Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I believe that the second reading of the Fair Work Amendment (Tackling Job Insecurity) Bill 2012 has been moved and seconded and is now for debate here. There is a significant problem in Australia when we have researchers working in scientific and health fields, teachers and staff who work in universities being unable to get a mortgage or plan their lives with sufficient certainty because they do not know from year to year, or in some cases from month to month, whether they are going to have a job. When we have a quarter of employees in this country who do not have any access to paid leave, it is clear that we have a problem. I have spoken to many teachers, who are responsible for educating our children, who have told me that they can find themselves nearing the end of the school year not knowing whether their contract is going to be renewed for the next year, despite the fact that the school needs teachers and always will.

Australia is a particularly bad offender when it comes to insecure work. We are second only to Spain in the OECD for the number of people in temporary forms of work. Of course, Spain has a very large rural workforce employed on short-term contracts. We can do something about it and we should do something about it, because the burden of risk that comes with globalisation and the changes in the workforce that we have seen over the last three decades primarily is falling on working Australians and their families. This is having huge consequences not only in terms of people being able to plan their lives but also in terms of their health.

This bill proposes a solution to fix one part of the problem. It is a multifaceted problem which will not be solved simply by one piece of legislation, but it does need legislation in order to be fixed. This bill is based on the path-breaking work of the inquiry into the nature and the extent of the problem of insecure work in Australia and some solutions conducted by a former Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe. One of the central elements of this bill is to give the Fair Work Commission the power to lay out pathways for people to transition from insecure work to ongoing employment arrangements. This bill also exempts small businesses from its operation. There are a number of reasons for that to do with the particular needs of small businesses, but one thing that is important to know is that it is in our high-employment sectors in government—in education in particular—that this problem finds itself most graphically expressed.

It happens with teachers, as I have referred to, but also amongst university staff. On one recent report, up to one-third of university staff, including lecturers and all the other staff there, find themselves in non-standard employment arrangements. Of course, there will always be universities; they will continue to be funded. There is absolutely no reason there should be such a high level of short-term work.

What this bill does is say, 'Well, in certain circumstances we will leave it up to the Fair Work Commission to decide whether it is appropriate that people should be on insecure work arrangements or not; if not, there will be a process for transition. We will also allow the Fair Work Commission to look at some of those other areas of non-standard work—for example, labour hire—and to say what is an appropriate use in this particular sector or in this particular industry.

This bill has been to an inquiry; we have received a number of submissions. I am very pleased that the ACTU supports it. I am very pleased that the union that represents staff who work in universities supports it. I guess the real question will be whether Labor supports it as well. We have an opportunity, before this parliament rises, to take some real action to fix the growing problem of insecure work. Brian Howe has laid out the road map and we should follow it.

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