Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I support the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017, which contains some elements aimed at protecting vulnerable workers but in reality does not go anywhere near far enough to truly make a difference to those workers who have been systematically targeted by big businesses to save a buck, in particular in wages expenses, by underpaying them, by forcing them to pay back money after they have been paid, by doctoring employment records and by committing what in reality should be crimes in this country regarding the underpayment of workers.

I suspect that the government's heart is not really in this particular type of legislation. It is the antithesis of what they believe in. They believe in free markets and in employers being able to employ people at will and do whatever they like in terms of the amount of money that they pay them. It is all because of some horrific cases of exploitation and underpayment of workers and manipulation of the nation's immigration and visa system that the government have been dragged kicking and screaming to the parliament, albeit at a delayed rate, to make these reforms. We have seen the horror of businesses such as 7-Eleven and Domino's being caught out actively disadvantaging their workers. 7-Eleven not only systematically underpaid migrant workers, failing to pay their employees at a lawful rate, but also coerced them into paying back money—actively forcing people to go to the ATM, withdraw money and pay it back to them—in cash once they had been paid those wages. Some of them were even underpaid those wages.

A strong, unending desire to help these workers and ensure that their exploitation does not happen again is encoded in Labor's philosophy but also in the policies that we released in the lead-up to the last election. That is why we support this bill. But we also say that it simply does not go far enough. I will go through some of the elements of the bill. I will point out their deficiencies, and I will also outline what Labor would do to make issues such as this end in Australia and also ensure that we have effective laws that protect workers from exploitation.

This Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017 does amend the Fair Work Act by introducing a higher scale of penalties for serious contraventions of prescribed workplace laws. It does increase penalties for failure to keep proper records. It makes franchisors and holding companies responsible for underpayments of their franchisees. It expressly prohibits employers from unreasonably requiring their employees to pay a portion of their wages back in cash. It strengthens the evidence-gathering powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman to ensure that the exploitation of vulnerable workers can be effectively investigated.

Unfortunately, this bill, the scandal that has preceded it and the significant period of inactivity from the government on these important issues are symptomatic of its disregard for vulnerable workers and citizens, who have continued to be ripped off by corporate interests and the big end of town. The previous speaker, the member for Canberra, rightly pointed out that these sorts of things should not happen in modern-day Australia. With effective computer systems, pay systems, the availability of awards online and an enterprise bargaining system, these sorts of scandals and rip-offs should no longer occur in Australia. Where they do, and where there is active knowledge by directors of companies, they should be crimes. There should be serious ramifications for those who are involved in, or know about, the commission of these crimes. Unfortunately, we do not have that level of commitment from this government to tackling these issues and to making them crimes in Australia to ensure that there is effective deterrence for people who are seeking to undertake these sorts of crimes—in my view—against workers in Australia.

This bill falls significantly short of what Labor would do in terms of a suite of policies and legislative reforms to tackle these issues. We announced these reforms some 12 months ago, well before this Turnbull government even turned its mind to protecting workers, so caught up has it been in the ideological crusade against workers and their unions. We have seen that through the royal commission that the government instituted and through endless calls for the reduction of penalty rates and cutbacks in Fair Work protection by those opposite, who fundamentally do not believe in regulation to protect workers and would like to see a freer market for labour in this country.

The measures in this bill simply do not address the breadth of worker exploitation that we have seen run rampant under this Liberal government. The bill does nothing in relation to a range of policies which Labor took to the last election and which are directed towards things like combating sham contracting. Sham contractors are people that set up arrangements to avoid paying proper penalty rates and proper rates of pay when they contract to a major company to do work.

Labor has a policy on the licensing labour hire companies. We have seen many cases of labour hire companies ripping off workers and seeking to undermine award wages and conditions. I was recently in Gladstone with Senator Chisholm conducting a jobs forum in that town, which, of course, has faced a downturn in the wake of the construction phase of the LNG plants at Curtis Island ending and the plants moving into a production phase. There has been a massive downturn in work there. We talked to workers. We went to the local bowling club and we had a great forum talking to local workers about issues. One of the major issues that is coming up is the use of labour hire by local firms in the area that are seeking to drive down costs by reducing wages and penalty rates for workers and, unfortunately, seeking to skimp on occupational health and safety protections. By licensing these labour hire companies and by holding them to a set of regulations which ensure fair treatment of workers, we can keep an eye on these things. That is not part of this bill, but it should be.

