Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to follow on from the member for Batman. Today I acknowledge her lifetime service and commitment to improving the lives of working people and acknowledge the commitment that she not only made as an union official but now makes in this parliament as well. I am honoured to follow her fine words.

It's been a long time coming, but finally before us today we have a piece of legislation from this government to provide better support and better protections for the workers of this country, the Corporations Amendment (Strengthening Protections for Employee Entitlements) Bill 2018. The workers who drive the economy, the workers who have been neglected and forgotten about by this government, are finally getting a bit of the attention that they deserve.

As the member for Fenner has detailed in his second reading amendment, under this government, wages are stagnant, underemployment is stubbornly high, worker exploitation is rife and work is increasingly precarious. All of this comes after the government has been pulling the levers of the economy for the past five years. There can be no excuses, no blame game and no finger-pointing to explain why workers in this country are getting a raw deal and are being ripped off by this government.

Members of the government will tell you that we have so-called turned the corner, but the truth is very different. Whilst the government will try to spin the data to make it suit them, the facts are vastly different. Wages growth remains at historical lows, coming off an all-time record low of just 1.9 per cent late last year, which has contributed to inequality being at a 75-year high. No wonder Australians are feeling like they've been left out and left behind by this Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government. While the demands of work increase along with huge increases in the costs of living, they are not seeing this reflected in their take-home pay.

This is not a government for working Australians; this is a government for the top end of town, which is out of touch with what the community expects. This was made very clear by the Reserve Bank last week, which noted that Australian employers are finding 'ways to avoid lifting wages for their staff', as reported by The Guardian on 16 October. Earlier this year, in February, the RBA governor said it would be a 'welcome development' if wages begin picking up substantially, because it would help to create a stronger sense of 'shared prosperity' amongst workers—not that this government would know anything about that. The RBA governor:

… told an economic forum in Sydney, in the context of Australia's workers enduring their longest period of declining living standards in more than 25 years—

and I will say that again for the members of the government in the chamber today: workers have endured 'their longest period of declining living standards in more than 25 years'—

that rising wages would be necessary to return inflation to normal levels, and to lift the economy out of its ultra-low interest-rate funk. He said households were worse off now than they were six years ago, and with large businesses enjoying record profits, workers would benefit from a lift in real wages.

It's not just wages growth that has become a major issue for Australian workers under this government. Local residents in my community are telling me more and more that underemployment is the new curse sweeping through our community. Six-month contracts here and there, a bit of part-time work and a bit of casual work is not what we would call sound job security, and this is only getting worse. In fact, underemployment has overtaken unemployment as the major concern when it comes to jobs. As data from the ABS shows, the gap has been widening for the past four years. This has particularly affected women and young people the most.

In the past 10 years alone, the underemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24 has almost doubled from 12.25 per cent to 22 per cent. Media reports also point to ABS data that has recently revealed that:

… that the average weekly hours worked by Australians is falling, down to 30.7 hours in the June quarter which was the lowest figure for eight years.

It also showed that more than 1.1 million Aussies were underemployed and the number of overtime hours we worked grew to hit 135,553 hours, the highest for four years.

It's clear that life for Australian workers under this government is not easy. We know that. When you go to the shopping centres and coffee shops and visit the clubs and pubs in my area, people will tell you the same story.

That's why, on this side of the House, we welcome the reforms put forward by the government today. They will start, in a modest way, to help to level the playing field. This bill, as we heard, will strengthen the Corporations Act to better deter and reduce the incidence of dodgy companies structuring their arrangements in a way that evades paying employee entitlements and deliberately shifts liability for unpaid employee entitlements to the Commonwealth via the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme. This is despite—and this is an important fact—the fact that only a few short years ago many of those opposite voted to support the government's legislation to cut the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme. You can see why many of my Labor colleagues and myself are sceptical about what the government says when it comes to authentically protecting workers' rights.

Nonetheless, this bill will amend the Corporations Act to make it easier to prove the criminal offence by entering into an arrangement to avoid paying employee entitlements by including recklessness as a mental element; significantly increase the maximum fine for the offence of entering into an arrangement to avoid paying employee entitlements; introduce a new civil penalty provision for avoiding paying employee entitlements with an objective reasonable person test; give the Fair Work Ombudsman, the ATO and the Department of Jobs and Small Business the standing to commence compensation proceedings to recoup monies paid out by the Fair Entitlements Guarantee and to extend liability for unpaid entitlements to related corporate entities; and extend ASIC's power to disqualify directors and other officers, either directly or application to the court, where they have a track record of corporate contraventions and inappropriately using the FEG scheme to pay outstanding employee entitlements.

