Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an honour it is to rise today in support of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. This is a bill which will fundamentally make our economy and our workplaces fairer for Australian workers, and I want to commend the minister, his office and the public servants at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations for all their work in getting this bill together. I also want to thank the Australian Council of Trade Unions, all the unions who have been campaigning for these reforms, their delegates and organisers and the workers who have shared their stories and really created the momentum for change. It really isn't a surprise that it is a Labor government bringing forward these reforms because Labor governments are the only governments that stand up for workers in this country. It was a Labor government that fought for and achieved the eight-hour work day. It was a Labor government that introduced compulsory superannuation. It was a Labor government that brought in enterprise bargaining. It was a Labor government that legislated for paid parental leave and a Labor government that dismantled the antiworker WorkChoices reforms. It was a Labor government that established the Fair Work Commission, and it was a Labor government that abolished the Australian Building and Construction Commission—twice. It was this Labor government that implemented paid domestic violence leave. It was this Labor government that last year legislated for secure jobs and better pay. It is this Labor government that is now closing the loopholes that undermine the wages and conditions of Australian workers. We are today continuing and building on our party's proud history here in the 47th Parliament.

This bill contains four main elements. It cracks down on the labour hire loophole, it criminalises wage theft, it properly defines casual work and it makes sure that gig economy workers aren't being ripped off. All of these policies were taken to the 2022 federal election, and so our mandate to legislate this bill is very clear.

I want to raise a few examples of why this bill is so vitally important. Earlier this year I met Peter, a member of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union from Devonport in Tasmania. Peter is a forklift driver who has worked for Simplot for the past 15 years. Peter is a casual worker. Peter has been a casual worker for his entire 15 years at Simplot. In fact, almost all of Peter's coworkers are casual. But there is nothing casual about Peter's work. There is nothing casual about his colleagues' work. Peter and his colleagues are desperate for permanency. In fact, they have been fighting to be converted to permanent positions with no luck. With the support of his union, Peter and his colleagues have tried to dispute the company's violations of their agreements at the Fair Work Commission twice, but have had no success. This bill will help Peter because this bill will properly define casual work.

This government is standing up for casual workers who want to become permanent employees. When an employee works permanent, regular hours but remains casual, they miss out on job security, they miss out on long service leave, and they miss out on sick leave and annual leave. They miss out. The measures contained in this bill will help more than 850,000 casuals who are working as though they are permanent employees. Fundamentally, it is recognition that rent isn't casual, utility bills aren't casual and car registration isn't casual. All these things are certainties, and these workers deserve certainty when it comes to their income. To address the fearmongering we have heard from those opposite, the government understands that casual work does suit some people, so we aren't mandating that casuals get converted to permanency against their will, but if they want to, they should be able to convert.

As a result of this bill, casual employees will be able to seek permanent employment through two pathways. The first is through the new employee choice pathway, recognising the objective status of the employee, and it applies where their working arrangements have changed so they no longer meet the definition. This pathway is entirely employee driven and available after six months of service in a medium or large business, or 12 months in a small business. The second pathway, which is the existing pathway of casual conversion, is where large and medium employers undertake the once-off obligation to proactively assess all their casuals after 12 months service and, if they have a regular pattern of work, offer them conversion.

This bill also introduces minimum standards for employee-like workers in the gig economy. Viralkumar is a constituent of mine here in Canberra and has been a delivery driver since 2018. In that time he has logged more than 25,000 deliveries. Viralkumar works on multiple platforms, including Uber, DoorDash, Menulog, Jimmy Brings and Yello. In all of these cases he's classified as an independent contractor. Some of the platforms are better than others, but what is consistent is low pay, no entitlements and workers being ripped off. Viralkumar says that on average he gets paid around $5 per delivery. He estimates that he would complete around three deliveries per hour, so that's about $15 an hour. There's no extra pay for waiting at the restaurant for an order to be completed. There's no extra pay for finding a car park. There's no extra pay for being stuck in traffic. There's no extra pay for working on public holidays. There's no extra pay for working through the night or for taking long shifts. Five dollars. No superannuation, no leave, no entitlements—$5. No money for fuel, for registration or for any other vehicle expenses—$5.

