Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I feel for the member for Bruce. He was hoping to get an answer, but, clearly, no-one on the government side wants to defend this dodgy piece of legislation. I rise to speak about the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2017 which was introduced to the House last week. You can just guarantee it: another day, another government bill designed to attack workers' pay and conditions. The government has, once again, managed to find another way to try and rob Australians of their rights in the workplace. This time, they're targeting workers' entitlement funds, funds which were set up, due to the countless complaints against phoenix companies, to provide better security to employees against loss of their entitlements.

In the manner that we've come to expect from this government, they're doing all they can to stop us from properly scrutinising this bill and from undertaking any real consultation with stakeholders. They want to rush this bill through the House faster than they can down a Cristal champagne or two by the harbour side. At the end of the day, it's just another measure to continue the government's absurd war against unions. It's clear that they simply don't understand the need for workers' rights, or the vital role that unions have played throughout the years. The minister is under some strange illusion that unions have become big businesses, focused on making profit instead of protecting the people they represent. It is an utter load of rubbish.

This kind of arrogance could only come from those opposite, who have never done a hard day's work in their lives. They've never been a worker, never understood a worker, and never, ever, stood up for a worker. Maybe if they left their marble offices and their big velvet chairs once in a while they would see that Australia is made up of hardworking people—people who will be gravely affected by the loss of penalty rates of up to $77 a week. Workers' entitlement funds are put in place to make sure that workers' entitlements are protected, that workers are adequately trained, that the proper funding of OH&S officers is guaranteed, and that employees can access fundamental services like counselling support and suicide prevention. I'd love to see those opposite own up to this disgrace of a bill and tell Australians what it really means. It means the government are backing away from what is right, once again showing they're putting dollars first, even when it means ripping off everyday Australians.

The absurdity doesn't end there. The government have told us that they've based this bill on 10 recommendations by the Heydon royal commission—the Heydon royal commission. It isn't that hard to see that the previous pieces of legislation based on this disgraced royal commission have been a flop, and they simply can't be trusted. Put simply, the disgraced royal commission was a political witch-hunt, using $100 million of taxpayer money that has delivered nothing better for workplaces. In what universe is it appropriate that their hand-picked royal commissioner attends a Liberal Party fundraiser in the middle of a commission to do the government's political bidding? What did the disgraced commissioner do when we raised this inappropriate behaviour? He investigated himself! He thought he'd go and talk to the tough cop on the beat! So he sat there and said, 'Commissioner, have you done the wrong thing?' 'No, Commissioner, I haven't done the wrong thing.' 'Are you sure?' 'Yes, I'm positive. I'm 100 per cent sure.' 'That's okay, then. All is good. All is forgiven. Let's move on.' You couldn't make up this stupidity.

Effectively, the government is trying to take away the independence of crucial unions and employers around Australia and put them under the umbrella of incompetent organisations like the IPA. You can be sure that all this does is replace real union advocacy with bureaucratic nonsense. The government want to stack these independent boards with Liberal Party stooges in an attempt to destroy fair working standards in this country. From a government that spruiks the need for less red tape, this measure is another broken promise as they push back efficiency to allow rolls and rolls of red tape to come in. The government claims these will be run by good people. Those are the minister's own words: 'good people'. Who exactly are they talking about? If we're talking about some of the government's good people, we're talking about Nigel Hadgkiss and Michael Lawler. What about Kathy Jackson or, of course, the Prime Minister's favourite, good old Godwin Grech? We know, when it comes to good character, the government has no credibility whatsoever.

We on this side see that workers' entitlement funds benefit workers. They are managed transparently and responsibly, and are spent for the genuine benefit of Australian workers. You only have to look at the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal to see how fast the government is to kick aside the matter of workers' rights. The Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was put in place to pay truck drivers a fair wage and to make sure, when they're out on the road, they can pay their bills and feed their families. But the second the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal attempted to bring in minimum wages in order to combat unsafe contracts—which are causing death and serious injuries on our roads, and in the trucking industry—the government went into an absolute frenzy: 'We can't have people being paid proper wages!'

More than 200 truck drivers die in Australia each and every year. The government took the easy way out. Instead of addressing these deaths and protecting Australians, it completely destroyed the RSRT, turning a blind eye to the unbelievable conditions and pressures that truck drivers are expected to work under. This government, time and time again, ignores the advice of experts. When the National Transport Commission demonstrated the clear link between safety outcomes and truck driver pay rates, the government feigned ignorance. By axing the RSRT, the government took away protections for whistleblowers in the industry who were concerned about the safety of their workplaces, and took away their right to take leave without losing contracts. It was and is an appalling, short-sighted move by the government—just a way for them to point at something tangible, to give them a win during their time in government.

We on this side of the House know better than to gamble with the lives of Australians. It's not a win when you make it easier for truckies to die on our roads while they're trying to make a living. It's not a win when, for political gain, you drive good men and women truck drivers to suicide. But just like the trucking industry, the construction industry has one of the highest levels of worker vulnerability. The construction industry relies on entitlement funds for payments regarding leave, termination of employment, contracts, awards or agreements provided for an employer to make to an employee.

