Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I don't blame the farmers for this. I don't blame the horticulturalists themselves, because, principally, they've been paying rates to labour hire firms that they had a right to believe were properly paying people. But what has been happening, the worst examples of people being underpaid that we've seen in Australia, has been in that exact industry. The Leader of the Nationals can scoff at it and say it doesn't matter, but, when people are being paid $4 an hour, it matters. When people are being paid as little as that, it needs to be fixed. When people are being paid absolutely appalling rates of pay, such that they end up fishing out of bins to get food at the back of supermarkets, yes, absolutely, we make sure that we will act on those areas. Those opposite, why don't you have one question at some point that encourages pay rises—just one. There have been plenty of questions on industrial relations but not one that has encouraged rates of pay in this country to go up.

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