George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Watt, I'll say—Watt by name, 'who' by nature, because no-one knows him up in North Queensland. He breezes in and out like a puff of wind from a certain part of the body and leaves about as much stench as well and just spreads misinformation wherever he goes. He is always raising this issue.

But you know who caused the problem? The Labor Party caused the problem because its Labor's fair work laws that have led to this situation of all these casuals being employed in sectors like the mining industry who are effectively doing de facto permanent work. This is happening not because of the Liberal-National coalition; this is happening because Labor's fair work laws were deficient in sorting that problem out. They cannot deny that whatsoever. It was the Labor Party that brought in the fair work laws, the industrial relations system, we are now operating under that have allowed this situation to go on. I've spoken to blokes who've been working on these mine sites for seven years or so in casual employment who want to go to permanent employment. It's taken persistence from people like me, the member for Capricornia, the member for Flynn, Senator Canavan and others, particularly in the National Party, to get this issue on the agenda and to the point where today we're debating it in a government bill. That's been no small achievement, I can tell you.

As I said before, in 2019, at my insistence and that of and many others, particularly in the Nationals, we had these draft laws that were going to be put to parliament. Sadly, they didn't get through parliament because, as I said, Labor opposed the draft law that would allow casual miners the right to convert to permanent work. It essentially meant that the law was going to be blocked in the Senate, so it was abandoned. It's not the first time we've had the Labor Party letting down miners. I look at significant projects such as the Carmichael mine, up near my part of the world; and the New Acland mine. There's also ongoing opposition to new coal-fired power generation in the North Queensland region emanating from the Labor Party and their mates in the Greens. It's a bit bizarre that we can dig it up—they're all happy with that; well, some of them aren't. We've got disputes going on between Labor's energy spokesman, Labor's climate change spokesman and people like the member for Hunter—and more power to the member for Hunter in that internal fight! We can apparently dig it up, we can ship it overseas and it can be burnt in coal-fired power stations that are being built at a rapid rate of knots in places like India, China and even Germany, but guess what? We can't do it ourselves. Apparently, if Australia does it, Australia is bad. But, if we send it overseas, that's good; it's okay for the other countries. I do not understand that; for the life of me I don't know how the logic works on the other side around that issue.

Further to this, we've got Queensland Labor—and federal Labor was in on this as well before the last election—pursuing and funding what can only be described as an extreme green policy called Just Transition, aimed at shutting down the coal industry and implementing pooled redundancies across the coal sector. That means mass sackings overseen by governments—overseen by Labor governments. It seems that Labor love the Greens more than they do coalminers.

I want to talk about the history on this issue about the right to convert from casual to permanent work. I've mentioned the member for Capricornia, the member for Flynn and Senator Canavan: we've been talking about this for ages, dealing with ministers that have come, with ministers that have gone and with ministers that are here today. I've got to say thanks to the Attorney-General, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker Owens, for bringing this issue on. Back in 2016, the member for Capricornia and I actually wrote to the Fair Work Ombudsman requesting an investigation into a number of claims in relation to unfair work practices in the mining sector and the mining services sector. Both of us had been contacted by many workers in relation to these workplace practices in relation to job losses, and that included job losses at the Hay Point Terminal on tugboats.

As far as I can tell, from an ethical point of view, an employer should not have de facto employees engaged as contractors. They shouldn't be able to simply dismiss workers using a downturn as an excuse and then have another worker come in and fill their position. That is illegal under the framework that we've got. Yet, there are loopholes that exist in that fair work law that allow those practices to go on. I think it's just plain wrong that we right now have full-time mining company employees working side by side casual labour employees doing the same work, the same hours, the same rosters. One is permanent and one is casual: that is wrong. Some of the labour hire company employees on mine sites have been working there, as I said, for seven years—I've spoken to blokes—and they're still considered a casual. So we went off to the Fair Work Ombudsman asking for an investigation into claims around the erosion of certain rights for workers out there.

