James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are two very simple reasons why we won't support the Fair Work Amendment (Same Job, Same Pay) Bill 2021. The first is that it is simply a reheated concept Labor already took to the last election which was comprehensively rejected by the people of Australia—in particular, the people of the member for Paterson's electorate. Five per cent of people in that electorate swung towards the Liberal Party despite this policy being what the member proposed. The people of her community rejected it with a five per cent swing. Her continuing to prosecute this policy warms the cockles of my heart, knowing that Labor will take to the next election the same approach they took to the last election. It's good to see the Albanese opposition adopting more and more of the Bill Shorten positions as we come closer to an election. The definition of insanity is 'doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result'. No doubt Labor will prove that time-honoured phrase incorrect and show that taking to the next election the same policies they took to the last election will miraculously result in a different outcome for them!

The second reason to not support this bill is that it is, of course, on instruction from the union movement that the Labor Party are bringing this forward. As union membership is collapsing around the country, the union movement will do all they can to seek to rehabilitate their falling numbers. No doubt they hope that removing flexibility in the workplace, such as what labour-hire firms provide in surge industry capacity et cetera, will result in higher membership for the union movement. Just because it's good for the union movement does not mean it is good for the people or workers of Australia, hence my opposition to the bill.

The purported problem that we are suggesting would be solved by this doesn't even exist. The ABS statistics are very clear. They break down average earnings across different types of employment, including those in labour hire, at an economy-wide level. We can see that people in labour hire earn more than the average economy-wide, particularly in casual; and we can see that labour hire average earnings within the mining sector are higher than the overall average. So this is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist. Instead, what it will do is cost jobs. The modelling is very clear that this will cost thousands of jobs and potentially even more jobs indirectly.

Effectively, the Labor Party are trying to remove the flexible solution which labour hire provides. It helps in the mining sector in particular, where periods of surge demand can be met by surge capacity. When you remove that, or seek to remove that, which is what their objective is here—clearly, they don't like labour hire; they don't like these businesses and don't want them to exist. That was the contribution that was made by the previous member: 'We don't want to see people working in labour hire firms instead of working directly for mining companies.' That means the jobs—which you'd think the Labor Party would care about—will simply no longer exist. The whole point of the labour hire firms is that they provide something that the mines themselves can't provide within their business model: surge capacity. If, and when, global commodity prices et cetera put the mining companies in a position where they can increase their operations and expand what they're doing at a dramatic, quick rate, which labour hire as a solution provides, then they will do so. If that solution isn't there, they won't, which means the jobs in labour hire, particularly in the mining sector, purely will not exist.

We on this side of the House don't think that now is the time to introduce any more complexity, confusion, red tape or bureaucracy for businesses that are employing Australians. That's the last thing we need with the challenges that we have had over the last few years and equally the challenges that will continue into the future. The last thing we need to be doing is putting any handbrakes on our economy and making changes to legislation that the Labor Party themselves put in place. The model that we operate under is Labor's model, and now they're saying that it needs to be changed. By their admission that's a reflection on their own failure when they legislated, if that is their contention. But we believe that the current system should not be changed. It is not the time to introduce confusion or complexity into a system that is working well, employing thousands of Australians and growing our economy, creating jobs both in the sector and indirectly.

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