Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw that comment. You misled them at the last election, and that is why they voted for a change of government.

There are four major elements to this bill. Firstly, it's criminalising wage theft. I don't know how you can disagree with that. Criminalising people being stolen from—if you think that reforming that and making that a crime is not a good thing, then blow me away. Secondly, it's introducing minimum standards for workers in the gig economy, which is long overdue—safety standards for gig economy workers and a minimum decent income. It's a funny thing that, in many respects, the people that have been delivering us food through online platforms can't afford to feed themselves, with the wages that they're on. And you think that that's okay. Thirdly, it's closing the forced permanent casual worker loophole. Again, that's another long overdue reform. Lastly, it's closing the labour hire loophole.

We announced these policies 2½ years ago. They haven't come out of the blue, as some would like to claim. They haven't been cooked up in the last six months. They're 2½ years old. Everybody knew that we took these policies to the last election, employer groups included. And the Australian people voted for them. We've got a mandate to deliver them, and that's what we're doing. The introduction of this bill follows months of extensive consultations, including with employer and union groups, and it's clear that these are distinctly Australian reforms, reflecting that fair go that I mentioned earlier.

Alan Fels, former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, has pointed out that wage theft makes it hard for compliant employers to compete and do the right thing. Why should an employer that does the right thing, meets all their obligations, pays their award wages and does the right thing by their employees be disadvantaged when some fly-by-nighter seeks to undercut them and undertake wage theft? And you guys think that that's okay. That's hardly supporting small businesses that are struggling to make ends meet if they're doing the right thing.

It also affects government revenue if people are employing people off the books and avoiding paying payroll tax. So business owners who knowingly—and that's the key point; you need to do it deliberately—withhold wages, should face consequences. I think the Australian people think that that's fair and that's what they expect. If somebody is deliberately breaking the law, they should face the consequences. We must also ensure that our laws don't water down any wage theft laws that have already been put in place by the states. That is what this reform will ensure. So these reforms deliver on that commitment to criminalise wage theft.

The other important part of this reform is 'same job, same pay'. It's the very simple principle that, if you are working side by side with someone that is doing the same work as you, working on the same shift, you should both be paid the same amount of money. If you want a notion of the fair go, that is it. It has become an unfortunate feature of many industries in Australia that employers seek to undercut either award or enterprise bargaining wages and conditions that have been negotiated in good faith between an employer and their employees by using labour hire. It's been particularly prevalent in the resources sector. A number of miners in the lead-up to the election said: 'We've had enough. It's not fair that I'm working on the same shift and doing the same hours as someone who works beside me, doing the same job, and they are paid a different rate of pay.' They might be driving a truck, operating an excavator or doing detonations—all sorts of jobs—and they are paid a different rate of pay. Why? Because the employer uses a loophole in the law to say: 'We can use a labour hire contractor that will employ that person independently of us on different wages and conditions.' They may not have permanency. They can be sacked with a day's notice and can't complain about it. Is it any wonder miners and other workers said, 'We've had enough of that and we want that changed'? That's what this law does. It restores that dignity and respect for Australian workers by making sure that all of them get access to the same wages and conditions when they work in the same job.

Closing labour hire loopholes will simply require an employer to pay the rate that has already been negotiated and agreed to. There is nothing revolutionary about that. The employer has negotiated a set of wages and conditions through an enterprise bargaining agreement with its employees or they have an award that has been verified by the Fair Work Commission. They have to pay those wages and meet those conditions. What's wrong with that? I think most Australians would say: 'Isn't that already the law? Surely you shouldn't be able to contract out of that?' But that's what was happening. This will ensure that that can't occur. Our employee-like reforms simply require workers to have some minimum standards that are benchmarked against existing award rates when they are working in a way which is similar to employees.

This goes to the issue of gig-economy workers. We have seen an influx of technology and platforms that have allowed people to engage in employment for income and bypass some of the minimum conditions that define an employment relationship and relate to that equality and the fair go that I mentioned earlier. It's resulted in some disastrous consequences where people working in ride-sharing capacities and the like have been killed because the traditional safety standards and other laws didn't apply.

Our government will extend the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include employee-like forms of work, allowing it to better protect people in new forms of work from exploitation and dangerous working conditions. This change will allow the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards for new forms of work, such as gig work. We are not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees. A whole lot of gig workers would like the flexibility to keep using this technology, and that won't change under our laws.

We will simply make sure we reflect 21st-century technology with 21st-century laws that define equality. They're the major areas: gig economy workers getting a fair go; same job, same pay; and criminalising wage theft. There is nothing revolutionary about these reforms.

Debate interrupted.

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