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

I thank the member for Cunningham for the question—someone who is working for Australia to make sure that people are paid better. Senator Cash said, when this debate started: 'If it's all about closing a loophole, close the loophole. Show us first where the loophole is and then close the loophole.' That's exactly what the legislation that's being introduced in the parliament does.

At the moment there's a loophole where gig economy workers have no guaranteed minimum standards at all—none. There's a loophole at the moment where an enterprise agreement can be completely undercut through the use of labour hire. There's a loophole at the moment where, if you steal from the employer, it's a criminal offence —as it should be—but, if the employer steals from the worker, it's not a criminal offence. There's a loophole at the moment where you can be employed as a casual but working identically to a permanent worker, and you don't have the right to switch from one to the other, if that's what you want. They're the loopholes, and they're exactly what we're proposing to close with this legislation.

But there are three things that you do when you don't want to deal with the issue at hand: firstly, you blame consultation; secondly, you try to talk about an issue that's not, in fact, in front of you; and thirdly, you talk about delay. Those opposite have taken delay to an entirely new level now. Yesterday we had a vote that this debate be delayed until 16 October. This morning we had a vote that the debate be delayed till February. Who knows by next week what the new end date will be? They will be going out to 2030 or 2050, to delay it as long as they can because, as long as people are being underpaid, they are happy. It's a deliberate design feature of how they want to run an Australian economy. So I say to those—

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