Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I'm proud to rise and support the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, as it implements another one of the election promises that we took to the Australian people last year. The opposition say this is some sort of surprise. But this government is simply implementing our commitments, as we said we would. Those opposite should take note. This is what good governments do: they implement their policies. And it builds on the government's commitment to ensure workers get better rights and conditions, after years of neglect and of having their wages deliberately kept low.

We are building on last year's secure jobs, better pay legislation, which sought to raise the floor of Australian industry. This legislation reaches into every workplace in the country. But now it is time to close the loopholes, to make sure that no worker gets left behind and that no worker is ripped off and unprotected. This legislation, despite the song and dance from the coalition, won't affect the majority of Australian workers, but, for those who have slipped through the cracks, it will truly be life-saving.

The four major elements of the closing loopholes bill are: criminalising wage theft, introducing minimum standards for workers in the gig economy, closing the forced permanent casual worker loophole and closing the labour hire loophole. The introduction of this bill follows months of extensive consultations, including with employer groups and unions.

Other important elements of the closing loopholes bill include allowing the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for road safety in the transport industry. It is so important for our truckies. I know, from my own personal experiences of seeing them, the devastating effects that it has when truck drivers are forced to work long hours for little pay. I've been to many road accidents involving heavy vehicles where drivers were forced by unscrupulous operators to work hard for nothing—and that means that they sometimes have to skimp on maintenance, skimp on safety, or work themselves to the bone, just to try and make ends meet. Meanwhile, the owners of those freight companies are sitting in their big North Sydney offices, relaxing and enjoying a cup of tea. Emergency workers, though, are out at all hours of the night, cleaning up the mess left from the decisions that those owners made which put drivers' lives at risk.

It's also about continuing to implement the Boland review, by introducing an offence for industrial manslaughter and increasing penalties. It's ensuring better support for our first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder—something that is coming to light more and more. We do a lot with our veterans on PTSD, but a lot of our first responders go through seeing the same sorts of things that veterans see. First responders see things that you'd hope other people never get to see. And doing this is a very, very important step for their wellbeing.

It's also about expanding the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to include silica safety and silica related diseases. I've spoken to this House before about meeting with victims of silica and seeing what has happened to them, and seeing the way their lives have been devastated, just for turning up to work. And these are not always people working in the mines; these are people working in the offices. It's a terrible thing; it needs to be addressed. And it's this government that's actually going to make the changes to save people's lives.

It's also about protecting workplace protections for survivors of family and domestic violence. It's providing specific protections for delegates. It's about greater legal powers to challenge unfair contract terms and crack down on sham contracting. It's ensuring that we have better representation for safety and compliance issues in the workplace, including expanding the powers of the Fair Work Commission to permit the right of entry to investigate underpayments.

As the minister rightly said today, if it is a crime for you, as a worker, to take money out of the till in your workplace, then it should be a crime for you, as an employer, to take money out of your employees' pockets. It's something that's been happening for a long time, but it is the Albanese Labor government that is getting on with the job of fixing up the mess we were left and making sure that we look after Australian workers in workplaces. All these measures close the loopholes that have undercut secure jobs, better pay and safe workplaces.

As I said, one of the key components of this bill is closing the labour hire loophole. While labour hire has a legitimate use in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case, we are now closing the current loophole that allows companies to undercut agreements already made with their workers. We are making sure that companies stick to their word, treat their employees equally and don't try to wriggle out of taking responsibility for their own workers. It's a loophole that should be closed and closed now.

We know of the need to close these gaps because, sadly, big companies who make billions of dollars of profits are using loopholes to exploit Australian workers. Earlier this year, I, with many members of parliament, had the opportunity to listen to the stories of Qantas workers. After those workers were laid off during the pandemic, despite the company receiving millions of dollars from the former government to support workers in keeping their jobs, we heard how, despite the collective bargaining agreement which they agreed upon, Qantas then went out and started its own labour hire workforces to get around those agreements. This was done with the tick and support of the government of the day—not our government, the one before us.

Workers working the same flight could be on drastically different wage levels, with some on wage levels that aren't even up to Australian standards. They had also purposely moved operations out of the country, and this bill is going to tackle behaviour like that. Employees, unions and hosts can apply to the commission for an order that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages of the hosting enterprise agreement. Of course, exemptions apply when a host is a small-business employer, and a default three-month exemption period would also apply to avoid impacting labour hire arrangements for surge workforce and temporary replacements. Businesses will be prohibited from taking action to avoid their obligation or to prevent a commission order being made. The commission will be a low-cost and efficient forum for dispute resolution.

