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

If you've ever been robbed—had your house broken into; had your car window smashed—you know that it doesn't leave you feeling very good. You feel ashamed and anxious and like something is just out of your control. You feel violated. It's very similar for victims of wage theft: shame, anxiety, anger and feelings of violation. I know—I remember when my parents' house was broken into. I was staying with them at the time because they'd been kind enough to host my 29th birthday. We'd had a great party, and we woke up the next morning to find that MacBooks, iPhones and wallets had all disappeared.

Stealing something, we all know in this place, is wrong. Stealing someone's wages—something they have, in fact, worked for in your own business—is particularly wrong. The cases of companies ripping off workers through wage theft should be outraging us and should be a far higher order of priority for this government in the industrial relations legislative agenda than the bill that is currently before us.

Michael Hill is believed and estimated to have ripped off workers by some $25 million. The work practices of 7-Eleven and their franchisors are described as 'slavery-like' conditions by some of their workers. They have a system where new franchisors are trained up by existing owners on how to undermine the wage system and existing laws that govern that business. It's estimated that some 140 7-Eleven stores in Australia would be in the red if it weren't for historical underpayments. These are things I would like to see this parliament address. Instead, we're talking about this legislation. We have seen, in more recent times, the story of a celebrity chef—I wouldn't call him a businessperson; he's a celebrity chef—running a business based off the back of underpaying his workers. When so many workers are getting a raw deal, something is wrong. This is industrial-scale wage theft, and the government is, instead, going the organisations which stand up for the underpaid.

My electorate of Perth is home to many proud unions and a very proud union history. It was the home of the protests against what was known as the third-wave industrial legislation, brought in by the state Liberal government in the 1990s. Many in this place would know that that was then used as the model for what became the Work Choices legislation in 2005. Perth is the home of Solidarity Park, a monument to the struggle of working people in Western Australia who dared to stand up for fair pay and fair conditions. It's also the home, I should note, of many employer associations, including the Australian Hotels Association, who do much to train up new workers. It's also the home of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, who I met with recently along with the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Anthony Albanese. It's important that we recognise that we should look for the things that can unite us in the debates around industrial matters rather than doing what the government is unfortunately doing, which is looking for the things that divide us.

Sadly, the electorate of Perth has also been the site of some terrible industrial accidents—industrial accidents that unions act day in, day out to prevent from occurring. There is something my colleague the member for Cowan often says, and it's a saying that has stuck with me. She's got two young adult boys now; I've got one young boy. She says, 'If my sons were on a worksite, of course I'd want the CFMEU there to look after their pay, their conditions and, most importantly, their workplace safety.' The case of Marianka Heumann is known to many. She was a 27-year-old backpacker who fell 35 metres to her death in the heart of the Perth CBD. That worksite was a worksite that the CFMEU had trouble accessing and, in the weeks after that horrible accident, again had trouble accessing just to make sure that the workers who were still there in a very horrible time were able to work safely as investigations continued.

This debate is also about the value of collective action, and this is not just a principle that applies to unions. The National Farmers' Federation believes in collective action. The Liberal Party itself, even though it might not like to admit it, is founded on the principle of collective action: people collect together, they form a political party and off they go. But the best defence of collective action is that, as Bandit says to his daughters, Bingo and Bluey, in that great ABC television show familiar to many of us, 'You do not climb Mount Mum and Dad trying to race ahead on your own or by competing with your comrades; you do it slowly and carefully by unselfish teamwork.' That principle is at the heart of unions: making sure that collectively you do something more than you can achieve on your own. They're membership-based organisations formed by working Australians and run by working Australians—ambos, cleaners and people in the textile industry, as we just heard. They are part of our Australian story. Of course, they must be democratic, but some of the regulations placed on unions require them to be far more democratic than even the political parties registered with the Australian Electoral Commission. Indeed, a union, I would be very comfortable saying in this place, is more democratic than the LNP or any of its branches.

This bill does nothing for working Australians. It does nothing to deal with wage theft. It does nothing to address stagnant wages. It does nothing to address worker exploitation. What it does do is put more regulation on the directors of the NUW than it does on the NAB. It puts more regulation on the SDA Western Australia than it does on the Liberal Party of Western Australia. It makes it harder to build a union, harder to stay in a union and therefore easier to exploit workers.

I think we all know that, if similar legislation had been suggested for businesses, it would be ridiculed. Indeed, the halls would be full of businesses pointing out just how unworkable such legislation is. We don't have laws in front of us trying to shut down multinational pizza chains, but we do have laws in front of us trying to make it harder for unions to put themselves together and join as larger unions by amalgamating.

I've proudly been a delegate of the SDA and the Community and Public Sector Union. I was with the SDA in my time working at Bicton McDonald's, which I think is in the member for Tangney's electorate. It's a great McDonald's, and I was very proud to not just make a burger or two there but also help my fellow workers in some industrial matters, often at their first job. I think it's important that people who start their working lives are able to have the benefit of a union at that first job. I might leave my comments there.

Debate interrupted.

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