Farmers Need Benefits of Change

Farmers need benefits of change

Opinion Editorial in The Courier-Mail

Published: 18September 2007

by

David Crombie

President

National Farmers’ Federation

MUCH has been mused about workplace relations, the big business television advertising campaign to help sell the changes, the union campaign against them, and why one of Australia’s leading proponents for IR reform – the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) – has not signed up.

The NFF has long championed workplace reform in Australia and been at the forefront of key industrial campaigns, including Mudgenberri, Wide Combs and the Waterfront... and 2007 is no exception.

Improved flexibility in the workplace today – especially in small business – allows employers and employees to reach amicable arrangements to mutual benefit, without undue third-partyintervention.

Workplace reform has been a boost to Australia’s largest employers, small business. Farmers employ over 330,000 people direct on-farm, with one-in-six of all Australian jobs hinging on the farm sector throughout the supply chain, including processing, transport, wholes and retail.

It’s also been good for people wanting jobs and new career opportunities. It’s been good for the economy. No-one wants a return to the days of workplace warfare and industrial strife.

But with 99% of farms being family-operated small businesses, two-thirds of them are effectively shut out from the real benefits of the Australian Government’s latest reforms – workplace agreements and the small business exemption from unfair dismissal.

Only those farm businesses that are incorporated, along with farms in Victoria (the State Government referred its industrial powers to the Commonwealth in 1996), the NT and ACT, directly benefit from the changes.

That leaves 70% of farmers stranded in federal Transitional Awards – unable to access all the reform benefits – or trapped in out-dated State industrial systems.

Despite urging State Governments to follow Victoria’s lead and refer industrial powers to form one truly national system, the states have been recalcitrant and have dogmatically clung to their antiquated industrial systems... and damned the consequences.

They have been bloody-minded in scuttling progress, content to sacrifice economic prosperity – for all Australians – at the altar of trade unionism.

Even so, with so few farmers able to access the new workplace relations system, it’s hardly surprising the NFF has not committed farmers’ money to a blanket advertising campaign to sell its virtues.

Meanwhile, Labor’s alternative is no alternative at all.

Despite their industrial relations policy (mark II) committing a Labor Government to retaining the existing right of entry laws, the secondary boycott provisions and restrictions on industrial action – all important components of the current system – we remain unconvinced.

While the rhetoric was heartening, the ACTU’s response that Labor’s policy is “an important step” was equally alarming. A Labor Government would need to wind-back the current system further to appease the unions.

Could, or would, a Labor Government resist such pressure?History suggests not.

Moreover, the unions’ subdued – verging on mock – protest raises the spectre of post-election deals, should Labor win... a “we’ll fix it later” nod-and-wink.

Australia’s record low unemployment (4.3%), our ability to maintain relatively stable interest rates and for our economy to remain largely insulated from international shockwaves, are not accidents.

It took a long time, and considerable commitment, for Australia to finally cast off the shackles of its old centralised, adversarial industrial relations system.

Farmers, as major small business employers, know only too well the consequences should the unions seize back control of Australian workplaces.

Trench warfare will, again, be the norm, the economy will falter as productivity grinds to a halt and unemployment queues lengthen as employers can no longer sustain their workforces.

Forget interest rates... how does not having a job affect your capacity to pay the mortgage?

So, what do farmers want by way of workplace reform in Australia?

State Governments must refer industrial powers to the Commonwealth to ensure that all businesses, regardless of their legal status, gain access to nationally-consistent workplace arrangements.

Farmers and their employees want and need flexibility. This is a reflection of the chronic labour shortage in regional Australia and the nature of the work on-farm. More often than not, farmers pay well over Award wages at harvest, and at other time-critical, periods.

The NFF strongly supports individual and collective workplace agreements that limit the intervention of unions to that requested by employees.

We support the small business exemption to unfair dismissal laws – which balance the needs of workers in securing gainful employment and the needs of employers in growing their businesses.

We vehemently oppose Labor’s bid to scrap the exemptions.

Workplace reform remains the last bastion of economic reform in this country. The long-term benefits will be in the national interest and will enable employers and employees, alike, to have greater individual say over their working lives.

The NFF has been, and remains, effective across the political spectrum because our policy support is not simply doled out as a matter of political expediency.It has to been earned.

[ENDS]

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