In the final days of the last sitting of Federal Parliament for 2020, the Morrison Coalition Government has revealed its intention to initiate a war not only on Australian workers but also our democracy.

Recently, the government revealed the details of its new industrial relations bill, described by the ACTU as ‘dangerous and seriously unbalanced’.

Essentially, the proposed legislation will:
• allow employers to cut wages and conditions and allow agreements go below the minimum award safety-net,

• remove rights from casuals, allowing employers to call workers ‘casuals’ and take away leave rights. Although it is claimed casual workers will be able to become ‘permanent’ after 12 months, they fail to give workers a way of enforcing this right,

• stripping blue collar workers on big project construction sites of any say whatsoever of their working conditions, creating a class of workers with less rights than everyone else – which what the big mining bosses want. This move will mean that FIFO workers will be the hardest hit.

Critics of the proposed laws believe that if adopted, they will seriously tip the balance in favour of big business.

ACTU secretary, Sally McManus has condemned the package. ‘We know workers sacrificed so much during this pandemic. We cannot allow a generation of workers to be punished with lower wages and worse conditions after carrying Australia through this crisis’, she said.

‘We’ve said all along that the union movement will not accept any proposed changed from the Government that will leave working people worse off’. 

‘But these proposed law changes show that the Morrison Government has sided with extreme business lobby groups to give them power to cut workers’ pay and remove hard fought for rights’, Sally claimed in an email to union members.

Federal Labor has indicated it will also fight the legislation and will refuse to support any provisions that allow a cut in pay and conditions for Australian workers.

In addition to the Coalitions attack on working people, they have also revealed their disdain for Australia’s already fragile democracy. Recently, the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters handed down its report on the 2019 Federal election. The review examined Clive Palmer’s unprecedented donation of $83 million to his own campaign, which included a huge advertising spend on misleading social media posts, far outstripping the expenditure of the major parties.

Despite this, the Committee made no recommendations to reduce the ‘distorting influence’ of massive political donations and unlimited election spending, and instead presented proposals which would in fact suppress voter rights and community participation, including:
• introducing voter ID laws, which would create a further barrier to voting by Australia’s most disenfranchised populations, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people;
• ending compulsory preferential voting, potentially creating a regressive ‘first past the post voting system’;
• prohibiting advocacy groups from handing out election information to voters at polling places; and
• creating unreasonable barriers to ‘issues-based’ advocacy in elections for some charities and not-for-profits, which would, in effect, place an unnecessary muzzle on some organisations.

If the proposals are passed by Federal Parliament, many fear it will have far reaching effects on Australia’s democracy. The Federal Labor Opposition has indicated it will fight the proposals and has expressed deep concern about their impact on the fairness of future elections.

More than 4 months ago, the Morrison Government received a report containing no recommendations, but which concluded that our retirement incomes system is in good shape.

The review concluded that “the system is effective, sound and its costs are broadly sustainable” and also validated the role of compulsory superannuation in helping millions of Australians enjoy better standards of living in their retirement.

Prime Minister Paul Keating promised a 12 per cent superannuation guarantee in the 1990s. Modelling indicated this would allow a comfortable retirement. However, subsequent Liberal prime ministers have backed away from this target rate. The first planned increase was delayed by John Howard and then Tony Abbott did the same thing. As a side note, both of these Liberal Prime Ministers justified delaying the increases so that wages could increase. However, Australian employees have never received the promised wage increases.

Before the 2019 election, Liberal Party Prime Minister Scott Morrison promised Australians that his government would increase the superannuation rate. However, the recent report appears to justify Australian workers’ fears that the Liberals will use it as a stalking horse for more cuts or delays to superannuation.

The Prime Minister should keep faith with the Australian people and now rule out cuts to the legislated increases in the superannuation guarantee.

The report’s conclusions about the wages-super trade-off just do not stand up to fair-dinkum scrutiny given wages were historically stagnant after the last time this Coalition Government froze the superannuation guarantee.

I stress again, every Liberal delay has been accompanied by the promise foregone increases in superannuation will be offset by wage rises. This has never happened.

The Retirement Income Review comes as the ACTU released new research finding that “the greatest cost” of a cut to the promised Superannuation Guarantee rise “will be a generation of Australians who will be forced to either work into their 70s in order to have sufficient savings in retirement, or live in poverty.”

The Liberals cannot be allowed to use this recession as an excuse for more cuts to retirement incomes.

All Australians need to know what they will lose if Scott Morrison backs away from his election commitment. Freezing the increases in the superannuation rate would strip the average family of up to $200,000 in super at retirement! Such amounts can provide a dignified retirement and improve the quality of life for so many.

Many Liberals are calling for this delay. They ask Australians to believe a vague promise that employers will convert the foregone superannuation to a boost in pay-packets. Does anyone believe this will work for the overwhelming majority of Australian workers? Twice bitten, thrice shy!

If the legislated rise in the superannuation guarantee does not go ahead, most will receive neither a nest-egg increase nor pay rise! An analysis of more than 8000 workplace agreements that were made following the last freeze in the super guarantee in 2013 found no evidence of compensating wage increases.

In these uncertain times, workers need the legislated increase in the Superannuation Guarantee to help rebuild their retirement balances and deserve a decent pension that allows older Australians to live with dignity.