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

The people who run businesses and who work in the textile, clothing and footwear sectors of Australia are already under significant pressure. There is the most obvious source of pressure that comes from countries in our region, from China and Vietnam, for instance, where people will work on incredibly low wages without the kinds of protections that people here in Australia would take for granted, without the kinds of supports for them in their retirement, and without the kinds of health and safety laws that ensure they can go home safe at the end of the day. People in Australia are competing with those who will work without those protections and who are getting paid a lot less, and then having those clothes or footwear shipped into Australia. That is one set of pressures.

Secondly, tariffs in these sectors have been coming down for some time and are scheduled to fall further. Thirdly, you have a workforce in Australia who work in these sectors. They are predominantly women, many of whom do not have English as a first language, and they work making the clothes that sell on Bourke Street in Melbourne for $200 or $300 while they are making them in backyards in Richmond or Springvale for $3 or $4 an hour. These people may find it very, very difficult to go and find work elsewhere if not supported in times of need by the government. So all of these are pressures on the textile, clothing and footwear industries in this country.

There is nonetheless a market in Australia for domestically made textiles, clothing and footwear. Many people who make patterns or designs for particular kinds of clothes that sell in shops that you see in our capital cities and shopping centres have those patterns or designs made here. Sometimes even the clothes are made here, because a lot of especially the higher end makers know that they can exercise greater quality control and can have, perhaps, a much shorter turnaround time when they get those clothes made here in Australia.

There is also a growing market for clothes that are ethically produced. People want to know that the reason they are buying cheap clothes is not that someone working in a factory in Bangladesh where the roof may fall in at any moment is making them at near poverty level wages. There are people who increasingly will say, 'Provided that I can be assured that the clothes that I am buying are being made by people who are being properly looked after, who will end their working lives with superannuation and who will be looked after if they have an accident at work—provided all of that—I am happy to pay a premium for that, if I can be assured that they are being ethically made.'

Of course, there is also a strong market—especially if government gets behind it—for specialist clothes made here in Australia, like some uniforms or some equipment that people in some of our essential services might use. Governments around the country have enormous capacity to support those industries and those jobs here through their procurement policies.

So, yes, there are the global pressures that many have spoken about, but, yes, there is hope. But this government seems to be determined to do everything it possibly can to snuff out that hope and not to ensure that what could be a good, albeit small, important section of manufacturing in Australia survives. This government seems to be determined, in this instance for the sake of $25 million, to send a number of small businesses to the wall and to say to the people who work for them: 'We don't mind if you're someone in your 50s who has English as a second language; you're now on your own. Good luck going and finding a job.'

When one looks at this bill in the context of the other things the government is doing, one can see that this is a government that is actually out to attack small businesses in this sector and to attack the prospect of high-end advanced manufacturing in the textile, clothing and footwear areas in Australia. We have seen, first of all, the abolition of the Fair Work Principles that required the businesses tendering for government contracts to comply with the Fair Work Act. So, whereas previously the government in Australia said, 'When we're spending taxpayers' money, we'll make sure that we're spending it ethically,' now that does not have to happen. That does not have to happen anymore at all. So the government itself has delivered a body blow to ethical manufacturing in Australia.

It has compounded that by removing all the funding to Ethical Clothing Australia. Ethical Clothing Australia was a body that allowed consumers to make an informed choice. Otherwise, you turn up and you buy your clothes off the rack in a shopping centre or in a small designer store, and you do not know the process by which they have been made before they come to you. Ethical Clothing Australia was a way of saying, 'We'll put some integrity into the supply chain so that you can be assured that your clothes are being made ethically, and then it's up to you.' But even that step of allowing consumers to be informed was far too much for this Liberal government. It would much rather that we pull a veil over the conditions under which clothes are made or purchased in this country so that you just do not know whether it has been done by someone who will now get workers compensation or done by someone in a factory in Vietnam, China or Bangladesh.

We have seen the review of the Fair Work Amendment (Textile, Clothing and Footwear Industry) Act. These protections have been built up for many years to protect these people, predominantly women, who are working—often because they cannot find work elsewhere—as so-called independent contractors, getting a few dollars an hour without workers compensation, superannuation, holiday pay or sick pay. All of these protections that are there to ensure that we do not have Third World working conditions here in Australia are also on the chopping block from this government. Then we have seen the early termination of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Structural Adjustment Program and the access and advocacy project in 2013 to 2015.

