Tony Burke stares down business threats over IR

Business lobby presses to have multi-employer bargaining provisions split off and delayed.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke is staring down employer threats of a multimillion-dollar campaign against Labor’s industrial relations Bill, as the small and medium-sized business lobby presses to have multi-employer bargaining provisions delayed.

Mr Burke hit out at Australian Resources and ­Energy Employer Association chief executive Steve Knott after he said employers would run a campaign similar to the $20m campaign against the mining tax, “but on steroids” unless Labor made significant changes to the Bill.

While Mr Knott said there was “white-hot anger” among mining, oil, and gas companies about the changes, Mr Burke said the AREEA “claims to represent the mining industry, but they don‘t even have BHP as a member”.

“If Mr Knott wants to spend $20m of his members’ money on a campaign to stop wages moving, that’s on him.

“If they think that a $20m advertising campaign is going to stop this government from trying to get wages moving, they have no understanding of the pressures that are happening around every kitchen table in the country right now,” Mr Burke said.

“We’re having very constructive conversations behind the scenes with most employer groups and I’m really optimistic about being able to resolve some of the issues that they’ve put forward,” he said. The changes were “aimed principally at industries like childcare and aged care, often with majority women in the workforce. They’re not militant workplaces, they’re workplaces that would benefit from multi-employer bargaining and they’re the ones we’re really targeting here.”

Mr Knott said the AREEA board had representatives from Woodside Energy Limited, Fortescue Metals Group, Newcrest Mining, Gold Fields, ExxonMobil and major global support services groups Compass and Sodexo.

“I am in regular contact with the nation’s recognised IR specialist employer groups,” he said.

“Not a single one of them feel that the government has consulted appropriately over these drastic and unexpected changes to our workplace laws.”

Mr Knott said the industry’s preference was for the government to “carve our well paid sector from multi-employer bargaining”.

“If the government chooses not to do so, our membership will activate a well-funded anti-IR Bill campaign,” he said.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said there were many elements of the Bill that business did not oppose, but would like to split off some areas where concerns were held, including multi-employer bargaining.

Mr McKellar, who met with Mr Burke on Tuesday, said employers were concerned about unintended consequences. “We really don‘t know how this is going to work,” he told ABC television.

Independent MP for Wentworth Allegra Spender said that it was irresponsible for the government to push through such a complex Bill before Christmas, especially given the concerns about the multi-employer bargaining provisions.