Quite often the government will come in and want to attack the CFMEU. It's their plaything. I really think John Setka should be panicking about what the Prime Minister's up to. Is he looking over his fence day in day out? Why is he always on his back?

My son-in-law works in the construction industry, and I'm more than proud to stand with the CFMEU to know that they are going to, each and every day, make sure he can come home, make sure he has a safe workplace. Even today, we had a construction worker die on the job. And where was the government's empathy for the family or for the workers? It was nowhere to be seen. They just want to keep sprouting proven false allegations. And the disgusting work in question time today: fair dinkum; I don't know whether anyone had the misfortune of watching that. I remember the chief of the ADF saying, 'The standard you set is the standard you walk past.' Well, today we've seen the lowest standard of the most morally and ethically bankrupt and corrupt government in this nation's history. It was wrong. The CFMEU stands up each day and makes sure people have safe workplace practices. I like the idea of knowing that my six-month-old granddaughter is going to know that her dad's going to come home each day because the CFMEU is standing up to make sure that he's looked after—to make sure that he's paid and gets the entitlements that he's due, to make sure that he can come home safely and go to work again tomorrow. That's what it's about.

The government just want to kick the union as a plaything, but they've got no understanding, because of their arrogance and ignorance—just as they are ignorant and arrogant towards the 700,000 Australians who are going to be losing up to $77 a week. That's $77 a week that a family in Mernda could use to pack their kids' lunches. It's $77 a week that a young couple in Sunbury could set aside to pay their mortgage. And it's $77 a week that this government is taking out of the pockets of hardworking Australians. Why does the government think families shouldn't be able to sit around the table to share a meal and have some quality time? You see just how little they care when you look at their attacks on penalty rates. The fact is that penalty rates are in place because people working on weekends or working unsociable hours are missing out on what we value in Australia. My father was a printer at News Limited. It hurts me to say that he worked at News Limited! But he worked all his life. He missed out on birthdays, Christmases—you name it: everything—because he worked at night-time, just so he could have the rag out in the morning.

The McKell Institute report found that McEwen will be the second-worst impacted by penalty rate cuts in the whole of Australia. We're set to lose approximately $19 million a year out of the economy that this government is doing nothing about. I have heard countless stories from constituents who are affected by these penalty rate cuts. At our local Amcal Pharmacy in Craigieburn pharmacists are fighting for their fair share in wages. Amcal turned over a $50 million profit last year. And how did it repay its staff for their hard work? By cutting the pay of their workers, who already earned as little as $27 an hour, thanks to this government and to big businesses ripping off hardworking employees and making it harder for them to make ends meet. While our local pharmacists serve our community 24 hours a day, seven days a week, this government sits idly by while they lose out. The government is so completely out of touch that it thinks cutting penalty rates will improve job opportunities. The irony is that the government's own information shows that's factually untrue. The government fails to see outside the Sydney Harbour bubble. In the small towns in McEwen, where more businesses are being opened, that doesn't actually mean more jobs or a huge boost in trade. Cutting penalty rates means that people throughout Australia and in McEwen will have less money to spend, which means they won't be visiting those restaurants and shops. Small-town economies are bound to suffer, and that's just unacceptable. In electorates like McEwen, a high proportion of retail and hospitality workers earn less than their city counterparts already.

When regional workers are employed by firms that are not locally owned, the benefits leave our communities. The McKell Institute study shows that workers in 45 regional communities will lose $667 million per year from penalty rate cuts, and $289 million of that is expected to leave our regional electorates altogether—just to line the pockets of corporations in the city and, even worse, overseas. The research shows that more than 277,000 workers in regional communities will be hit by the cut to Sunday penalty rates. Most of the savings businesses owners stand to make will not feed back into local communities.

The government are trying to stop unions from being part of the Australian workforce. They are trying to stop unions from providing crucial services to workers. We simply will not stand for that. They've done it before and they're doing it again with this bill. They'll keep coming and coming. Australian families and Australian workers know that the Australian Labor Party is there to stand in the way of these right-wing ideologues that run this pathetic government. It's disgusting, it's unjust and it just goes to show that, when it comes to Australian workers, only the Labor Party can be trusted.

The Prime Minister presides over the worst wage stagnation in years, though he did pretty well giving himself a $16,000 tax cut on 1 July. He keeps that nice and quiet, doesn't he? This government wants to continue to undermine workers and the unions. It's all words and no action when it comes to the government's plans to address wage stagnation, underemployment, rising inequity and really anything else, for that matter. Under this government big business gets tax cuts while Aussie workers get wage cuts. Labor will not stop fighting for workers' rights and exposing the truth behind this government's flawed and convoluted plans to empty workers' pockets and make sure that big businesses are looked after. If this bill were a dog, you'd take it out the back and shoot it. Maybe that's what needs to be done now.

See this speech in context