Christian Porter set to give IR changes the boot

Christian Porter has conceded the government will make changes to the Coalition’s industrial relations bill.

Attorney-General Christian Porter. Picture: Gary Ramage

Christian Porter has conceded the government will make changes to the Coalition’s industrial relations bill, in a further signal that changes to the Fair Work Act’s “better off overall” test will be dumped in weeks.

With Labor and the Greens opposed, the Attorney-General is likely to require the support of at least three of the five crossbenchers when the government tries to get the bill passed by the Senate in mid-March.

One Nation has urged the government to dump the plan to give employers affected by COVID-19 more power to bypass the “better off overall” test, while casual employment changes have been identified as another area of concern by the crossbench.

Mr Porter said he believed there was a “pathway” for the bill through the Senate, and he was committed to its core features but “I’m sure that there will be some changes”.

He said the BOOT changes for COVID-hit employers were “one small part of the bill” but it had been raised by the crossbench and would feature in negotiations over coming weeks.

Asked if it was impossible to see the BOOT changes passed into law, he told Sky News: “Yeah, look, I mean, there’s — with the crossbench, there’s enormous enthusiasm for some parts of the bill, less for others.”

Mr Porter released costings from the Attorney-General’s Department in support of his claim that Labor’s portable leave proposal could translate into an annual cost of up to $20bn for employers.

But the $20bn figure is based on the cost of paying annual leave and sick leave to every one of Australia’s 2.3 million casual workers and one million independent contractors.

The costing assumes each one of the 3.3 million workers would be entitled to four weeks’ annual leave and two weeks’ personal/carers leave a year.

The estimate assumes 8.67 weeks of long service leave, as is the standard in NSW, and applies the leave to the 16,900 casual employees and 22000 independent contractors a year that reach approximately 10 continuous years of job tenure with the same employer

Anthony Albanese said the ­Coalition’s cost estimate was a “joke”, and the government “just makes up figures as if they get them out of a cereal box in the morning”. Under the policy, the ­Opposition Leader said a Labor government would consult with the states and territories, ­employers and unions “to develop, where it is practical, portable entitlements for annual leave, sick leave and long service leave for Australians in insecure work”. He also promised minimum pay and conditions for gig economy workers.

Labor’s industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the ALP had only said “we need to have a look at where (portable leave entitlements) might be able to be extended”.

“The cost at the moment is the cost of consultation,” he said.

Asked whether gig economy workers deserved a minimum wage, Mr Porter said: “These are very complicated questions which need consideration, economic modelling.”

“We need to understand what the costs would be to business, to the contractors, to the consumer, whether or not businesses would survive any increase in wages.

“But again, these are things that can be considered soberly and sensibly step by step with proper modelling,” he said.