Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I don't know who that bloke was, but he's very entertaining! I'll keep coming back in when he's here. He has come into a seven-year-old government that has never turned a surplus and has racked up the highest deficit and debt in the history of the nation while promising that it was going to deliver a surplus in its first year and every year after that. To hear him come in with that—I reckon he's pretty amusing. I hope he's back, and, when he's back, I'll be here and I'll be ready with the motion for an extension of time!

The other thing that is very easily forgotten—and, when you listen to the speeches of the government here, I'm not sure anyone on their side has acknowledged the fact—is that they were dragged to having a wage subsidy. We on the floor of the parliament were calling for them to establish a wage subsidy at the exact same point that they said the only answer was to push people onto the welfare system. Let's not forget that the initial and only response of the government was for JobSeeker to be increased, and it wasn't until they saw the enormity of the outcome of the Centrelink queues that, having mocked our recommendation, our constructive suggestion, of a wage subsidy, they were then eventually dragged there. So, when we hear them say how important it is to support those businesses—yes, that's why we argued for it, even when the government was ridiculing the idea. When they say it's important to keep the relationship between an employer and their workers—yes, that's why we called for it. And, when they mock the relationship with the union movement, do they forget that it was the union movement in Australia that was first to be calling for a wage subsidy? We joined those calls. Eventually employers joined those calls. And the last to the party were the members of the government. I'm glad that they're there now, but please don't pretend that something that they opposed and opposed here on the floor of the House is somehow a core principle of being a member of this government, because it wasn't when they were knocking out the idea.

We argued for them to introduce a wage subsidy, they rejected it and then they got there. We then argued that it had to be extended because, in September, the economy was heading towards a cliff and it was going to result in mass unemployment and mass closures of businesses if the tap of JobKeeper was turned off in one hit. They rejected that for a long time, and now they have come to the view that, yes, you do need to continue it. They also rejected the concept—when they're there wanting to talk about the signing of cheques and the throwing-away of money—that a wage subsidy should be a subsidy rather than an increase and that it shouldn't be the case that somebody who was still living at home, working one shift a week, should suddenly get $750 a week. There were better ways to target taxpayers' money. But that was an argument made by Labor. The signing of the cheques and the throwing-away of money was a decision of the government's.

One of the reasons that it was interesting to hear the member who spoke before me—whom I'm told is a member of the parliament—was that everything he pointed to was inaccurate, everything. Not many people can deliver that, so full marks, well done! But, on each of those issues, the characterisation that he was pointing to and wanting to ridicule was a characterisation of his own party at the beginning of this crisis, because everything that he referred to was the exact position that he was calling out 'Hear, hear!' for when the Prime Minister was articulating it about two metres from where I stand now.

We warned the government that they shouldn't be extending the emergency industrial relations powers to businesses that had fully recovered. I should explain. As well as the JobKeeper payment itself, there have been changes made to the Fair Work Act. There were two different pathways through which this could have been done: either by using the industrial commission, where the trade union movement was already working cooperatively to make some variations, or by making changes through the Fair Work Act. We preferred the former because it was a more flexible way. The government ended up deciding that they would do it through the Fair Work Act, and we've been constructive with that. That then needs to be extended. The reason for that flexibility is that JobKeeper can't work without there being either flexibility through the commission or flexibility through the Fair Work Act. The reason for that is really simple. Some people have received the wage subsidy and have continued to work their normal hours, and the wage subsidy helps the employer pay part of their wage. There are other people for whom the employer was not in a position to be able to pay their wage at all. You couldn't expect someone to keep working a 38-hour week if that meant a cut in their hourly rate with the $750 JobKeeper payment. So the only way you could make this operational was to have, either through the commission or through changes to the Fair Work Act, those sorts of flexibilities.

So as well as the extension of the payments—that's the Treasury part of the bill, which the member for Rankin has already responded to on behalf of the opposition—you had the Fair Work Act changes. They go in two parts. The first of them is the extension of the exact sort of flexibility that I just described. Where people are still on the JobKeeper payment, the employer would effectively be cutting their rate of pay if they were continuing to work their normal hours. The employer can reduce their hours down to the rate of the JobKeeper payment and do so without breaching other workplace conditions. It's therefore a very practical measure. We supported it last time and we support its extension this time.

