Alison Byrnes (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. At the last election I, like all of my Labor colleagues, made a promise to the Australian community to end the decades of stagnation under the coalition and to get wages moving. To do this, we need to close the loopholes that are undermining wages and conditions in our employment system. That's what this set of workplace relations reform is all about. I have listened to the contributions of those opposite, and, despite the rhetoric we have heard, the bill before us is not making radical changes. All we are doing is making the current system work more effectively. Australia already has a strong workplace relations framework, but by closing the loopholes we are making it stronger and better.

As many speakers before me have outlined, the bill contains four main elements: cracking down on the labour hire loopholes that are used to undercut pay and conditions, criminalising wage theft, properly defining casual work so casuals aren't being exploited and making sure gig workers aren't being ripped off. This approach should not come as a surprise to anyone, as we announced all four of these policies while in opposition, more than two years ago. And I talked about them with my community in the lead-up to the 2022 election. The government has undertaken extensive consultation on the precise design of these measures, including with business groups. This has included written submissions, consultation papers and numerous consultation meetings with a range of stakeholders, including business groups, employers, small-business representatives, unions, academics, state and territory governments, and the rest of our society and community.

Given all of this, I am quite surprised by the comments that have come from those opposite, but I'm not sure the members have actually understood the scale and the impact of the problem that this bill is seeking to address. I can speak to the scale and impact of the problem that we face and the impact that it has had on my local community in the Illawarra. We heard from those opposite last week that this bill will see the cost of living rise. I can say to those opposite that people in casual and insecure work in my community know all too well the impact that these employment arrangements are having on their ability to make ends meet. Rent isn't casual; electricity bills aren't casual; school fees aren't casual—they're all a certainty. But these people in insecure work do not have the same certainty about their hours or their income.

Like those in many parts of Australia, workers in my community have struggled with casualisation and wage theft and with businesses who have chosen not to play by the rules. Thankfully for my region, we have the support of the South Coast Labour Council. The labour council is the peak union body on the South Coast of New South Wales and covers the area from Helensburgh in the north of my electorate all the way to the Victorian border and across to the Southern Highlands and adjoining tablelands in the west. The council represents 25 affiliates across all industries and sectors, and a unionised membership of almost 50,000 workers. Advocating for working people and their rights at work is a principal role of the council.

I must make a special mention of the labour council's President, Tina Smith, and hard-working secretary, Arthur Rorris. Under their leadership, the labour council has been leading the fight against wage theft and worker exploitation in this country. While some of those opposite might find the anecdotes and stories of worker exploitation a shocking revelation, for Tina and Arthur this has been their daily life for decades. They have supported workers who, unfortunately, have been exploited in our community and have not had the know-how or funds to seek justice. Both Arthur and Tina are in this for the long haul. They will not give up until exploited workers get back what is rightfully theirs.

In June this year, the Federal Court made a final decision on costs for Wollongong restaurant workers Midhun Basi and Syed Haider, who, with the support of the labour council, took their former employer to court, after what the judge later found to be a series of egregious and flagrant contraventions of the Fair Work Act. In awarding total costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, Justice Halley said that the calculation went beyond the facts of this case. The Illawarra Mercury reported on 22 June that Justice Halley said: 'I am satisfied that, in light of the factors considered below, it is necessary for substantial penalties to be imposed in order to deter the respondents and other employers, particularly in the restaurant industry, from engaging in similar conduct in the future.' This conduct included seeking payments from the employees to cover the business's tax obligations and to cover visa sponsorship costs; and cashback arrangements, for what the employer said were loans but which were never substantiated in legal proceedings. The labour council said at the time said that this was the biggest case of wage theft relating to individual workers in our history. It has raised profoundly disturbing issues about the employment of international visa based workers and how that power imbalance can have shocking outcomes.

This is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident in my community. I want to take a moment to briefly introduce to the chamber the experience of Ashleigh Mounser. Ashleigh was an enrolled student at the University of Wollongong, and, like many students, she was struggling to balance paying the bills and making the most of her studies while working in hospitality businesses. Fed up with the unreliable conditions and with being paid only $10 an hour, Ashleigh posted about her experience on a university chat group, and the response from her fellow students with similar experiences was overwhelming. Armed with this information, Ashleigh decided to compile a list of employers in Wollongong, with the firsthand accounts and contact details of their employees, their hourly rates of pay and cash-in-hand payments. It read like a yellow pages of exploitation. With this census of underpayment, Ashleigh and her fellow students felt it was time to tell their story, with Fairfax media publishing their experiences in 2016.

