Secure Jobs Bill passes Parliament

The Albanese Government’s Secure Jobs Bill passed Parliament on December 2, after the House of Representatives accepted the Senate’s amendments.

The Senate backed the amendments to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill that the Government negotiated with the Greens and ACT Independent Senator David Pocock. Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke told the House that the passage of the legislation would mean that small businesses without HR departments that had no chance of “ever getting a document that was simpler than the award” would be able to achieve that through the cooperative bargaining stream. Larger businesses that faced an unbelievably complex BOOT would now deal with a simplified process and “come back to the bargaining table again”.

Workers “trapped” on Work Choices era zombie agreements for nearly 20 years will “catch up with the rest of the Australian workforce”.

“For those who’ve been paid less than their co-workers, but weren’t able to find out because of pay secrecy clauses, the days of forced secrecy are over,” he said.

“And for the women workers of Australia, who’ve been held back with an unacceptable gender pay gap, held back because the objects of the Fair Work Act didn’t recognise the challenge that they faced, held back because the Fair Work Commission lacked the expertise that it needed to have, held back because there was a requirement every time a pay equity case was run to find a male comparator, today is the day that the parliament decided to close the gender pay gap.”

He continued that it was “for those households who have seen everything going up, except their wages, because for a decade, low wage growth was a deliberate design feature of the Australian Government”.

“Today is the day that the Parliament decided that that is no longer the policy of Australia and today is the day the parliament decided to get wages moving,” Burke told the House.

The Prime Minister concluded by saying Labor is proud that the legislation “will be carried today”, on the 50th anniversary of the election of the Whitlam Government.