The government then said they wanted to extend this flexibility for people who were no longer receiving JobKeeper. Might I say this is a complete shift from what we were told when we first supported the Fair Work Act changes. We were told that the only reason the government wanted these sorts of changes was to make the JobKeeper payment operational. Now we discover they want those same flexibilities to continue for workplaces that used to be on JobKeeper but are no longer on it. We have shifted from a circumstance where it was simply to make the payments operational to an argument from the government that part of the recovery is—they say on a temporary basis—to cut some of the conditions of workers in Australia. That's a big shift. That's a really big shift.

There have been a few different elements to it. On one of them the government has backed down, and I welcome that. Only a week ago, the government was arguing that any business that used to be on JobKeeper should, if they fall off JobKeeper because their business has improved, retain the right to be able to reduce the terms and conditions of employment for their workforce. That included companies that were now trading better than they were 12 months ago. It included businesses that have been recording profits after a long period of having the wages of their workforce paid by the taxpayer. The government was going to give all of them this extended flexibility. It has backed down on that, and we welcome that.

Where the so-called legacy payments are now is that they are for companies that are no longer eligible for JobKeeper but are still recording a 10 per cent downturn from the year before. That is a better position than the one the government had a week ago. The position they had a week ago was ridiculous. The position they have now is still problematic, and I want to explain why.

First of all, let's clarify exactly what businesses we're talking about. The thresholds for JobKeeper are different, depending on whether a business's turnover is more than or less than $1 billion a year. If their turnover is more than $1 billion a year, then to qualify for JobKeeper they have to have had a 50 per cent downturn. If their turnover is less than $1 billion a year, they have to have had a 30 per cent downturn. So, depending on the size of the business, we're talking about businesses that used to receive JobKeeper no longer receiving it because either a big business has gone over the 50 per cent threshold or a medium-sized or small business has gone over the 30 per cent threshold. But they're still 10 per cent down on where they were before. They're the companies we're talking about. The government is saying that it wants those businesses to retain the right to effectively reduce the terms and conditions of employment for their workforce for the period that this amendment would last.

When the government says those businesses are still struggling, yes, they have had a downturn. We don't dispute that. But let's be clear: these are businesses that are doing well enough that the government has decided that it will not support them any longer. These are businesses where the government has made a decision that, yes, they're still struggling a bit but they're doing well enough that they no longer deserve support from the government. Yet, even though the government has decided they don't need support from the government, it has also decided that the need to support these businesses should be transferred from the government to the worker. With these sorts of flexibilities, the government will often talk about the example of being able to direct someone to do duties other than what they would normally do. But here's the big one that you rarely hear the government talk about: it allows somebody to reduce the hours of employment. It was one thing when you were doing that with JobKeeper, because it was to enable JobKeeper. Now we're talking about the government giving workplaces—ones that the government has already decided aren't doing badly enough to warrant a dollar of extra support from the government—the right to tell a full-time worker that they're now part-time for this period. It will often be the case that there will be mutual agreement that the employer is in a situation where they can't keep everybody on and people will say, 'I'll agree to cut my hours so that it can work for everybody.' Unions, workers and employers deal with these sorts of mutual agreements every day. That is not what this legislation does, though. This is not about mutual agreement. This is about the employer being able to make the decision.

There are some things the government has put in, following consultation with unions and others, that are better than where I suspect they started, and I acknowledge those. There's a consultation period now, and there's an appeal that a worker can make to the industrial commission. But that doesn't change the core of what we are being asked to enable. We are being asked to enable a circumstance where a business that the government has decided is no longer worthy of financial support from this government will have the right to cut a worker's hours to 60 per cent of what they already are.

Let's have a think about how this works in the real world, particularly for people who are on modest wages. Let's say you're a full-timer on the minimum wage, which is $753 a week. Because previously you could only be cut to the JobKeeper rate, you would only be taking a pay cut of $3 a week—or, to be precise, $3.80 a week. But now you don't have JobKeeper as the reference point. The government may not have thought this implication through, so I want to give them the chance to look at this and work this through, because this one is a real problem.

