Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes—sorry. The member for Moore personally escorted business people to lobster businesses that pay his business a commission and he failed to disclose these on his register. He conceded he acted inappropriately, but he sits on the Privileges Committee. Is he a rule breaker or is he a rule maker? How can someone, with the oversight of the Privileges Committee, continue to behave like this? This is a symbol of the arrogant, out-of-touch activity we're seeing from the Liberal Party. It's an arrogant, out-of-touch party that voted eight times to not restore penalty rates for some 700,000 working Australians—a simple move that would have given some of society's lowest-paid workers just a little bit more in their pay packet each week and would have helped build an economy that would work for everyone.

I along with the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Burt and many of my Western Australian colleagues spent time with the workers of Alcoa last year during their 51-day strike—working Western Australians who were on strike simply to preserve their pay and their job security. Those 1,500 workers were also standing for fairer workplace laws—taking a stand to keep jobs here in Australia. But they shouldn't have to do that. Just as workers at Centrelink, delivering a public service to our community, shouldn't have to complain to the government—who they work for—that they can't continue to deliver the services people expect if it continues to outsource those jobs to people who are not given appropriate training. Many are not given the sort of job security that they deserve when they're delivering an important service to other Australians.

This government has funded some 2,750 private call centre jobs since 2017. Eight-five per cent of the staff working in Centrelink report that they are fixing issues resulting from poorly trained private call centre staff. That's not good enough. People delivering our social security safety net deserve fair working conditions and secure jobs and to be able to serve their fellow Australians appropriately. We need to build an economy that works for all Australians.

See this speech in context