In 2016, the member for Capricornia went out to Moranbah, in her electorate, to meet with workers and hear their concerns directly. I actually attempted to hold several meetings with the CFMEU on this, because I had great sympathies for these arguments at a point in time when my own party and the coalition probably did not. I tried on four separate occasions, and each time right at the death knell the union cancelled the meeting. I don't know what that was about. They're happy to play the blame game out in the public arena, but, when it comes to a government member wanting to sit down with the union and actually have a constructive behind-the-scenes conversation about solutions, they've been absent. The truth is that casualisation of the mining sector has been going on for years under the fair work laws that were introduced under the Rudd government and which the Gillard government oversaw. This is how the problem has occurred. This, right in front of us today, is the fix to the problem.

I could talk at length about the history that I have had in this fight that has led to these particular provisions in this legislation today, but what I will say is that I am very glad the government has acknowledged the situation where people are continuing on for years in employment that is de facto permanent. They have rostered hours and they're working alongside other permanent workers doing the same job, the same shifts and the same hours and yet they're on casual rates and casual employment, without the security that permanent employment actually brings. It's wrong. It's unethical. And so, before even the government brought this bill to a head, we had BHP moving from their model, which was increasingly to more casualisation, to set up BHP operational services and put these people on permanent work. Hooray! I give them a lot of bricks back, actually. People might think that I don't, but, I'll tell you what, I give BHP a few swipes and a big tick for putting people onto permanent employment.

I have also given a few swipes to WorkPac in the past. There are a lot of employees in my electorate with WorkPac. A lot of them like working for WorkPac. They, without being forced, change their enterprise agreement to say that workers, after six months of continuous work, have the right to convert to permanent work inside WorkPac. Again, I applaud the industry for doing this—for correcting what, quite frankly, is a bit of an injustice that's been done to these workers by keeping them on casual employment when they didn't want to be. A lot of people want the security of having sick leave and of being able to attend the funeral of a loved one and not lose pay for it—of being able to enjoy all of the benefits that comes with secure employment. That's why I think that this legislation is very, very important. The actions that have happened in the industry, thankfully, happened before this has been put in place. This will ensure that it is an absolute right for those workers.

I've heard all these stories that come up. They say, 'It's not going to be workable. It's unenforceable.' That's nonsense, nonsense and more nonsense. The situation is, if this law is passed and workers get that right to convert from casual work to permanent work after 12 months of employment, the boss will have to write to the worker and say: 'It's been 12 months. Do you want to convert to permanent?' The worker will say, 'Yes, I do', if they decide to do that, and it will happen. If the boss says, 'We can't actually let you go to permanent work, because of issue X', issue X needs to be validated or you will have the union movement in there, I hope—if they're doing their job—breathing down the neck of the bosses saying, 'This is incorrect.' And you will also have the backing of the Fair Work Commission, which oversee employment standards in this country. If a dodgy reason is given, a dodgy reason will be exposed and that boss will have to offer permanent employment to that person. This puts the onus on businesses to do the right thing. It puts all of the benefits onto the worker who, as some said, might want the choice of continuing on in casual work because of the extra loadings that they get. At least it's going to be the worker's right to decide. I think that is fair enough. That's why I say let's back the bill. Let's back this bill that gives workers the right to convert from casual to permanent employment. This is a problem that has gone on far, far too long, under Labor's fair work laws, in the Bowen Basin and elsewhere, perhaps in the member for Hunter's electorate, too. I gave him a bit of a plaudit before for his ongoing fight within the Labor Party for common sense. More power to you, Member for Hunter.

I hope that we can support this bill in this place and in the other place because, without it, we are going to be stuck with this injustice continuing to occur and people remaining in these casual roles when they're actually doing permanent work. I want to see it fixed. The government now wants to see it fixed. Maybe the Labor party want to see it fixed. Can you at least support us on this measure? That would be good. Back the bill.

See this speech in context