The Coalition will not repeal Labor’s landmark “same job, same pay” reforms, with Peter Dutton staring down calls from mining companies to overturn the wage protections even as he conceded they meant “difficulties” for some firms.
Big mining companies have campaigned strongly against the Labor legislation, which had been passed as part of their “closing loopholes” industrial relations package and aimed to ensure labour hire workers were paid the same as regular employees.
A report released on Thursday, however, found the legislation had led to higher wages for retail workers, meat workers and miners.
The Coalition promised a review of Labor’s IR agenda if it won office, calling much of the changes “red tape”. But on Thursday Dutton ruled out repealing the reforms.
“We’re not going to,” he said while visiting a mining machinery workshop in Perth. “That’s our position. I understand the difficulty for some of the companies, who are facing already a fairly militant union sector and want reforms, but that’s our position.
“I think we’ve made that fairly clear, but we’ll have more to say in relation to ways in which we can boost economic activity over the course of this election campaign.”
The McKell Institute, a Labor-aligned thinktank, on Thursday released a report stating that in mining about 1,500 workers had seen pay rises “around $33,500 each, with some receiving up to $60,000”, and that another 4,300 workers could stand to benefit from industrial orders which were still under consideration.
“Our analysis finds that SJSP has the potential to contribute to an annual wage uplift of almost $920 million in a ‘middle of the road’ scenario,” the report said.
“It also calculates that the overall economic benefit associated with the forecast wage uplift could be as large as $2.556 billion, climbing year on year as SJSP continues to be implemented,” the report stated.
The workplace relations minister, Murray Watt, has just responded to news Peter Dutton has ruled out repealing “same job, same pay” laws.
The industrial relations minister, Murray Watt, referencing the report, said: “Closing this loophole has been an important plank in the Albanese Government’s changes to get wages moving again, but it is now at risk from Peter Dutton and the Coalition.”
Later, speaking to reporters after Anthony Albanese’s speech to the Mining and Energy Union conference, Watt said: “If you believe Peter Dutton on ‘same job, same pay’, I’ve got a mine shaft to sell you.
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“Peter Dutton and his colleagues voted against the ‘same job, same pay’ laws. They called it at the time un-Australian and dangerous, they said the laws would close down Australia.
“Does anyone really believe they are going to change position from that to all of a sudden start reporting it?”
Dutton was asked about the legislation several times on Thursday, in a visit to Perth where he made a $600m announcement to improve roads that were used heavily by the mining and agriculture industries.
In a second press conference, at a mining drilling factory, Dutton indicated the Coalition would not repeal the legislation – a position later confirmed by Coalition sources, who also noted that the opposition had never pledged to repeal it.
“We’ve said right from the start the big difference on industrial relations policy at the next election between us and the Labor party will be that we’re going to deregister the CFMEU. The CFMEU would be a disaster for the Pilbara. The CFMEU would be a disaster across every mining site,” Dutton continued.
“Look at what’s happening with construction on the east coast. At the moment, the CFMEU has the number of days worked on a job site down to 2.9 days now. That would kill off mining projects here in WA.”