Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Fisher pretty much summed up the import of the Fair Work Laws Amendment (Proper Use of Worker Benefits) Bill 2019. He said quite clearly that workers' rights and entitlements were a cost—not a fair day's pay, not a safe workplace. He sees it purely through the lens of a cost to business. I think that's an important thing to note in discussing this bill.

I said today in the House that nothing had changed in the weeks that we'd been away, and this debate highlights just that. This government has not changed its attitude towards workers, towards unions, towards collectivism. It continues on its anti-union tirade, and this bill is part of that tirade. What we see from the government in this bill is that it is not concerned with protecting workers; it is purely about attacking unions. It is all about putting corporations ahead of workers, seeing workers as costs. It is not ensuring an equal playing field because it sets out one set of rules for workers and another for corporations. The government wants to effectively shut down worker-run funds and, at the same time, allow employers to set up and run their own funds. The measures in this bill, as far as worker entitlement funds and financial management of unions are concerned, far exceed the measures that apply to corporations, despite the rhetoric you might hear from the other side. We heard the member for Fisher twice mention the disinfectant of transparency—and that from a party that voted today against a National Integrity Commission! The disinfectant of transparency, it seems, only applies to some of us.

There is no corporate equivalent for this bill. This bill adds a burden by putting new restrictions around worker entitlement funds and financial management of unions, whilst employers get carte blanche with worker entitlement money. So the question is: why are employers given complete trust when over recent years we've seen many examples of employers ripping off their workers?

The member for Fisher mentioned wage theft. Yes, we've seen a lot of it, an extraordinary amount of it. We saw it with 7-Eleven, which was found by the Federal Circuit Court to have violated workplace law—including failing to pay the minimum hourly rates, failing to pay casual loadings, failing to pay weekend and public holiday penalty rates and providing false and misleading pay records—following legal action brought by the Fair Work Ombudsman. How does this get exposed? This wage theft gets exposed by unions. This wage theft gets exposed by investigative journalists. We saw pizza giant Domino's workers underpaid for almost five years, with franchisees encouraged by management to underpay their staff. Chatime was also caught up in widespread underpayment issues, not just among its franchisees but in the corporate stores owned by its head office. Caltex was found to have failed workers by underpayment of wages and nonpayment of overtime and weekend penalty rates. The list goes on and on, yet this government wants workers to trust employers like this rather than worker entitlement funds, which, I might add, have been operating successfully for many years.

I do note that not all employers are unethical. I also note that not all unions, despite the rhetoric from those opposite, are doing the wrong thing by their workers. There are ethical employers. There are those whose workers' entitlement moneys are dealt with correctly, and there are those that I've highlighted today that help to paint a picture where history clearly shows that not all employers will do the right thing when it comes to their employees. We don't have to look far to check those facts. Worker entitlement funds exist to ensure that workers' entitlements are protected and to provide important services to workers, such as training, counselling support, suicide prevention and funding of OH&S officers. Even Dyson Heydon conceded that these training funds provide a public good, and that could all be put at risk by this bill.

We all remember Mr Heydon, the royal commissioner who was booked to speak at that Liberal Party fundraiser. We cannot forget that this all started with the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, which was set up as a political witch-hunt. Its purpose was to damage unions in Australia, not to implement protection for workers. After all was said and done, did Heydon recommend the onerous restrictions we now see laid out in this bill? No, he did not. This is just another example of this government's obsession with attacking unions, because this bill goes far beyond anything that was put forward in the findings of the royal commission. Instead of giving more power to the Registered Organisations Commission, this government should be abolishing the ROC, especially given it is the body that was thoroughly politicised and discredited over its role in the AWU raids scandal. This government wants to give it more power to interfere in the affairs of workers. Well, I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

On this side of the House, we firmly believe that allegations of serious breaches of registered organisations should be dealt with by ASIC. We also believe that unions or anyone who breaks the law or operates outside the law should face the full force of the law—law that already exists for that explicit purpose. If the government truly believed in corporate equivalence, then the government should ensure that companies and registered organisations are overseen by the same regulator. Let's be honest: this bill would not be in the House if the government truly believed in corporate equivalence. So it is clear that this is just another attack on unions.

When the discredited royal commission was unable to demonise the unions, this government decided to introduce this antiworker bill to tie unions up in red tape, and you have to ask why after years of being in this place and hearing red tape being described in incredibly negative terms and the need for red tape to be removed from all sorts of areas of public life and corporate life. But here we see red tape being placed by a government, so it leaves you to wonder: why should unions be tied up in red tape while this government has spent six years taking what they perceive to be negative red tape out of everywhere else? They talked negatively about the red tape of safety measures in childcare centres, but now unions need red tape?

Why do we, on this side, defend collectivism? Why do we defend trade unions? Because they, as much as an independent media, are a pillar of our democracy. Our trade union movement is important. It does a job that government don't want to do. It makes sure that our workers are safe on their job sites. To the member for Fisher: as someone with three sons who work in the building trade, let me tell you that I can sleep at night if I know they're on a union job because I know they're safe and I know they're decently paid. So what you see as a cost, as a mother and as a member of this parliament I see as a protection for workers. The government want to introduce red tape for unions. They want to wrap them up in complying with this red tape, and they'll have less time to do their jobs—the jobs their members pay them to do, and that is to protect workers, fight for better pay, fight for better conditions and fight for safer workplaces.

I stand in this House today to say to this government: I, along with my colleagues on this side, will defend the rights of workers, and I'll defend the rights of unions to protect workers because, although the government have amended the bill since it was first introduced, those amendments are not substantive and simply do not address Labor's centrist concerns with this antiworker bill.

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