Today's draft report of the Secure Jobs, Better Pay Review has identified a small number of sensible measures to address glaring problems in the legislation, but these are modest and will undoubtedly be viewed by industry as underwhelming.
In many respects, the report reflects a missed opportunity to identify the major deficiencies in legislative amendments that were so brutally and controversially rushed through Parliament with notoriously inadequate consultation with industry.
In particular, the absence of any recommendations relating to the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, notwithstanding the scandalous revelations that have come to light since it was abolished, is both a shocking and deeply troubling omission.
Multi-employer bargaining remains a significant threat to jobs and enterprises and to the capacity for our economy to improve productivity and provide a sustainable foundation for real wage increases. The Australian Industry Group put up practical ideas to start to fix this, and we are disappointed they were not taken up. Ai Group will continue to press for genuine reform in this area.
Ai Group is also disappointed that substantial concerns we raised with other areas of the 2022 Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments have not been adequately addressed. These include:
- elements of the bargaining system that remain unnecessarily complex and unfair to employers;
- the unbalanced and impractical manner in which the legislation now deals with bargaining negotiations, making them intractable and
- the increased extent to which employers will be exposed to costly litigation associated with disputation over requests for flexible work arrangements.
The report's observation that more time is needed to properly assess the impact and operation of many very major changes to our workplace relations system is not unexpected; it's clear the full impacts on jobs, incomes, enterprises and productivity need to be better understood. There are nonetheless a range of problems with workplace relations legislation that should be dealt with now, before they lead to entirely foreseeable and avoidable adverse consequences.
The proposal for a further review is nonetheless sensible, but this must not discourage or delay the fixing of problems as they come to light. It is crucial that following the next election, any government must refrain from adopting a 'set and forget approach' to workplace relations regulation.
The review's identification of the need for more time to assess the operation of various aspects of the new laws also undermines union arguments that the new laws are working.
Elements of the draft review recommendations that will be welcomed include:
- The call for a reconsideration of limitations on the use of fixed-term contracts and, in particular, the need for exceptions that are readily accessible to address anomalies that are increasingly coming to light. Ai Group has been very vocal in calling out the problems that the unduly prescriptive and unnecessarily confusing restrictions to fixed-term employment have created for industry and workers.
- The call for the Australian Government to better and more rapidly advise the Fair Work Commission, employers and unions of its position on providing additional government funding for any outcomes of wage reviews to address gender undervaluation.
- The reviewers not endorsing the vast majority of the ACTU's 41 demands to further skew the system in favour of unions. In their submission to the review, unions sought to make a system already creating real challenges far worse, and it's welcome that their agenda has been rejected.
Ai Group will now review the recommendations and supporting report in further detail and make a constructive submission addressing the draft report and recommendations.
We look forward to meeting with the Review Panel and pursuing final recommendations that can materially improve the operation of 2022's Secure Jobs, Better Pay amendments or, at the very least, reduce their damaging impact on employers and employees.
While this is only a draft report, the Government's decision to give stakeholders just 13 days to respond to more 400 pages of analysis and recommendations is patently ridiculous. It does not reflect a serious commitment by the Government to seek meaningful input from industry.
