Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take the brief opportunity available during the consideration of the Senate amendments that are before us to again place on the record, as I did in the debate on the Independent Contractors Bill 2006, my opposition to the measure. Indeed, I would have expressed my opposition to the Work Choices legislation if I had been given the chance to speak on it in the House.

My concern with what confronts us today is that, once again, we have 39 pages of amendments—this is all about making it simpler, I understand—to, in particular, the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Independent Contractors) Bill 2006. There are also some amendments before us that are not to do with independent contractors but which have been hitched onto the back of this little wagon so that they can go through in this process.

As is the case in the electorates of my colleagues who have already spoken, in Wollongong on Thursday of last week about 7,000 people gathered in opposition to the Work Choices legislation. The feedback that I got and the messages that were left for me from people who participated in that gathering indicate that people have severe concerns about the future of their families and, in particular, the children who are entering the workforce.

My son, who is now 22, had an ABN before he had the right to vote. Why was that? Because he was considered to be an independent contractor. What amazing skill or expertise was he offering to the workplace? He was delivering pizzas. The fact that this sort of contracting work has been expanded to include what should be employment is simply an effort to pass on to the employee the responsibilities that should belong, quite rightly, to the employer. I refer in particular to providing your own insurance, uniforms and so forth. Needless to say, I always leave an extra $2 tip whenever the pizza boys turn up at my house because I am so conscious that, because of the nature of their employment, most of them have to do a minimum of 20 deliveries in an evening before they even start to take home pay from the job.

This is a fundamentally flawed approach to employment and it is an even more problematic approach when you are applying it to young people who should enter a workforce that is supportive in providing them with the experience and skills that will enable them to become effective in the workplace. So I again place on record not only my opposition to a number of the amendments to the Independent Contractors Bill—although we do agree with those dealing with outworkers—but also my opposition to the Work Choices amendments.

I take the opportunity to acknowledge the far more technical address on the Independent Contractors Bill by the member for Werriwa. He is quite an expert in this field and I will not go over the points that he has already made. I also acknowledge the contribution by my colleague the member for Adelaide on the particular issues to do with redundancy. Indeed, she has a very real example of that in her electorate, which we are all watching very carefully.

As she rightly pointed out, the problem with these amendments, and what is of particular concern to me, is that they rely on the employer advising the employee. They also rely on the incoming employer body or company that has bought the organisation advising them that the redundancy entitlement exists. Why is that important? Because subsequent to the change they can be offered an AWA that gets rid of their redundancy entitlement. I think there is something fundamentally unfair in this regard. Given that it is the role of government to ensure that people have a fair chance in the workplace and in the community in general, there is something fundamentally unfair about saying that you can lose something without even being informed of the fact that you had it in the first place. If new employees going through a change of company ownership are to be told, ‘You’ve got to face up to an AWA; these will be the new employment conditions,’ with all the stress that that involves, and then to not even know that they had that redundancy entitlement, I think that is flawed, and I think it will leave people in a very unhappy situation.

I have had in my office—indeed, it would have occurred in the offices of members of the government—someone turn up and say, ‘I’ve been done out of $85,000; the amendments didn’t fix it and I’m still done out of $85,000.’ That will provide no joy at all. The government has again attempted to rush in a few amendments, but fundamentally the principles behind the legislation are flawed and unsustainable, and the whole thing should be thrown out. (Time expired)

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