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

by leave—I rise to make a brief statement regarding the report on the Fair Work Amendment (Tackling Job Insecurity) Bill, which was a bill I introduced. I thank the Education and Employment Committee for conducting public hearings into the bill and for its consideration of the bill. The motivation for the introduction of the bill was borne out by the evidence given to the committee during the hearings. We have a growing problem in this country when one in four people do not have any paid leave. That is having an increasing impact on people and their livelihoods and on those who are close to them. During the hearing it was confirmed that Australia is one of the worst offenders in this respect and that we are second only to Spain in the OECD in the number of people we have on temporary work—and Spain, of course, has a huge rural workforce.

The committee heard that this problem is particularly acute in the education sector. The bill, as the committee notes, provided exemptions for small business. The committee also noted that on many occasions casual and contract employment is completely legitimate, and it did not seek to regulate that. But what the committee heard was that in some industries, tertiary education and schools in particular, where there are no peaks and troughs of employment, where you always know you are going to need teachers and lecturers, nonetheless there was an extraordinarily high preponderance of casual employment. In the tertiary education sector, for example, where there is significant federal government regulation and significant federal government funding, the committee heard that, with about 200,000 employees in the sector, only 70,000 were on some kind of permanent arrangement—and by 'permanent' we do not necessarily mean tenure for life; we mean just that you have got an ongoing part-time or full-time role.

Of those 200,000 the committee heard that 45,000 are on fixed-term contracts and 70,000 are on some form of casual hourly-paid employment. The committee heard that this has enormous personal implication for people. The committee heard from one individual, Sharni Chan, who has been working as a researcher for 10 years as a casual. So since 2003 she has had no paid sick leave. This is someone who is a highly-qualified early-career academic. She says:

Being a casual is not something that gives me flexibility to balance work and family, rather I have had to make my whole life flexible in order to meet the demands of casual work, which can mean intermittent demand for your work.

She went on to say that it was having implications on her personal life. She said that her partner has been in casual work for the past eight years:

We've recently decided that despite the insecurity we would get married, but we cannot imagine how we could possibly have children or raise a family when we do not have work for a period of time. I am in my 30s so this is something that has been core in my decision to try to work my way out of the sector.

This bill was an attempt to strike the balance between the legitimate needs of employers—especially small businesses—to have casual and non-secure employment when it is needed, and the need to address the fact that we are affecting people's lives now. They do not know whether they are going to have a job from month to month or from year to year, especially when they are working in sectors where they are teaching our kids or lecturing our students. We have a problem.

This bill was an opportunity to address that problem. As is revealed in the dissenting report, it has widespread support from community organisations, welfare organisations and unions. I am very disappointed that in this parliament, when we could have had the opportunity to tackle this growing scourge, we have seen no legislative action and now have Labor and the coalition saying, 'Don't pass the bill!' It is very likely that this parliament will rise without having taking one single step to tackle the scourge of job insecurity.

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