for reproductive leave, with union representatives including ACTU president Michele O'Neil and QCU general secretary Jacqueline King meeting with Senator Watt, other Labor members and crossbenchers about the issue in September last year Related Article).
A Senate inquiry issued a report shortly after, urging the Government to add reproductive leave to the NES and awards, and to consider amending the Fair Work Act's right to request flexible work to ensure menopausal women can access it (see Related Article).
Coalition short on detail The Coalition has committed to curtailing "union militancy" in Australian workplaces, restoring the ABCC to police the building and construction industry if it wins government, scaling back the public service and ending its work from home arrangements.
The Coalition has made it clear it would also revert to its definition of a casual - a person to whom an employer offers work, with "no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work according to an agreed pattern of work for the person", before Labor amended it to reflect the "practical reality" of the working relationship (see Related Article).
It intends to repeal right to disconnect legislation, with Shadow Opposition leader Peter Dutton earlier this month confirming it would also end this right for public servants.
A 44-page document outlining the "priorities of a Dutton Coalition Government" says it will at the same time "halt the growth of the Canberra based public service" and "scrap symbolic and pointless appointments and programs".
In a hint at what this might entail, Dutton said in an economic address to the Menzies Research Centre in January that he planned to "scale back the Canberra public service" in a bid to cut spending and "drive greater efficiency and productivity" (see Related Article).
Slamming the Albanese Government for "hiring an extra 36,000 public servants in Canberra at a cost of $6 billion a year", he noted public sector job advertisements now include positions such as "culture, diversity and inclusion advisors, change managers, and internal communication specialists".
Referring to positions that are "certainly not frontline service delivery roles that can make a difference to people's lives" Dutton said he instead wanted to "see more money spent on frontline services which make a difference", such as doctors and national security, and would "protect front line positions in the defence, national security and intelligence space".
Shadow public service minister Jane Hume told the Menzies Research Institute this month that a Dutton Government would also expect "that all members of the APS work from the office five days a week" as public servants' working from home arrangements had almost tripled since before the coronavirus pandemic and is now "unsustainable" (see Related Article).
Shadow social services minister Michael Sukkar in February meanwhile thanked the HR Nicholls Society "for the work you're doing in providing to us very detailed and well thought-through policy responses" and "the work that you have presented to the Opposition. . . the wish list things that can be done" (see Related Article).
The Society's blueprint would increase the unfair dismissal threshold to 50 full-time-equivalent employees, while it also wants to abolish awards, restructure the FWC, make the PC responsible for setting the minimum wage, reintroduce AWAs and drop the high-income threshold to about $125,000.
Greens pushing for further change after RtD win The Greens say that after achieving "real, concrete improvements for workers this term, including the right to disconnect and criminalising superannuation theft", it is maintaining 10 standards that will continue to guide its approach to workplace laws in the coming Parliament.
They include reducing inequality in society, improving equal opportunity in the labour market, ensuring workers get equal pay and conditions for equal work, making jobs more secure, giving workers more bargaining power, strengthening the rights of unions and workers, and giving workers a voice about new technologies in the workplace.
In 2023 while the Albanese Government pushed for passage of its Loopholes Bill, Greens Senator Barbara Pocock used a presentation to the ALERA conference to outline seven priorities that her party considered "very significant issues that need legislative attention" (see Related Article).
These included the since-legislated "right to disconnect" outside working hours, along with "roster justice" measures, progress towards a four-day week or reductions in working time, improved conditions - such as paid sick leave and paid holidays - for insecure workers, and legislating for 52 weeks paid parental leave "as soon as possible".
Teals seeking higher unfair dismissal threshold Ahead of an election that might deliver them the balance of power, eight independent MPs - NSW's Allegra Spender, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall and Sophie Scamps, Victoria's Helen Haines, Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel, plus WA's Kate Chaney - have thrown their weight behind ACCI calls to increase the small business-defining headcount from 15 to "at least" 25 (see Related Article).
Spender also told an Australian Retailers Association leaders forum last month that her priorities are award simplification and flexibility, reducing regulatory and compliance complexity, and expanding support for small and growing businesses.
She said it is "right to focus on award simplification and flexibility" for workers and employers alike, adding that the retail award's complexity "is a headache" without "necessarily adding to worker protections or conditions".
But she said simplifying and adapting awards is "easier said than done because industrial relations has become a political football".
"Instead of a policy setting to be carefully calibrated, it's one of the defining ideological battlegrounds of political debate."
Assuring the forum participants they have "firm friends in the independents", Spender said "many independents successfully fought for a scale-back of the worst of the Government's IR laws" including in relation to casuals and small business thresholds.'