Viralkumar says app ratings hang over his head like a threat and gave the example of a time when he picked up an order for someone named Sara. Halfway to Sara's house, he got a call from the restaurant saying that they gave him the wrong Sara's order. So he turned around, went back and swapped the order for the correct one. The restaurant then gave him a negative rating, even though the mix-up was their mistake. He called the restaurant, who at first denied that they had done this. Then they admitted that they had but couldn't reverse the rating. Viralkumar called the platform, who advised him that it was an automated system and that there was nothing they could do but not to worry because, after 100 positive reviews, that negative one would disappear! The consequences of these mistakes can be serious for delivery drivers, including removal from the platform.

Viralkumar also spoke of how on one platform he was mysteriously deactivated, seemingly for no reason at all. When he tried to get through to the platform, they gave him no assistance or reason for the deactivation. It wasn't until he spoke his union organiser, Jack, at the Transport Workers Union, that he was able to start delivering again. Viralkumar's is the story of gig workers all around this country. For too long, they have been allowed to be exploited. For too long under the former government, this parliament was frozen in inaction as this new industry took off in a way which left workers as collateral damage.

This bill allows the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for workers like Viralkumar. Minimum standards orders can include things like payment terms, deductions, insurance and cost-recovery. The bill also introduces new protections for these workers from unfair deactivation if they've been working for a digital platform for more than six months. It is time those in the gig economy are given the protections they deserve.

This bill closes the labour hire loopholes that have allowed companies to undercut the pay and conditions they have agreed to with their workers. ABS statistics show that growth in labour hire jobs is now outpacing employment growth by a large margin. At least 600,000 people, or around 3½ to 4½ per cent of the workforce, are employed through labour hire. About 84 per cent of labour hire workers don't have access to paid leave entitlements. Labour hire workers earn on average about $4,700 a year less than ordinarily employed workers. Labour hire workers often earn even less than their directly employed colleagues at the same worksite. For example, mining workers earn up to 30 per cent less than their colleagues due to being employed through labour hire. What has become clear over the past few years is that this is a practice of outsourcing as undercutting, avoidance of obligations by design.

One of the worst examples we've seen recently is that of Qantas. Research from the ACTU mapped the extensive use of labour hire companies by Qantas to drive down wages. Qantas has split its cabin crew workforce across 14 labour hire companies. In fact, no cabin crew on Qantas aircraft have been hired directly by the airline since 2008. Some of these labour hire cabin crew are earning half the rate of their colleagues at the same job. In fact, on some domestic Qantas flights you can see five different rates of pay on the same plane. The mind boggles. They miss out on penalty rates and job security and sometimes have only two hours notice before their next shift. This year Qantas posted billions of dollars in profits, so it can only be described as the worst kind of greed that this once-great Australian business is treating the people that keep its planes in the sky the way that it does.

This bill will make sure that these practices cannot continue as they have. It will give the Fair Work Commission the power to make orders that labour hire employees are paid at least the wages in the host employer's already established enterprise agreement. Employees and unions can apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to that effect. The commission is not required to make an order if it is not fair and reasonable in the circumstances. Businesses will be prohibited from taking action to avoid their obligations or prevent a commission order from being made.

This bill also criminalises wage theft. It is inconceivable to me that this is not yet a crime. If a worker steals from the till they have broken the law. That's fair. That's the law. But it cannot and should not be the case that the opposite is okay. When we see the egregious examples at places like 7-Eleven, where employees were marched across the road to an ATM and forced to hand back their wages, we know there is a problem. Employers who intentionally steal their employees' wages should face criminal penalties, and now employers who engage in these practices will. It will be a crime to steal your employees' wages, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and hefty fines.

This bill is transformative. It will make our industrial relations framework fairer. It is important that this bill passes the parliament. Those opposite will moan about unions and whine about processes, but just remember what they're really worried about. They're really concerned about workers getting a fair go. They're really concerned that workers are going to get a pay rise. They're concerned that workers' conditions will improve, because they're a party that deliberately kept wages low. As the minister has said, I would encourage anyone who supports this to actually come into this place and defend these loopholes, explain why they should remain and explain why these things, which lead to the mistreatment of Australian workers, should continue in our system. Those opposite are not on the side of workers, and they never will be. But this government is on your side. I commend this bill to the House.

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