Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Skills) Share this | Hansard source

Well, we have yet another Orwellian misnomer for a bill here today. The government are becoming experts at this. We had the repairing medevac bill, when it was clearly obvious to everybody that there was nothing wrong with that bill; it did not need repairing at all. We had the ensuring integrity bill, when it was doing no such thing, other than destroying workers' rights. I think the government should look to start ensuring their own integrity, perhaps the integrity of their own frontbenchers, or working on banks or on employers who are stealing wages. And now we have the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill. The government are the master of weasel words. The Attorney-General is attacking unions and employers for doing exactly what this misnomer purports to be saying. They are ensuring the proper use of workers' benefits. They are ensuring that workers get what is rightfully theirs when things go wrong, when the work stops, when their benefits are at risk. What is wrong with that? It makes perfect sense, particularly if you are worker in a precarious industry.

The Attorney-General likes to point in particular to a fund called Protect. It is a workers benefits fund for workers in construction and electrical services. If the government bothered to find out what it's like to work in construction and electrical services they would know that this environment is precarious. The contracts are short term; they are project based. The work is tenuous. It is dangerous work. Every time a worker in this industry goes onto a work site they are putting their health at risk and, in many instances, their lives at risk. It is a boom-and-bust industry. We know that. Businesses often, sadly, fail. We had the example in the last decade of the Hastie Group and PSG Elecraft—well-known cases of companies that saw large numbers of workers lose their jobs when they failed, when things went bad. This was because of poor corporate management. I think it is a stroke of genius that the industry has set up workplace benefit funds. They're a godsend for people who work in industries like construction and electrical services. They were a godsend for the workers who worked at Hastie Group and PSG Elecraft because, in both cases, the workers were able to access their hard-earned entitlements thanks to the workers benefit fund.

Workers in construction and the electrical trades often move between contractors, projects and worksites. It's a tough life. You're hoping that there will be another project or that this project will be stretched out just that bit longer. You're hoping that there will be another contract. You're hoping against hope that you can provide another pay packet for your family. In these industries, what workers benefit funds do is ensure that entitlements are actually carried over from job to job. These entitlements are protected in an independent scheme that moves with the worker. It moves with them from project to project, from contract to contract. These funds also, as extra protection, provide income protection insurance, and this is vital because of the nature of these industries. When a worker's project finishes, she or he loses any accrued sick leave, and they have to start all over again. Sadly, many workers in these industries end up working with no sick leave accrued at all. It can leave them in a terribly precarious situation should they fall ill.

It's like when I was a nurse working in the public sector. I could actually move my entitlements with me if I continued to work in the public sector, moving from public hospital to public hospital or to public healthcare providers. It was a godsend to me as a young nurse with a young family knowing that I had the security of bringing those entitlements with me. If I was a nurse in the private sector, it would not have happened. You lost all those hard-won entitlements if you had to change jobs.

Income protection from the workers benefit funds like Protect provide protection of those entitlements, and these protections are negotiated via industrial agreements. They are set up by enterprise bargaining agreements. Now, I don't know if those on the other side know about those, but this means that agreements are negotiated between bosses and workers. The contributions are approved by members and their employers. They negotiate in good faith, and these things are administered, in this instance, by Protect as a third party. Yes, they negotiate in good faith—something this government has no idea about.

The previous speaker, the member for Hinkler, seems to think that EBAs are actually stealing things from bosses, but they are not; they are negotiated, as I said, in good faith. All this government know how to do, it seems, is to point the finger and blame everybody else for their failings and their incompetence. They are pointing the finger at workers and their unions, right through to the Governor of the Reserve Bank. They blame everyone else for their failings—failings for an economy that is not growing properly and that has had sluggish growth since the GFC. They are blaming everybody else for the lack of growth in jobs and skills, for the problems we are seeing in aged care. This government have big problems to deal with, but what are they doing? They are here to bash poor people. They are here to bash workers and their unions. They are basically here to tear up the social compact that has served this country so well for decades. They rip billions of dollars out of social services, only to give little tidbits back here and there, and expect a pat on the back for that.

Here we have an example of employers working together to avoid tragedy and hardship, and, for some reason, this government can't stand it. The workers benefit funds provide a vital safety net for workers who work in industries with a high rate of insolvency. There's phoenixing and there's corporate mismanagement. Decades ago, the Victorian branch of the National Electrical and Communications Association, which is an employer organisation, and the ETU, the workers organisation, or the union, became joint sponsors of the Protect redundancy fund. It was created to ensure that workers and their families are protected in times of hardship. It protected from redundancy. Can you imagine the heartache and pain of workers who lose their job immediately—the absolute chaos that that throws the family or the household into, the worry and the heartache of that? I know what that's like. Through my union career, I've had to work with people and help people who have been through such a personal disaster. Far too many people lose out.