All of this is very sensible. These are long overdue measures to improve conditions for Australian workers. But it's worth noting that the increase in the financial penalty for the criminal offence is significant. We agree that the substantial increases in penalties will reinforce the serious nature of this crimes and will also act as a substantial deterrent for persons who may otherwise seek to engage in these types of evasive behaviours. When thinking about this bill, one can't help but think of the former member for Fairfax, who still owes former Queensland Nickel workers superannuation entitlements along with life insurance, total and permanent disability payments and income protection payments. I will say it today: this is someone who is reported to be spending upwards of $1 million per month on an advertising campaign in an attempt to buy his way back into this House. All of this is going on while liquidators try to claw back the hundreds of millions of dollars that is owed to Queensland Nickel creditors, including almost $70 million under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee safety net, to cover workers' entitlements.

In 2012, Labor passed the Fair Entitlements Guarantee legislation, which delivered the strongest protections for workers' entitlements ever seen in this country. We legislated because Labor are the party of jobs and Labor are the party for workers. We established the FEG scheme because employees should not be punished through the loss of their legal entitlements—leave, superannuation and unpaid wages—when an employer's business fails. However, the annual cost under the FEG scheme has more than tripled, from $70.7 million in the four-year period between 1 July 2005 and 30 June 2009 to $235.3 million in the four-year period between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2018. According to the government, the startling fact behind these figures is that the increase in FEG claims can be attributed to a small number of corporations shifting liability. The FEG was always designed to be there as a safety net, as the guaranteed way that employees could be paid their entitlements in a timely manner and not wait for drawn-out processes before they received a cent. This is especially hurtful for workers who lose their entitlements where a company deliberately structures its arrangements to avoid paying them. Once again, I'm really proud that it's Labor, under the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, who is taking the lead on this activity, known as illegal phoenix activity.

On 24 May last year, the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations, the shadow Assistant Treasurer and the shadow minister for small business and financial services announced a suite of Labor policies to crack down on abuse by directors and the real problems associated with phoenixing in this country. While the government won't release the latest report on how much this illegal activity is costing the economy, estimates from 2012 put the number at approximately $3 billion per year. Under Labor's plan, announced by the member for Fenner last year, all company directors would be required to obtain a unique director ID number, with a 100-point identification check; penalties associated with phoenix activity would be increased; an objective test for transactions depriving employees of their entitlements would be introduced; the availability of compensation orders against accessories would be clarified; and there would be consultation on targeted integrity measures based on the recommendations of the Melbourne Law School and Monash Business School phoenix research team.

So, while these reforms we are debating today strengthen the legal regime to punish and deter dodgy employers and companies, they are only a start. Far too often in this political climate, the government continues, as we see every single day, to be divided and to be in chaos, always focused on themselves, not the Australian people, looking for the political fix to sort out their own internal issues and fighting amongst themselves. That is why I'm really proud to be a member of the opposition, who's leading the way on measures such as these and the economy as a whole.

Let's not forget just what this government has delivered. We know that the deficit has blown out to almost four times worse than forecast in the Liberal's first budget. Gross debt has crashed through to half a trillion dollars and is now sitting at $540.1 billion, and we know the debt has doubled since those opposite came to power. As I mentioned at the start, this comes at a time when wages are stagnant, underemployment is stubbornly high, worker exploitation is rife and, let's face it, work is increasingly insecure.

So, whilst we support the bills before the House today, there is much more work to be done, and it starts with standing up for workers' rights, like penalty rates. On this sides of the House, under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow minister for employment and workplace relations, who is at the table now, we are a united team who is so committed to ensuring that Australian workers get a fair go and that, if we are privileged to be elected, a future Shorten Labor government will, in our first 100 days, restore penalty rates and legislate so they can never be cut again.

I conclude on this remark: this is in stark contrast to the government led by the Prime Minister, where every single member—including the member for Corangamite, the member for Reid and the member for Berowra, who are all in this chamber—voted eight times to support cuts to penalty rates. I just want to finish on this matter. The day of reckoning is coming when those members of the chaotic, divisive Morrison government will face their communities at the election. Members of this side of the House will be joining forces with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and union members across this country to remind people that, when those members had the chance to stand up for penalty rates, when the member for Corangamite had the opportunity to stop the largest pay cut in Australia's history since World War II—

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