By Jane Lee
Unions are cautiously welcoming Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's olive branch on workplace relations reform, agreeing with business that Australia needs to "keep up" with other countries in an increasingly global market.
Mr Turnbull left the door open for potential changes to the government's policy agenda on Monday night, saying it was important to "explore ways in which we can achieve more flexibility, higher levels of employment, higher levels of business activity, and do so in a way that reassures Australians, Australian workers in particular, that this is not threatening their conditions".
President of ACTU, Dave Oliver.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Mr Turnbull told the ABC's 7.30 program his government's challenge was to move away from the ideological battle between businesses and unions that plagued debate in industrial relations and "not to wage war with unions or the workers that they seek to represent, but really to explain what the challenges are and then lay out some reform options".
Union and business representatives have viewed the comments and the appointment of new employment minister Senator Michaelia Cash as an opportunity to renew their respective suggestions for reform.
ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said: "We are pleased that Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged the bias of the Abbott government against union and workers."
Mr Oliver said unions wanted to constructively discuss the changing nature of the workplace with government, including the growth in technology and an increasingly globalised world, adding "not just how to drive people's pay packets and attack their workplace conditions". This was a swipe at the Coalition's failed bills and a draft recommendation of the Productivity Commission into the Workplace Relations Framework to reduce Sunday penalty rates for hospitality workers.
"Australia needs to keep up. We need to be innovative, offer opportunities and not only lift employment rates but also tackle the issue of underemployment which pushes many workers towards poverty."
Australian Industry Group Chief Executive, Innes Willox told the ABC that the workplace relations system had been inert for several years: "We now need to have a proper debate about tax reform for productivity … and competitiveness so that we can cope and prosper in the new economy."
The Productivity Commission and the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption will deliver their findings later this year.
Labor and the Greens called on the Turnbull government to abandon its unpopular workplace relations reforms a day after Senator Cash was sworn in.
The government has failed to secure support for its key workplace reforms, including bills to re-introduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission and to increase penalties for union misconduct to the same level as that of company directors. Former employment minister Eric Abetz had vowed to continue pursuing the changes, saying they would make union officials more accountable on corruption.
The Fair Work Amendment Act is still before the Senate. Crossbench senators proposed changes at the end of the last sitting period that, if accepted, would have scrapped six of the government's 10 proposed changes to workplace relations from the law.
A spokesman for Senator Cash, who was being briefed on her new portfolio on Tuesday, said: "Any decision of this nature is a matter for the cabinet."
Shadow industrial relations minister Brendan O'Connor said the bills were "unfair", "unworkable" and aimed to introduce a new commission with "excessive, undemocratic powers" and to punish unpaid union volunteers in the same away as directors earning more than $200,000 a year.
Greens workplace spokesman Adam Bandt said Mr Turnbull should reach a new agreement with stakeholders to show he was genuinely "backing an industrial relations agenda that is about outcomes, not ideology." The bills were former prime minister Tony Abbott's "last attacks" on workers' rights, he said.