So what on earth is wrong with coming up with a way to make life easier for people when that happens?

It seems to me that, instead of punishing employers and unions who have set up these funds for just that purpose, we should perhaps be looking at legislating protection of entitlements, like the ETU and NECA have done, for all workers instead of trying to do away with those protections under this silly bill.

Benefit funds like Protect are run independently of the employer group and the union. There is a proper approved governance structure around these funds. They have a board. They are regulated through the corporations tax and trust law. ASIC and the ATO regulate them. If the Attorney-General has a problem with them then he should be going to ASIC and the ATO, not destroying the benefits that these workers have from getting these entitlements.

Now, from time to time, these funds make a surplus. That is because of good governance, sensible investment decisions and plain old good management. What is wrong with that? Those on that side should be shouting praise for this. Were it anyone else but unions doing so well, they'd be frothing at their surly mouths with praise. Profits and surpluses are their DNA. The surplus is over and above what belongs to workers. Workers' entitlements are safe as houses. The surpluses are then used by the employers and unions to benefit the workers. It is not profited away or secreted off to the Cayman Islands. It's not doing dodgy deals based on some bloke in a Yass pub or trying to get government departments to change laws for somebody's profit-making scheme. No, this is all done under the auspices of ASIC and the ATO, and it goes back to the workers.

This bill restricts and penalises schemes jointly run by unions but provides no regulation for employer-run schemes. Profits from employer-run schemes can go back to employers. If a business earns interest off workers' entitlement money, it is allowed to pocket that, and the government says: 'No problem. That's fine.' But enter a worker or their union and then suddenly we need a whole pile of new regulations and restrictions or we need to get rid of the fund altogether. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Employers are okay to secret away profits, but unions can't expend any surpluses back to members. Not even Dyson Heydon from the trade union royal commission—a complete political witch-hunt against unions—recommended any of the changes they are talking about for these funds. In fact, by utilising the funds' redundancy schemes, workers are saving the government money by not accessing the more complex and less accessible FEG scheme.

None of this makes any sense whatsoever. These funds have paid out millions of dollars to redundant workers and have provided tens of thousands of workers with countless additional benefits, like the ETU does with the fund surpluses from Protect. I have here a list of some of the services that are provided to the workers from surpluses: free counselling hotline, free domestic violence awareness seminars, free postnatal depression awareness training, free gambling prevention, free anxiety and stress management services, free women's self-defence courses and free autism management behaviour support. It goes on. There's workplace training, first aid training, hazardous wiring training, height awareness training, asbestos awareness training and free preparation for work support. They actually help provide workplace support with tutorials for conflict management and workers comp schemes. There are myriad health services, from free mental health support to suicide prevention, awareness and training; drug and alcohol awareness training; LGBTQI inclusivity training; free health checks; skin checks; and support to quit smoking. It goes on and on. These are benefits, and they are benefits that the unions are proud to provide their members. It just adds insult to injury that the government is trying to take this away from members who are thankful for these services. I have spoken to many ETU members who say it is wonderful to access this for themselves and their families. They love it.

The bill will give more power to the now discredited and politicised Registered Organisations Commission. We remember the appalling scandal that was the AWU raids. The ROC should be abolished, not given more powers. The minister is merely attacking workers and their families. He has, barefaced, misled the public about the surpluses and what they are used for. He is trying to make a case against unions that simply isn't there.

Why on earth would any member of this House want to treat workers with such outright disdain and contempt? Why on earth would a minister risk workers' lives by denying such accessible and vital services? Why on earth would any member of this House want to take such important protections away from tens of thousands of families? Why? Because the minister doesn't care one iota, not one hoot, not one little tiny jot about workers. And he simply hates unions. Why isn't this government screaming to the rafters about a raft of other issues, like older Aussies dying while waiting for aged-care packages? Why aren't they turning this House upside down about the behaviour of the banks and actually implementing the recommendations of the banking royal commission at breakneck speed? Why aren't they sorting out the mess that is the NDIS, with families desperate for support being forced to wait and go without services and literally fall apart with the stress of dealing with the NDIS? What are they doing about employment, low wages and insecure work? Why aren't they closing the gap for our First Nations people? They have no other agenda. We will see 2½ years of nothing other than chasing down a small government approach that will leave us nothing for the community and nothing left of that social compact other than perhaps an army, and a poorly resourced one at that.

According to this government, if you are poor it's your fault. If you're sick, bad luck. If you're unemployed, you can go hungry. If you are employed, you can work for a pittance. If you want an education, you can pay for it. If you are old and need care, good luck with that. If you are young and need a leg-up, go and see a charity. Anything that varies from that path is to be destroyed, including the hard work of unions.

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