A 40 per cent reduction for a worker on minimum wage would mean that they would lose $300 a week. Previously, someone on the minimum wage, under the fair work amendments we put through the parliament last time, could have a $3 pay cut. Now their take-home pay can go down by $300 a week. There are many workers who are paid more than the minimum wage but not a lot more. A cleaner earns $804.90. A 40 per cent cut to their hours would mean they would lose around $330 a week, falling below the current JobKeeper rate and more than $100 below the new JobKeeper rate. A full-time retail employee—and we've all seen retail workers on the front line, along with cleaners, as the people who have been essential workers during this crisis—is on the minimum award rate, as a full-timer, of $813.60 a week. A full-time retail worker, under what's in front of the parliament right now, could lose $325 a week. That means they would fall well below the current JobKeeper rate and more than $100 a week short of the new JobKeeper rate.

This creates a situation where a worker, at a time when the business they work for is doing better, will see their pay cut. The business might only be taking a 10 per cent turnover cut, but the worker could be getting a 40 per cent cut. Let's not forget that it could actually be much more than that, because it's a cut to hours. If the hours that are cut are hours that attract penalty rates, then a worker may lose much more than 40 per cent of their take-home pay.

This gives rise to two critical issues. The first is that the concept of the legacy employers at all is a case the government have not made, because they haven't wrestled with the one critical issue. They make the argument that these businesses are still doing it tough, and we get that. But they don't make the argument as to why they are completely withdrawing their support and transferring the full liability to the workforce. The government have not made that case.

The second thing is: how can you justify to an employee that, as the business they work for is doing better, the parliament has given permission for their take-home pay to go down—and to go down many more times in percentage terms than the cut to the company's turnover. This parliament is being asked to give permission for a business suffering a 10 per cent hit to give their workforce a 40 per cent hit. The government, in arguing 'But the businesses are still doing it tough', isn't answering the question 'Well, why aren't you offering them support anymore?' Who is most able to provide support during this time? Is it the workforce or is it the government?

Let's not forget that the workforce has already taken significant cuts during this time. Going down to the JobKeeper rate has kept people in work, and that's good. But it has also meant that a whole lot of people have been putting off other debts and liabilities. Many of these people have been faced with a circumstance where, because their liabilities have been more than what the JobKeeper rate was providing, they are now in a position where they have no superannuation left. The government are boasting as though that's somehow an act of self-determination on their part. If they've got no other way to get money, then they're in a circumstance where they have raided their retirement, which will probably be one of the biggest examples of intergenerational theft that we will see during this crisis.

In the future, not only will they lose the power of accumulation that happens in accumulation accounts—which is why everyone in this room has got one—but every other taxpayer will have an increased liability to support them. Our debt isn't the only liability that the government is sending into the future. The way they're handling superannuation is a huge liability that is being sent to the next generation—through people who have had no choice but to clean out their own accounts; through people who have seen their accounts raided through other rorts; and through all taxpayers, who will be left with the liability because of the ideological obsession of members opposite.

The pandemic has created certain opportunities for government in terms of the public wanting the government to succeed; that's real. But we are starting to see the government abuse that trust. We are starting to see the government use the pandemic as cover for ideological obsessions. That is what is before us right now—an ideological obsession to increase the power of an employer to reduce someone's hours; so someone who thought they had a full-time job suddenly will not, even though the business they work for is recovering. That ideological obsession is being pushed through under the cover of the pandemic. We were first told it was only to implement JobKeeper, but now we are told it is only for legacy firms. Does anyone not believe that they will try to normalise this during this term and say, 'It's going to be a long recovery; we need to put this into the Fair Work Act for good'?

On superannuation, we were told it was only because of the emergency on that first one-day sitting we had here in the public. And yesterday we heard the Prime Minister trying to normalise it by saying, 'Use it to pay down your mortgage.' It's nothing to do with the pandemic at all, but the Prime Minister is now using the pandemic as cover for an ideological obsession with making sure that the only people who end up with superannuation accounts are people on higher incomes—like it used to be, like the so-called good old days before we ended up with a situation where working people had the audacity to want to have a nest egg of their own.

