Workplace relations looms as the key issue for this year’s federal election with the Prime Minister last week announcing a softening of the WorkChoices legislation and a Catholic justice forum being told the laws were “fundamentally inconsistent” with Catholic social teaching.
Prime Minister John Howard said the introduction of a “fairness test” would guarantee employees’ entitlements such as penalty rates and public holiday pay were not traded off without adequate compensation.
The test will protect workers who would otherwise have been entitled to award conditions and are paid less than $75,000 a year.
It will apply to all Australian Workplace Agreements lodged from May 7.
Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd dismissed the changes as a desperate pre-election measure.
The back down by the government comes in light of a Catholic Justice and Peace Commission forum earlier this month which heard from representatives of Church, government, business, unions and the community.
Author of an Australian Catholic Social Justice publication on the WorkChoices legislation and University of New England lecturer, Dr Tim Battin described the legislation as offering a “false choice”.
He said the legislation was inconsistent with Pope John Paul II’s landmark encyclical, Laborem Exercens in 1981 on the value and dignity of human work and he decried it as leading to a “brutopia”.
National Secretary of the Shop Distributive & Allied Employees Association Joe de Bruyn said WorkChoices provided employers with an “inherent ability” to disadvantage workers.
National Retail Association Executive director Patrick McKendry said the WorkChoices legislation was merely reflecting changes in society and people’s working arrangements.
