General

Australian Workplace Agreements

Work Choices officially dead and buried

From AAP

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd declared Australian Workplace Agreements "dead and buried" as parliament passed legislation dismantling the previous Howard government's controversial Work Choices laws.

The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill was rubber-stamped by the lower house on Wednesday morning after passing the Senate Tuesday night.

The bill needs the assent of the governor-general to become law.

The government was forced to tinker with the bill - introduced in the first week of parliament last month - after an inquiry by a Senate committee.

Among the 37 most technical amendments was a change allowing employers to extend the use of transitional individual work contracts.

The government agreed to the concession to ensure passage of the legislation before Easter.

Mr Rudd said passage of the legislation through parliament marked a major day for working families across Australia and honoured a commitment Labor gave to the people before last year's federal election.

"Today we declare Australian Workplace Agreements to be dead and buried," Mr Rudd told parliament with the rousing support of Labor MPs in the chamber.

"Today we declare this shameful chapter in the history of Australia's workplace relations to be dead and buried.

"And today with this legislation we begin the process of buying the rest of that Work Choices omnibus once and for all.

"And with this legislation, we take the first step towards the creation of a modern, fair and flexible workplace relations system."

Mr Rudd said AWAs had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars from the pay packets of workers.

The bill went "to the heart of the Australian Labor Party's DNA".

"This is the Labor way, this is the Australian way - fairness in the workplace, rewarding hard work, achievement and success, valuing Australian working families on the way through," he said.

The lower house agreed to the Senate amendments without an official vote being taken.

Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard said the amendments strengthened the bill.

"Of course, the bill was drafted quickly because we wanted to honour our commitment to the Australian people to end Australian Workplace Agreement making as soon as possible," she told parliament.

The amendments fell into four categories, Ms Gillard said.

Some amendments were strictly technical in nature and some clarified the full range of protection for outworkers and long-service leave entitlements of employees stemming from state law which will be taken into account for the purpose of the no-disadvantage test.

There were also amendments to ensure an employer, using AWAs in December last year, would be able to offer existing employees an Interim Transitional Employment Agreement (ITEA).

"The government had considered this question earlier," Ms Gillard said.

"We were concerned that without robust anti-avoidance provisions there was some possibility that a provision of this nature could be used, admittedly by the very occasional employer ... to terminate people in order to re-engage them on ITEAs," Ms Gillard said.

"We obviously did not want that effect.

"I am now satisfied we have been able to draft a sufficiently robust anti-avoidance provision."

© 2008 AAP

© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/general/20080319_workchoices.html
Last Modified: 19 Mar 2008