As I said, if a worker steals from a till, it's a criminal offence. In many parts of Australia, if a company steals from the workers pay packet it's not, and it's time to make sure that we have an equal arrangement. If you steal from your employer you get charged. If your employer steals from you, they get charged. You'd have to think that that is a pretty agreeable thing to do and to do quickly. It beggars belief that some people don't want to get on with this. They don't want to protect people who are vulnerable. It's generally those working in big companies, but a lot of time it's small companies, too, that are doing this. You should be holding to account people who do the wrong thing. Too many companies have got away with stealing wages for too long. For employers that do that, it's time for them to face the criminal penalties that come from stealing. It's something that should not be controversial.

This is a measure that makes sure people who take advantage of others and commit criminal acts are punished, just like everywhere else in the justice system. It makes sure that, just because you own a business and have a bit of money behind you, you're not walking away from the consequences of your own actions. It's something that you'd think would have been done years ago when it was first raised. But it wasn't. In fact, it took the former government years to actually acknowledge that there was a problem, with their half-hearted legislation. They supported legislation to do this, but, when it came to the Senate, they voted against their own bill. You have to sit there and ask, 'Why would you tear up your own draft laws?' Because they couldn't get the plans, at the end of the day, to cut worker's pay and conditions in other ways, they decided to send a message and a clear signal to those wage thieves: keep it up. Business owners who knowingly withhold wages should face higher penalties. The Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland criminalised wage theft because they got sick of waiting for the then federal government to act. But we need a national approach to the wage theft system to end the rip-offs.

I'm proud to stand and support this bill because of my experience in the transport industry. Truck drivers are the lifeblood of this country. Road trains are pumping goods throughout the arteries of the country, keeping our expansive continent connected. But the industry needs more support. Many of us have heard the stories, whether from the TWU or from industry itself. The government and all Labor MPs know the importance of putting better standards in place and the importance of doing this quickly. We've had many truck drivers and transport workers participating in risky practices, and that means the industry becomes unsustainable. It becomes a huge risk when transport workers' safety is on the line. In the transportation industry alone, 41 per cent of workers know a driver at work who has been killed, and one in four have been involved in a crash at work. Drivers are paying with their lives. So the bill will empower the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for a safe, sustainable and viable road transport industry. It'll give the Fair Work Commission the power to set minimum standards for the road transport industry. The commission will be able to set minimum standards for independent contractors who are regulated road transport contractors performing work under a service contract in the transport industry. It will create road transport minimum standard orders, which can cover payment terms, deductions, insurance and cost recovery. It'll do all this while also providing guardrails for the Fair Work Commission to help balance the new priorities and standards.

The bill provides for a light-touch collective-agreement-making framework that will facilitate registered organisations representing road transport contractors to agree to consent based collective agreements with road transport businesses. Contractors will be protected from unfair termination if they have been working for a road transport business under a services contract for at least 12 months. This will help ease the dangerous pressures that come down from the top of the supply chain and squeeze the transport industry in the pursuit of profits. When money is tight, drivers and operators get pressured into cutting corners. One in four are pressured by employers to drive past legal hours and skip rest breaks. This doesn't only put them at risk. It puts every single road user at risk. It's why these reforms are needed. It's why we need to have minimum safety standards and payments—because, currently, our transport industry is in crisis. It is the deadliest industry in Australia. And we need to work quickly to make sure these protections are put in place.

The last element of the bill I want to go into is something I've spoken about a lot in this House. It's about workers' safety and health. The need to extend the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to address silica related diseases is something that was brought home to me through meetings with the ACTU—sitting there with people who were under 35 and facing a very shortened life, just for the fact they'd been turning up for work each day and there had been no protection in place for them—no protection from these silica related diseases. We have to have a coordinated action, across work health and safety and health portfolios, to address the alarming rise in the number of workers developing silicosis and other silica related diseases caused just by inhaling silica dust. So, we're establishing the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency as a cross-jurisdictional governance mechanism to coordinate, monitor and report on the silica national strategic plan. This goes with other legislation we've put through this year, including the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill, which is about protecting workers across the nation, and the funding that we have committed in both funding at the start of the year and within the budget.

I said to those workers on that day that we would fight to get things done, and we have. I want to particularly pay tribute to my good friend the member for Cooper, the assistant minister, Ged Kearney, for being so willing to listen to people, to listen to our thoughts, and get on with it straightaway. There were no ifs or buts. It was about getting this fixed, and that's so important.

Just in closing, the bill, while not affecting every worker, will have changing effects for many thousands of people across a range of industries. In Victoria, 14,300 workers will be eligible for closing the labour-hire loophole element in this bill. It will bolster 194,100 Victorians who are earning less than the minimum national wage. And that's only a slice of the full effects of this legislation. I am proud to support this bill and be part of a government that takes Australian workers' rights seriously, and I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context