WorkChoices will result in winners and losers

The additional pressure that is placed on Indigenous Australians, sole parents and people with disabilities to move to employment in the context of changes to Welfare to Work arrangements and CDEP changes will potentially affect their ability to bargain effectively and achieve fair conditions of employment. This is particularly the case in rural and remote areas, where there are limited job opportunities.

HREOC is also concerned about the impact on outworkers, especially with the removal of state based deeming provisions and the spread of AWAs. WorkChoices will enable a greater degree of trade-offs by individual workers than enterprise bargaining or awards have made possible. Many of these trade-offs will benefit employers and employees and may well increase the total amount of work available, especially at the low-skill, declining end of the labour market. But, depending on labour market conditions, it will leave some workers worse off in terms of either wages or conditions - and, as I say, that especially includes low-skilled people, mothers returning to the work force after considerable absences and single parents. It will certainly mean the end of employer funded paid maternity leave.

Provision of a greater number of minimum conditions is conducive to, and necessary for, family functioning such as: the right to request part-time work and have it reasonably considered, which is especially important for parents who wish to meet their family responsibilities; the right to have certainty of hours included in work contracts, which is especially important for mothers with child-care arrangements to meet; and the right to be paid overtime rates for working excess hours, which is especially important for fathers who work long hours at overtime rates not only to put food on the table but, as our consultations have established, to enable their wives and partners not to work - in effect, to enable them to be full-time parents.

Without penalty rates, there will be reduced discipline on employers to manage workloads. While low-paid workers will have less return on excess hours, they will need to work more hours to maintain the same standard of living and family arrangements. Protecting men from excess hours is critical for their access to family life, including post separation and divorce. If the WorkChoices bill does not regulate their hours, then the Child Support Act, the Family Court Act and, arguably, family taxation arrangements will also need to change to compensate men in particular for what could well be reduced access to family time. This, again, is a loss not only for men but also for women and particularly for their children.

These changes also require a greater role for government in protecting the living conditions of families, including the amount of time parents are able to spend with their children. Should there be no greater government commitment to families, then the existing social fabric of Australia, woven as it is from workplace protections as well as welfare arrangements and services, is inevitably compromised. A society is only as stable and strong as its most fragile.