Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

This is an important matter. It's an important matter that should be debated in this place because, as we know, the government are not focused on the needs of the Australian people and they're not focused on Australian workers, and for that reason we've seen the lowest wage growth in at least 25 years.

What we've had over the last five years is a government that have shown no regard for this major problem. We've seen growing job insecurity, we've seen low wages and we've seen workers seeking to bargain but failing to get a decent outcome. Therefore, I think it's incumbent on the government to answer as to why they don't see this as a priority.

We've heard, throughout question time today and indeed during the procedural debate we just had about suspending standing orders, a government that's entirely focused on their self-interest—a government that is actually acting improperly. There are clearly serious allegations about impropriety involving senior ministers and members of parliament that form the government. That's their focus—whether they can get freebies or free travel and whether they can involve themselves in receiving benefits, at least with the perception that people are benefiting in terms of getting government contracts. These are the things that seem to be involving the government benches.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that Labor is focused on issues that matter to the Australian people and, in particular, working Australians. Firstly, we know that we need to see a response to the penalty rates decision by the Fair Work Commission. As we've said now for more than two years, that decision will be felt keenly and harshly amongst retail and hospitality workers—they'll see a real loss in their income. In fact, they've been seeing cuts to their income since 1 July 2017—a cut then, a cut last year and, if we don't see a change of government and a change of the effect of that decision, a further cut for 700,000 hardworking Australians on 1 July this year, because the cuts continue with respect to that decision.

Labor has made clear that, if elected, we will restore penalty rates as they were on 30 June 2017. That's the first thing we should do in a material way—restore penalty rates and provide support for hardworking retail and hospitality workers. That's the first thing we want to do, and we'll seek to do that. In fact, we call upon the government to look to do that, but we don't expect them to be too concerned about it.

We certainly also want to look at removing other forms of exploitation in the labour market. We've seen sham contracting grow as a form of exploitation and abuse in the labour market, where we have workers who are deemed not to be employees being paid sometimes one-third the minimum wage. We have people in the so-called 'gig economy'—really, it's conventional work sold on apps—who are actually being provided with $7 or $8 an hour. As I say, that's almost a third of the minimum wage, and it's going on and it's becoming a prevalent problem in sectors of our economy—something we will deal with by cracking down on sham contracting and ensuring that legitimate independent contracting is permissible but not this ability to avoid industrial obligations by paying people below the minimum wage. We'll attend to that.

We also want to stop the rorts that go on with respect to bargaining. People need to understand that it was indeed Labor that supported collective bargaining. But what's happened in the last 25 or so years is we've seen a decline in bargaining in workplaces. We have employers refusing to bargain effectively and in good faith with their workforce and their unions. What has happened over the last decade is a decline in enterprise bargaining and a greater reliance—in fact a 50 per cent increase in reliance—upon minimum awards. This is one of the reasons why we're seeing the lowest wage growth in a generation: because there are fewer decent outcomes for working people as a result of bargaining. Labor, if elected, will ensure that we have a fairer bargaining system, a system that will disallow employers from trying to unilaterally terminate enterprise agreements, which they've been doing increasingly in sectors of our economy. We will prohibit that behaviour. We will compel them to work with their workers and, indeed, unions, to bargain in good faith. And we will ensure that there'll be other changes to the current laws that will provide opportunities for these decent outcomes.

When you have wages that are flatlining but profits that are rising, when you see productivity in sectors of our economy improving but workers getting none of the fair share of that productivity, you know something is broken. But there is not one policy that this government's enacted that actually goes to whether workers deserve a fair share of that dividend. There's not one announcement by any minister—including, of course, the Prime Minister—to deal with stagnant wage growth, to deal with the fact that they're getting a lower proportion of GDP. The labour share of the GDP is falling. For that reason, we need to attend to that. As I say, through those reforms we'll look to do that.

In the MPI today, I indicated one of the reasons why they failed to do that is that the government are focused on their own interests. In particular, I refer to Senator Cash and other ministers who have failed to act responsibly in dealing with serious matters that are now before the courts.

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