Opposition leader Tony Abbott has vowed to remove the “unfair dismissal monkey” off the back of small business and reintroduce individual work contracts in a move that will put industrial relations firmly back on the election agenda.
But Federal Workplace Minister Julia Gillard and union officials have stepped up their attacks on Abbott, claiming that the Opposition is planning to bring back the Work Choices regime that cost the Howard Government the 2007 election.
Abbott’s bold IR announcements were contained in a speech to the Queensland Chamber of Commerce.
While he repeated his position that Work Choices is “dead” he has signalled that the Opposition will make unfair dismissal a key plank of its election platform ahead of a poll later this year.
“You know, at four elections running we had a mandate to take the unfair dismissal monkey off the back of small business and we will once more seek that mandate. At four elections running, we had a mandate to introduce statutory, non-union contracts and we will seek to renew that mandate.”
“Labor has interim transitional employment agreements; we will make them less interim. Labor has individual flexibility agreements; we will make them more flexible.”
Under the Howard Government’s IR regime, businesses with less than 100 staff were exempt from unfair dismissal laws.
The Rudd Government’s new IR laws mean only businesses with less than 15 staff are exempt, and businesses with less than 15 staff must follow a prescribed check list when dismissing a worker.
However, figures from Fair Work Australia suggest there has been a big jump in the number of unfair dismissal claims being lodged with Fair Work Australia.
Officials told Senate Estimates last week that 5,208 claims were lodged in the second half of 2009, after Labor’s new laws came in on July 1. There were 7,994 unfair dismissal claims lodged across the 12 months ended June 30, 2009, which suggests the claim rate is now much higher on an annual basis.
Opposition Small Business spokesman Bruce Billson told SmartCompany this morning more than 2,500 of these claims have been settled through conciliation, but he is concerned by anecdotal evidence that “go-away” money is returning to the IR landscape as part of these conciliation agreements.
Billson says the Opposition is still working through the details of its policy (that is, whether the exemption level will return to 100 staff or something below that) but says the Opposition will seek a mandate from voters to “lift the unfair dismissal monkey off the back of small business”.
“Tony Abbott has made it clear, and it’s my firm view, providing improved unfair dismissal relief for small business needs to be a part of the policy that we seek to get the approval of the Australian people.”
But while Abbott’s stance will be welcomed by many in the small business community, the timing of his remarks seemed to have robbed him of some political momentum by giving the Rudd Government and the union movement the chance to go on the attack.
Gillard told ABC Radio this morning that the Opposition was seeking to bring back the two most hated parts of Work Choices in unfair dismissal and individual contracts and says voters will not be fooled.
“Whatever he calls it, that’s Work Choices. The reality here is that if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it is a duck. If it’s got individual contracts and unfair dismissal it is Work Choices, whatever spin Mr Abbott might put on it.
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sharan Burrow, has signalled that the union movement will mobilise for another campaign to take on the Opposition on IR, similar to it’s highly successful Your Rights At Work campaign of 2007.
However, Billson says the Government should be prepared to “talk sensibly” about changes to its IR policy.
“We went too far in our last term of government and the electorate made that clear to us. Now the Government’s gone too far and it won’t even discuss that.
“You can hope for the small business community in particular to provide increasing employment opportunities as the economy recovers if they feel excessively constrained about how to deploy their workforce.”
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
