Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. This is a chance for the government to acknowledge they have made a mistake with the code. This disallowance motion will help the government live up to their rhetoric of supporting Australian jobs and supporting the growth of good, secure, well-paying jobs in this country.

Labor stood firmly against the Liberal government's anti-worker ABCC legislation and the accompanying Building Code. This particular focus of the government and these new rules that they have brought in—or old rules that they have brought back—are part of a draconian regime that says that any company that wishes to express interest in tendering for Commonwealth building work must comply with the Building Code. It should also be noted that this will apply in August, so we are talking a couple of months away.

Two sections of the code go after and attack Australian jobs. They undermine Australian apprentices; they undermine Australian jobs. These are sections 11(3)(a) and 11(3)(c). They are the two parts that we seek in this place to disallow today. Section 11(3)(a) prohibits enterprise agreements from having clauses which:

(a) prescribe the number of employees or subcontractors that may be employed or engaged on a particular site, in a particular work area, or at a particular time …

So this is what is happening right now. This is a clause under which employees and employers sit down and agree how many subcontractors may or may not work on a site. This government wants to stop that conversation from happening. It wants to stop that from being in an agreement.

Section 11(3)(c) prohibits an agreement having ratios or clauses around apprenticeships and clauses about employees based upon when they are lawfully entitled to work in Australia. So, where we have agreements that talk about apprenticeships, limiting the use of 457 visas or limiting the use of subcontractors and therefore prioritising local Australians being directly employed for these jobs, this government now says, 'If that is in an agreement, that company can now not tender for federal government work.'

This particular part of the code, like the whole code, must apply by August—meaning, as we have seen in media reports, about 3,000 agreements need to be renegotiated by August if those companies want to tender for Commonwealth work. There are not enough days left to be able to do that and for the Fair Work Commission to be able to consider them. Even if the employees and employers could reach an agreement, there are not enough days between now and August for the Fair Work Commission to consider all of those agreements—3,000 of them. So the government have brought forward this code knowing full well it is impractical and impossible for that to occur.

Let's just talk about why. Why is it that the government are so fixated on these particular parts of the code? Why will they not stand with Labor? As the previous member has said, they are blinded by their pure hatred of unions. In their pure hatred of unions, they will actually damage things and will slow things down. They will create chaos in the construction industry.

We heard during the suspension motion the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection say that there are currently dozens of union officials that are facing charges for criminal offences. That is wrong. In this country if you enter a workplace as a union official and you have not given notification it is not a criminal offence. If two union officials have a cup of tea, it is not a criminal offence. Equally, it is not a criminal offence if an employer knowingly breaches occupational health and safety and it leads to a death in a workplace. In this country, industrial manslaughter is not a criminal offence. If there are employers in this country who knowingly ignore health and safety laws and that leads to the death of a worker, that is not a criminal offence. So let's be very careful with the language that we use in this place.

It is not a criminal offence in this country for a union official to enter a workplace. If you want to talk about scare campaigns, the government like to pretend this. They beat up on the unions. They beat up on the workers in the construction industry. Now they are beating up on the employers in that industry who have sat down and bargained in good faith an agreement that talks about Australian jobs. You would think that the government would welcome this. We are trying to correct a mistake that they have made. If they wanted to be true to their rhetoric and to stand up for Australian jobs, they would support this disallowance motion.

We do have a problem with temporary work visas in the construction industry. We do have a problem with international students and backpackers working in the construction industry. There has been a misuse of 457 visas in the construction industry. This government's own report by the Fair Work Ombudsman has told us that and exposed that one in five people here working on a 457 visa have been found to be underpaid or not employed in the job they were engaged for in the first place. This was under this government's watch. You would think that they would join with Labor and disallow these things that are in the code that will make it harder for workers and employers to restrict the use of labour hire of temporary workers here in this country, including backpackers in the construction industry. When you talk to a labourer or a construction worker, they are baffled by how we let backpackers work in the construction industry. How can they have the skills and the Australian standards to work in the construction industry? We know the tragic consequences of it. In Perth last year, there was the tragic death of a woman who fell. She was here as a backpacker. She fell down a lift shaft and was killed. In the very same city, Perth, a year before we also lost two Irish backpackers. They were supposed to be on the trip of a lifetime in this country. They were working on a construction site and were killed. It is not fair that we allow them to work in these workplaces. That is why we have seen employers and employees sit down with the union and negotiate agreements to say, 'We take responsibility for who works in our workplaces. We will ensure that it is locals for local jobs first.'

Why would a government not want to support Australian kids getting apprenticeships? It is as simple as that. Why would a government disallow apprenticeship ratios in collective agreements for employers and employees that are saying, 'We take responsibility for the next generation of tradespeople and we will mandate ratios for how many young people we will have on a site'? They are employers that are saying, 'We acknowledge there is an extra cost to investing in the next generation, but we will do it.' They are companies that will stand with the CFMEU and the workers and say, 'Together, we will invest in the next generation.' Why would a government want to stop that? When we have a youth unemployment crisis in this country and a loss of apprentices because we are seeing a downturn in the manufacturing industry, why would a government not support Australian kids getting apprenticeships in our construction industry? This government is so out of touch with what is happening in Australian workplaces and the construction industry. It should support Labor's proposal to disallow these parts of the code so we can put Australian jobs and Australians first, and so we can put our young people first to make sure that they get apprenticeships so that they, too, can have careers in construction. We should put unemployed local tradespeople first so that they can get work, because we have a downturn in our economy.

We should encourage, support and champion businesses that sit down with unions and negotiate these kinds of clauses in their agreements. They are showing the leadership that this government is failing to show. Instead of championing that, this government says, 'We want to make it illegal for you to do that.' It is putting a handbrake on our ability to employ locals and our ability to train the next generation. This government needs to support this if it is genuine about construction jobs. It also needs to support this to save itself.

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