Malinauskas backs ACTU’s industry-bargaining push

The SA Premier says he’s open to a union plan to overhaul how employee deals are made that’s already won federal government backing.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has flagged his support for controversial industry-wide bargaining laws, as he concedes the current system is failing workers.

On the sidelines of the Jobs and Skills summit in Canberra on Thursday, Mr Malinauskas said the state government was “open to the proposition” pitched by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and backed by the federal government.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke vowed to introduce legislation this year enabling multi-employer pay deals and simplifying the “better off overall” requirements for new workplace agreements.

Big businesses argue the proposed changes, allowing unions to strike blanket pay deals covering multiple employers in an industry, would lead to “crippling” industrial action.

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas. Picture: Martin Ollman

The ACTU argues such a system would help close the gender pay gap and boost overall wage growth, particularly in aged care and childcare.

“I think most people would acknowledge that the bargaining system in the nation at the moment isn’t delivering both better outcomes in terms of skills, but the real wage growth that is required,” Mr Malinauskas, former head of the “shoppies” union, told reporters at Parliament House on Thursday.

“The bargaining system is complex, particularly for small employers, and I think some of the suggestions that have been put on the table have been noteworthy.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox welcomed changes to the better-off-overall test but labelled multi-employer bargaining “risky”.

“There is real concern that such a proposal will risk exposing our community to crippling industrial action across crucial sectors of our economy – and nobody wants that,” Mr Willox said.

Mr Burke said the changes would make it easier for businesses to employ people and lead to “decent pay rises into the future”.

Australian Chamber of Commerce Industry boss Andrew McKellar said people in low-income jobs already had the ability to enter multi-employer agreements under a rarely used section of the Fair Work Act.

Mr Burke said the low-paid bargaining stream had “failed” and “that proof that it’s failed is how rarely it’s been used”.

It’s understood the federal government will support Mr Malinauskas’s push for a joint state-Commonwealth taskforce to accelerate training and recruitment in the defence industry to meet Australia’s ambitious shipbuilding strategy.

He told the summit “you could have knocked me over with a feather post our government’s election in March to find out that there is no national plan, no comprehensive effort to deal with the workforce requirements“ to build nuclear-powered submarines in Adelaide.