Bill Shorten challenged by Liberals over 'destructive' union agenda

4 October 2018
Sydney Morning Herald


Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is under pressure to release his industrial relations policy, as the Morrison government seizes on his failure to rule out radical changes demanded by unions and dubbed "a recipe for disaster" by business leaders. 

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer said ACTU secretary Sally McManus' demand that Labor commit to a return to industry-wide bargaining was "a recipe for industrial conflict and chaos not seen since the 1970s, when industrial action was 40 times higher than today".

"Industry-wide industrial action would paralyse whole sectors of the economy at once – crippling small business; shutting down essential services like schools and hospitals; seeing our farmers' exports rotting on the wharfs," Ms O'Dwyer said.


"Australians do not want a return to conflict. A strong economy is the foundation for prosperity for all Australians.

"If Sally McManus was serious about increasing prosperity for all Australians, she would promote co-operation and collaboration between business and employees, so that our economy can grow, boosting jobs and increasing wages."


Mr Shorten responded cautiously to the ACTU proposal on Thursday, promising only to "look very carefully" at the issue, while reiterating Labor's commitment to restore Sunday penalty rates and increase pay for labour hire workers.

He said that while the existing system of enterprise bargaining had "delivered some pretty positive benefits for workers", it was now "creating one-sided outcomes and we are seeing wages growth stagnant".   

"The fact of the matter is, that wherever I travel in Australia, people tell me everything is going up but their wages," Mr Shorten said.   

"Workers are getting left behind, corporate profits are up and we do need a better wages policy. So we will look very carefully at what Sally is saying and what other people are saying in this area."

Liberal senator and former industrial relations minister Eric Abetz said that Mr Shorten,  a former national secretary of the AWU, was beholden to the union movement and primarily concerned "about maintaining the ACTU backing at the next election".

"Bill Shorten's cautious approach on this is not because he's genuinely concerned about jobs, wages and the economy," Senator Abetz said.


"This is going to be a test of his leadership, as to whether he is willing to stand by the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era ... or whether they go through with this crazy - I was about to say new world, in fact, it's old world industrial relations."

He said the fact Mr Shorten had not ruled out the union movement's "destructive agenda" on industry-wide bargaining meant that "if given half the chance, Bill Shorten would dance to the tune of the ACTU, as opposed to the Australian people".

In a speech delivered at the John Curtin Research Centre on Thursday night, Ms McManus said the enterprise bargaining system – introduced by the Keating government – was outdated and incapable of giving workers their "fair share" of productivity increases.   

"While enterprise bargaining did assist for some time achieving productivity improvements, these productivity improvements have been exhausted at the enterprise level," she said.

"Workers must be able to negotiate across sectors and industries to establish a solid basis for more secure, fairly paid work."

Business leaders are concerned that, while Labor is unlikely to concede to all of Ms McManus' demands, if elected the party could change the system enough to harm businesses.

Australian Mines and Metals Association chief executive Steve Knott said the ACTU's approach was "a recipe for disaster" and "a stranglehold on workplaces" that would take the nation's businesses "back to the 1970s".

"Our workplace relations debate must be future-focussed and fit to safeguard the national interest, investment and employment," Mr Knott said.

"Businesses require flexibility and productive workforces so they can prosper and employ more Australians ... The ACTU's one-size-fits-all approach has failed in the past and it will fail again."

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Brendan O'Connor said wages had remained stagnant over the last five years of Liberal government, along with "systemic examples of worker exploitation, and growing insecure work".   

"While Morrison and his Liberals spend all their time attacking workers, Labor has over a number of years now announced policies that will go toward restoring the broken nexus between wages and profits and we will continue to develop these as we move toward the election," Mr O'Connor said.

Abetz also said that there was a wage rise blowout - he should keep repeating that during the election and get all those business votes.

whiteknight wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 7:14am:


Let's not worry about Sally. She's doing just fine on her AUD$100,000+ salary. She doesn't have too many sisters in the office with her because the ACTU is dragging its feet on female appointments. It was Sally who was a mobiliser in the campaign to stop the privatisation of Medicare so Sally still hits the bottle. She's just a working girl.