ACT Senator Strikes Deal Giving Australia’s Labor Government Crucial Vote for Passing Industrial Relations Bill

Childcare workers and supporters from Dawson Street Child Care Co-operative walk down Sydney Road during a protest march as part of a campaign in Melbourne, Australia, for higher wages on March 8, 2017. (Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

The centre-left Labor government looks like it has secured the necessary votes to pass its controversial industrial relations bill in parliament after crunch negotiations on Saturday with a key Senate crossbencher. 

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke says he is confident the amendments to existing workplace relations law, which enshrine multi-employer bargaining, can pass after talks with independent Senator David Pocock on Saturday night. 

“It hasn’t been an easy negotiation and Senator Pocock has been very clear on a series of the principles that he wanted to look at,” Burke told ABC’s Insiders program on Sunday.

“He would have preferred that everything was dealt with next year when we said we wanted to make decisions this year. It has involved a very intense process.”

Employment and Workplace Minister Tony Burke speaks during the jobs and skills summit at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Sept. 1, 2022. (Martin Ollman/Getty Images)

The Senate is set to vote on the bill later this week.

The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee released recommendations for amendments to the government on Nov. 17. These include clarifying that “conciliation should take place before arbitration of disputes over flexible working arrangements” and that the definition of small business for single interest employers be increased from fewer than 15 employees to fewer than 20 employees.

Under Labor’s proposed “Secure Jobs, Better Pay” amendments, employees in sectors with many different employers such as early childhood education would be able to band together to voice their demands. Bargaining together must also be in the “public interest.”

There are three pathways to multi-employer bargaining: supported, cooperative workplaces, and single-interest bargaining streams.

The supported stream, which replaces the current low-paid bargaining stream, covers workers in low-paid industries such as childcare and aged care and their employers.

The cooperative workplaces stream is an improved version of the multi-employer bargaining stream in the Fair Work Act 2009 that provides an extra bargaining option for businesses.

Meanwhile, the single-interest stream covers businesses with identifiable common interests, such as having a similar business nature, terms and conditions of employment, and geographic area.

If passed, the changes will mean that small businesses with fewer than 20 employees will be excluded from single-interest multi-enterprise bargaining, while businesses with fewer than 50 employees will have extra safeguards in place if they want to opt out of multi-employer bargaining. 

Currently, the Industrial Relation laws set out in the Fair Work Act and other workplace legislation cover key elements such as a safety net of minimum terms and conditions of employment.

It also includes a system of enterprise-level collective bargaining underpinned by bargaining obligations and rules governing industrial action.

Other elements are protections against unfair or unlawful termination of employment, and protection of workplace rights such as the right to be free from pressure in negotiating individual arrangements.

Pocock said on Sunday that the deal he struck with the government is “better for business, better for workers and makes sure the most vulnerable in our community are no longer left behind.”

“I went into this seeking to get the best policy outcome, balancing the urgent need for workers to get a pay rise with legislation that will work in practice by delivering pay rises for those that need it while not placing unreasonable burdens on small businesses,” he said.

“I believe we have achieved the right balance, significantly improving the legislation with the added commitment that will help stop governments leaving our most vulnerable behind.”

‘Risk of Being Roped In’

However, the bill has faced resistance from small business groups such as the Council of Small Business Australia (COSBOA), which is raising concerns that the bill does not benefit small, family, and privately-owned and operated businesses that face "the risk of being roped in.”

In its submission to the government, the COSBOA said it’s “concerned with the layers of complexity, additional regulatory requirements and additional processes placed upon a small business.”

“We believe these will hamper the ability of a small business to achieve an agreement with one or more employees that provides the flexibility, simplicity, and protection that both the small business employer and their employees are seeking.”

“The complexity involved takes small business people away from managing, growing, and innovating in their business and ultimately, from employing more staff. COSBOA believes the increase in regulation associated with the Bill will impact small businesses disproportionately and disincentivise employment.”

The COSBOA described the bill as “highly technical” and urged the government to take a longer time to properly consult with its members and to measure the impacts in the context of the broader small business community.

“By failing to provide a greater length of consultation, the government is unable to really hear the small business perspective and therefore unable to take a careful, considered approach.”

False Assumptions Around Decreasing ‘Job Security’

Meanwhile, the Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Organisation (RCSA) said its concerns around the bill are about “overt reliance upon false assertions around decreasing ‘job security’ that have no basis in evidence.”

The RCSA added that there are elements in the Industrial Relation Bill that “explicitly undermine its stated ambitions around enhancing ‘job security,’ and which will ultimately lead to restriction in choices for workers.”

“Beyond the difficulty in defining the concept of ‘job security,’ the very premise of its inclusion, namely that Australians are feeling less secure in their work, is not supported by any evidence beyond assertions from vested interest groups,” the group argued in its submission.

“Indeed, all available evidence and research indicates that Australians are feeling more secure in their work today than they have in the past 20-40 years. The concept also fails to reflect, or even consider, worker choice.”

“In Australia, there are hundreds of thousands of workers who eschew permanent, full time work arrangements in preference of flexible employment that others would strive to define as ‘insecure’ on their behalf.”

Alfred Bui and AAP contributed to this article.