Parliament should give the green light to greenfields agreement reforms

The MCA urges the Australian Parliament to pass the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2021 in its current form.

The bill includes important reforms to greenfields agreements that will encourage job-creating investment by allowing agreements of up to eight years for projects worth $500 million or more, removing the uncertainty of having to renegotiate employment conditions mid-stream.

Extending the option of longer greenfields agreements to nationally significant projects with a capital value between $250 million and $500 million will help unlock additional investment and jobs.

Allowing greenfields agreements to cover the life of projects is a sensible reform that will stimulate new investment and jobs across Australia.

However, these reforms should not be undermined by amendments that introduce industrial uncertainty and limit their effectiveness in attracting investment.

In particular, expanding the existing minimum requirements for dispute settlement procedures to include compulsory arbitration would increase uncertainty for investors and override voluntary agreements with arbitrated outcomes.

Australia’s mining competitors in the United States and Canada already have access to enterprise agreements covering the life of a project.

This reform is good for projects that involve underground mining, minerals processing or more complex project plans, which may take more than four years to proceed from construction to execution to completion.

There are currently 108 minerals projects across Australia in the pre-feasibility or feasibility stage.

Together, these projects are worth $47 billion and entail approximately 30,000 construction jobs and 21,000 ongoing jobs.

The reforms contained in the bill are modest, simple and geared towards jobs and investment.

They should be passed without delay.

ends