We've seen it here right now on working hours. We saw it yesterday on superannuation. We have seen it with both the Australia Post changes and the Australian content quotas—and I have argued it previously with respect to the minister at the table. We are seeing an increasing creep of the pandemic being used as cover for issues that the government has long wanted to do. When they came in the first time, they said it's only for an emergency. When they came in a second time, they said it's only for a little bit longer. We know where this is heading. With what is in front of us now, you would have to be completely naive to believe that it is only planned to be for the next few months.

If we were to take the government at their word we would have trusted them last time, when they said it was only there to be able to properly implement the JobKeeper provisions. Of course, now you don't get JobKeeper but you still have a way of having your hours cut, without it having to be by mutual agreement. We know where this is heading. We know what the government's up to. With that in mind, we'll be moving two amendments here in the House today. The first is one which we know the government won't agree to. We get it, but we don't believe they've made the case for the legacy businesses being counted at all. So we'll have an amendment to take those out. We know the government won't agree to that.

The second amendment that we will move will be an amendment to give people a safety net. I know the government won't be agreeing to it tonight, but this is something the government should consider and work their way through, because there is an anomaly in how they have drafted this that will hit low-paid workers really badly. I suspect, or I hope, the government simply hadn't thought about how this anomaly would work and that they had simply worked it through based on people on average earnings, where you go down to 60 per cent of your hours and you're still above the JobKeeper rate. We can't have a situation where we've given permission for people who work in businesses that are recovering, who were full-time, to now be paid less than the JobKeeper rate. You can't have a situation where a worker is better off if the business they work for is more distressed. As the business is improving the workforce will be dreading it, because the employer is given the new power, at that point, to cut their hours to below the JobKeeper rate.

I get that if the government are going to agree to this second amendment it will take some time, but they really should be agreeing to this. There needs to be a safety net so that you cannot have your hours reduced to the extent that you are being paid below the applicable JobKeeper rate. Of course, some people would already have hours that are below the JobKeeper rate, in terms of the regular hours that they've worked. And if their hours remain where they are then there's no change. But when these provisions are going to be actioned they should not be actioned in a way that takes people to below the JobKeeper rate.

Think of the counterpoint. Think if the government rejects this amendment and the bill as drafted goes through. This parliament will have voted for people on the minimum wage to be allowed, without their agreement, to get a pay cut of $300 a week, but we'll be providing support for people on JobKeeper. This parliament will have said, 'As the business improves it's okay for you to be paid less because your boss is doing better.' That is an absurd situation. That is what the bill currently says. I dearly hope it's an anomaly that the government has not thought of. We want to deal constructively with the government in dealing with this. We will move both of those amendments. I get that the government are committed to the legacy case issues. We still oppose it. We'll move the amendment. We know that the government won't agree to that.

In terms of there being a safety net, people on high incomes will be unaffected by the safety net, because if they were to go down to 60 per cent of their normal hours they'd still be above the JobKeeper rate. We can't be agreeing to changing the IR system to allow people, who at this time have been struggling already through the pandemic, to be in a circumstance where they then face further cuts because the business they work for is doing better, and cuts that could be so severe that they take them below the JobKeeper rate. There'll be two amendments, the second of which I urge the government to consider.

All this said, arguments that we made last time JobKeeper was before us are still there and there are still problems. It would be wrong of me to not refer to them. JobKeeper still excludes more than a million casuals. JobKeeper still excludes local government workers. JobKeeper still excludes childcare workers. JobKeeper still excludes a very, very large number of arts and entertainment workers, freelancers, university workers. Those people have jobs, pay taxes and should not be left out in the way that they have been. So we still make that case. We still urge the government to have a wage subsidy that accepts that workers who need help to keep their relationship with their employer should get it. I don't give up on this for one very simple reason: while the government say no today, a week ago they were saying that companies that had improved their position should be on the legacy list. A few months ago, they were still arguing against a wage subsidy altogether. They've been dragged to each of the positions. JobKeeper should cover those who are currently being left behind, and we should not, as a parliament, be voting to allow people on low wages to have $300 a week cut from their take-home pay simply because the business they work for is doing better. It's an absurd situation. I hope it's a mistake, but, whether it's a mistake or not, the government should revisit it, just as they've revisited so many other issues on this. If people don't keep their relationship to their employer and we keep seeing incomes drop, the hit to the country will be huge.

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