Labor also has a policy on shutting down the practices of companies phoenixing to avoid wage liabilities. This really gets up my nose and it happens a lot in the construction industry. A company might build a particular job, underpay their workers and then move on. They move on, and when the group of workers seeks to be back paid or seeks to launch legal action against the company that has underpaid them, what do you know? The company is sent into liquidation and it is wound up. The operators of this company a few months later then set up a new company. Because you cannot pierce the corporate veil under Australian corporate law they just move on and they get away with essentially what is a crime in this country of underpaying a group of workers. They are knowingly avoiding paying the right rates of pay and then moving on because they can use Australia's corporate laws to do that. Labor will not allow that to happen if we are elected. We will introduce practices that crack down on phoenixing to avoid wage liabilities.

We will also reform the Fair Work Act to strengthen protections for workers. We will criminalise employer conduct that involves the use of coercion or threats during the commission of serious contraventions of the Fair Work Act in relation to temporary overseas workers whilst making it easier for workers to recover unpaid wages from employers and directors of responsible companies.

The other serious shortfall of the government's bill which really highlights their approach to workers across the nation is their refusal to protect penalty rates for vulnerable workers. Labor, of course, is fighting the Fair Work Commission's recent decision on penalty rates which undercuts the accepted penalty rates that have held in this country for many years. We have had close to a century of paying people fairly for working on weekends. The cuts to penalty rates will see up to 700,000 Australians lose up to $77 a week. Without the Prime Minister coming to his senses and supporting Labor in reversing these cuts, the wages of some of the lowest-paid workers will be hit. This failure goes directly to the government's wrong priorities.

In previous careers I have represented low-paid workers in disputes before industrial tribunals. I have represented low-paid workers in annual wage cases before the New South Wales Industrial Relations Commission. There are characteristics that develop of low-paid workers—unfortunately, typically they are women. They tend to be working casual or part-time occupations and are looking for more hours each week. They are underemployed, generally. They struggle from week to week. If the car breaks down they struggle to find the money to fix it. They very rarely have holidays. They are very rarely able to afford a night out. An $80-a-week hit to their income is a big impost on their quality of life and their ability to participate in our community. That is why Labor is opposed to this penalty rate cut. That is why it is outrageous that we have got deafening silence from the Turnbull government, with Prime Minister Turnbull actively opposed to supporting Labor's plan to ensure that the take-home pay of these workers is not cut by this decision.

Labor will continue to support the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017 and push it through this House of Representatives. It would stop those cuts to penalty rates because we believe in a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.

A few additional issues Labor has with this bill include provisions which give the Fair Work Ombudsman the power to compel people to answer questions and do not contain procedural protections which might have been expected to have been included in such a regime. It is no small thing to give a government agency the power to compel citizens to answer questions, removing the right to silence, and we must be vigilant to ensure that these powers are proportionate and appropriate safeguards to the exercises that are in place.

The bill makes franchisors and holding companies responsible for underpayments by their franchisees or subsidiaries where they knew or would reasonably have known the contraventions and failed to take responsible steps to prevent them. Labor's position on this issue at the last election was that the onus of proof should in fact be reversed so that accessories to contraventions of workplace laws such as franchisors are required to establish that they did not know or could not reasonably have known about the contravention. There is a subtle difference between what is proposed here and Labor's planned approach to this, which is a much stronger provision and lays the responsibility with those who are accused of these contraventions. It is up to them to demonstrate that they did not know what was going on or that they should not reasonably have known. Again, it is representative of this government's lax approach when it comes to putting in place proper regulation to protect workers.

They are skimping on this bill. There is the failure to protect penalty rates for Australian workers. These demonstrate that, as I said earlier, when it comes to protecting workers, this government's heart really is not in it and it is only because of the horror and outrage in the community regarding what has happened at 7-Eleven, Domino's and other big employers in this country that the government has been dragged kicking and screaming into this parliament to make this reform. This bill is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough. If the government were serious, they would take a good look at Labor's plans on this issue and implement them.

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