Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am proud to stand and support Labor's bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Same Job, Same Pay) Bill 2021, before the House. I suggest to the government members who are speaking on this bill that they read the bill before coming in here to make a contribution. If they had actually read the bill they would realise that it doesn't actually apply to small businesses, businesses with 15 employees or fewer, as defined by the Fair Work Act. This applies to those bigger than that. I know they kind of think that any business is a small business, but it's not. This bill applies to the big businesses and the medium businesses in our country that are misusing labour hire.

Another myth that the government's trying to suggest is that this will just get rid of labour hire. It will not. This bill is about redefining the original relationship that we all thought existed with labour hire. A while ago—many years ago—labour hire was used as the surge workforce, and employers and businesses paid a premium. So some people who would choose to be labour hire workers knew that they didn't have fixed working conditions—they didn't have a fixed time or secure employment—but they traded it off for higher pay, and for some workers that worked well. But what we've seen explode under this government is the misuse of labour hire, and it's completely legal. That's what this bill tries to clean up.

We here know of workers working for big businesses—working in manufacturing facilities, including food manufacturing facilities and large heavy-metal-manufacturing facilities—where they're doing the same job as a person on the union collective agreement, but, because they work for a labour hire company, they're paid much less. The government is saying that those labour hire workers can go and negotiate their own pay and conditions. They can just front up to the boss, who determines which hours they get, and say, 'Pay me the same as the union worker.' It doesn't happen. The moment workers on labour hire raise an issue, many of them are told, 'Your services are no longer required,' and they don't have access to unfair dismissal arrangements, because they're casual, because they're labour hire. They are 'transferred offsite', as it's called.

During this government's time, it has turned a blind eye to what's happening in labour hire. It isn't just happening in large manufacturing sites; it's happening in our mines. In our mines, what's happening is that some of the workers are called 'full-time equivalent'. They do the same job as a full-time worker who is working on the union collective agreement, and they wear the same uniform, but they're called a full-time equivalent because they're actually employed by a labour hire company and paid much less. In some cases it's hundreds of dollars a week less.

The government says, 'Don't get involved in the lives of individual workers; let them bargain on their own.' The moment a worker puts their hand up and says something about it, that worker is transferred offsite. This government, by not supporting this bill, is all about big business. It is not about the workers in any way whatsoever. It is not about correcting the mistakes. Yes, Labor introduced the Fair Work Act, but we acknowledge that, as time has gone on, amendments are needed. If the government were genuine about supporting workers and returning to the Fair Work Act—the original definition of what we thought labour hire was about and not this manipulation that we've seen—they would support Labor's bill.

It is happening across the Australian economy. It is happening in manufacturing. It is happening in mining. It is happening in cleaning and in security. Here at Parliament House, we have contract cleaners, outsourced many years ago. Sometimes the contractor in the contract cleaning industry will then subsubcontract. Sometimes you will meet a cleaner—not necessarily here at Parliament House but cleaning big office towers—who is so far down the line when it comes to outsourcing that they are paid almost in cash, below the award conditions. That cleaner then has to fight to get what they're entitled to. They have to individually pursue it. The problem is that, if every individual labour hire worker lodged a case with the Fair Work Commission, we would still be here in 100 years trying to clean it up.

When you have a systemic problem such as we have, widespread across the economy, with the underpaying of labour hire workers, reform is needed. That is what is in this bill. It inserts a new division 11A, 'Same job, same pay,' it defines the host in the labour hire business, and it says to all those workers who are working side by side with workers who are usually on a union collective agreement and being paid more: 'You will get paid the same. You will have the same rights and the same opportunities.' (Time expired)

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