Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Many businesses need the flexibility of casual workers, especially small businesses. In fact, many employees need the flexibility of being casual. Musicians and artists, students, mums, carers, microbusinesses and a whole lot of other workers don't always want to be locked into a permanent part-time roster. They want the ability to pick up more shifts when their commitments allow or to move between a couple of employers when there is demand.

But there are other casual workers who are only casual because they haven't been able to move into permanent employment, even though they might have been working the same shifts for many years. There are about 850,000 casual employees with regular working arrangements. They don't have access to leave entitlements and are, in fact, in a much less stable situation than permanent workers, with job insecurity hovering constantly. It's hard to make financial plans. They're twice as likely to expect to lose their job for involuntary reasons. They're also more likely to be underemployed, and they're more likely to be female. Fifty-three per cent of all casual employees are female, and 23.7 per cent of female employees are casual.

We're committed to standing up for casual workers who want to become permanent employees. What we're doing is saying that, if a worker's pattern of work is no longer casual, they should have the choice to move to permanent employment and gain the benefits of secure employment. It won't be something that everyone who's in that situation actually wants to do. It means being paid a lower hourly rate in return for access to sick leave, holiday pay and other entitlements.

I think there are a couple of things to clarify here. Casual workers already have some of the same entitlements as permanent part-time or full-time workers. For instance, under the superannuation guarantee legislation, all employers must already pay a minimum of 11 per cent super for all eligible staff, whether they're full time, part time or casual. This legislation ensures that working Australians are guaranteed to have some level of retirement savings, and we were very pleased to make that change. The 10 days domestic and family violence leave that's come into effect this year is payable to all workers, whether they are casual or permanent.

These are things that we have already implemented to provide greater security for casual workers. But we're also going to close a loophole in the Fair Work Act that's being exploited by some employers. Currently, the definition of casual is based only on the original offer of employment made to that employee. It doesn't take into account any subsequent changes that might have occurred, or what is known as the 'subsequent conduct of the parties'. So even if people are now working regular and predictable hours, they're still treated as the casuals they were when they were first hired. They're being used as permanent workers without the security of permanent work because of what's written in their employment contract.

The former government compounded this problem by legislating an unreasonable definition for casuals, and that has now been in effect for two years. It basically disregards whether or not a casual worker was objectively working in a permanent job. We're going to seek to change that and introduce a fair and objective definition of casual to provide a clear pathway to permanent work. That is, a casual employment will be determined by considering whether there's any firm advance commitment to work. But this concept has to be understood by reference to the total employment situation. And there will be clear processes for changing employment status from casual to permanent which will be at the employee's discretion. When a boss expects someone to work guaranteed hours as though they were an permanent employee, the worker will have the option to say, 'I would rather be a permanent worker'.

For the vast majority of casuals, nothing changes: no forced conversion and no giving up the casual loading. There's no net cost to business: employers pay a loading if someone is casual and they pay a leave entitlement if someone is permanent. They don't pay both to the same person. Most people will sort this out at the workplace level, but we'll ensure that Fair Work can arbitrate binding decisions where necessary.

We don't expect a large number of casuals will choose to be permanent, but there are people for whom a conversion to permanent would be life changing. It may appeal more to older workers, or to workers supporting a family, than it will to students, for instance. It's a fair approach, and it's another step to increasing security for workers.

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