As I have alluded to before, we are dealing here with a workforce of people who are skilled but who may find it incredibly difficult to move into other jobs. When you have an industry in transition, there are two things that are important to do. One is to help businesses continue, perhaps by reorienting or perhaps by innovating better, so that they can be an ongoing source of employment—and the government is attacking that. The second thing that you can do is say to the workers in those industries, 'You will have a much better chance of finding another job if you're retrained while you're in an existing job.' But this government is much more interested in throwing these people onto the scrap heap, onto Newstart, below the poverty level, rather than helping them to find, from their existing job, a new job to transition into.

This is going to be incredibly difficult for the women who are over 50 from Vietnamese or Chinese backgrounds, who may struggle with English, who have been potentially doing this all their lives and who are now going to be forced to go and find work elsewhere. I tell you what, Deputy Speaker: these are people who are not going to have massive superannuation payments. They probably have none at all because they have been forced to work as independent contractors for most of their lives. These are people who now this government is turning a blind eye to.

And then on top of that we have this bill, which, for the sake of a paltry $25 million, brings a program to an end a year early—a massive saving of $25 million to bring a program to an end a year early!—which is going to have a huge impact on businesses because the businesses who were on the receiving end of this money are businesses for whom this actually counts as quite a lot. We are not talking here about huge multinationals getting big grants. We are talking about small businesses trying to find a new niche for themselves in a sector that is under incredible pressure, now, for the sake of $25 million, being forced to reconsider whether they can continue at all.

It is a crime, because in large part the way that these payments were paid under this program required these businesses to invest up-front. So you have got a lot of businesses who said: 'We can see the writing on the wall. We can see we need to innovate. We can see we need to find niche markets. We will now invest in that innovation. We will invest in that research. We will think of ways of doing business doing differently so that we can stand on our own two feet when tariffs are removed and there are no more subsidies.' They are in the process of doing that, they have spent the money for it and this government comes along and says: 'Bad luck. We know that you thought you might get some return from the government and a bit of help to continue in a difficult environment, but we're going to take it away from you, all for the sake of $25 million and all so that we can end this program a year early.'

This government is quite happy to help out industries in other sectors. When it comes to mining, it is quite happy to say, 'We'll continue to give you $13 billion of subsidies.' It is quite happy to say, 'We'll take away a mining tax that's actually starting to raise some revenue.' It is quite happy to do that. When it comes to the banks, although the IMF has said that the big banks get somewhere between $2 billion and $3 billion worth of subsidies every year, the government is quite happy to say, 'We'll keep giving you those.' If you happen to be running a chocolate-manufacturing plant in Tasmania, the government is quite happy to give you a bit of money there as well. But it is not happy to do so if you are a small business that is trying to do the right thing and innovate and ensure that you have a future when there are no more tariffs, or if you are a worker in that sector who is thinking, 'How am I going to find a job, given that this is something I have done all my life and I can see the industry dwindling in front of me? I would much rather my employer was able to have a future.' For the sake of $25 million—not much more than it gave to Cadburys—this government is quite prepared to turn its back on those small businesses in textile, clothing and footwear in this country.

The government has made a mistake on this one. The Greens will not be supporting this bill. This will be one of the budget measures that is blocked in the Senate. I hope that the government takes that as a sign that perhaps there are better ways to look for budget savings than hitting small businesses who have done the right thing and who are potentially going to be out of pocket because they have already invested in innovation, in the hope of being able to continue in the future. This bill will be blocked in the Senate. The government has then got two choices. It can say: 'We'll admit that we did the wrong thing on that front. Actually we will support small businesses who are trying to do the right thing in the textile, clothing and footwear sector, and we will support workers. We'll just let this one go through to the keeper and chalk it up as experience.' This is what happens when ideological zealotry oversteps the mark and turns into an attack on small business, because that is what this bill is. Alternatively, the government can try and do deals after 1 July with whoever else might be there in the Senate, in an attempt to get this through.

You start to wonder what is going to happen after 1 July. What deals is the government going to do? Are we going to see four-wheel drives in national parks in return for cutting funding to small business? What other far-right so-called freedoms are the government going to give in return for cutting funding to some of the most poorly paid workers in this country, who need support? My fervent hope is that the government cops it on the chin when this bill is blocked in the Senate and just says: 'It's $25 million. In the context of the budget, that is not a lot of money and it is far better spent by those small businesses who are trying to do the right thing by their workers and by the country by carving out a niche in a very competitive industry, in a very competitive global environment.'

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