Now, it might come as a shock to those opposite that these students were not members of a union and that they were not being advised or coached. They knew something was wrong, they knew that they were being taken advantage of, and they knew that there were only a limited number of options open to them to expose this power imbalance and this exploitation of young Australians who only wanted to study, work safely and be paid fairly.

Ashley's yellow pages of exploitation made for some horror reading, with 60 businesses reported by workers, 45 of which are located within a two-kilometre strip of the Wollongong CBD. The mean age of workers was 21; the range was 18 to 32. The average hourly rate of pay was $12.50; the range was $7.50 to $20, and the most common rate of pay was $10 an hour. At least 50 businesses on the list either have been reported or are strongly suspected as paying cash in hand, with a lack of payslips and group certificates being a key indicator.

These numbers are simply unacceptable. No Australian worker should leave home every day seeking to earn a living and instead have their labour not only short-changed but exploited. Nor should businesses who follow the law be forced to compete with businesses who choose to flout it. I think those opposite need to explain to these workers in my community why we should not reform this system, close the loopholes and seek to do all we can to prevent the exploitation that has happened to them also happening to other young people. Those opposite might also want to think of their response to the estimated 236,900 workers in my home state of New South Wales who are stuck as casuals when they actually work permanent, regular hours or to the estimated 231,700 digital platform workers in New South Wales who are expected to be eligible for minimum standards and increased access to dispute resolution for independent contractors.

When it comes to independent contractors, this bill supports more than workers in the gig economy. Of the 3,500 workers in the South Coast coal industry, almost half are labour hire contractors, who are commonly paid tens of thousands of dollars less than permanent employees doing the same job. The legislation in the form that we see it today is because of the hard work and advocacy of unions and unionists, like Mining and Energy Union south-western district secretary Andy Davey, who has for years campaigned for mineworkers in my community for provisions to stop the widespread misuse of labour hire in the coal industry to cut wages. He said:

The Closing Loopholes Bill is a light at the end of the tunnel for mineworkers who have been battling this unfair employment model for years.

The Illawarra is an industrial region, and the workers of the Illawarra understand all too well industrial workplace hazards that need to be managed and eliminated in our industrial processes. We can and must do more to reduce the number of workers developing silicosis and other diseases caused by the inhalation of silica dust. This bill includes provisions for the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to report annually to relevant work health and safety, health and environment ministers on the progress of the Asbestos National Strategic Plan and Silica National Strategic Plan. It will also expand the membership of the agency's council to include appropriate representation of employees and employers and an expert in asbestos or silica related matters.

I have also engaged closely with transport workers in my community and their union, the Transport Workers Union, and its local leadership under Robert Pirc. In this speech, Rob wanted me to reiterate just how much consultation has gone into this legislation. Rob said:

A year ago, a roundtable convened by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke comprised of supply chain clients Coles and Woolworths, major transport operators Toll, Team Global Express, Linfox, gig companies Uber and DoorDash, employer associations, workers and academics provided a shared set of principles on reform to set fair, safe and sustainable standards in transport.

He goes on to say:

The Road Transport industry is united in its support of the 'Closing the Loopholes' legislation and particularly, those live-saving reforms which will ensure a safe, sustainable and viable road transport industry.

Every Australian deserves to go home from work healthy and unharmed. This can only be achieved when we have employers, workers and industry experts working in collaboration.

Before concluding, I must acknowledge the many businesses across Australia and in my community who pay their workers well and comply with the Fair Work Act. They are businesses that understand that, if you want to boost productivity, you need to do this by investing in your people and technology, not by making people work harder and longer for less. Unfortunately, not all businesses have chosen to follow the rules, so we need an employment framework that acts as a safety net for everyone and doesn't have loopholes or backdoors to sneak out of. As legislators we must protect the most vulnerable workers in our society. These laws will strengthen the current workplace relations framework and provide certainty, fairness and a level playing field for both businesses and workers.

Debate adjourned.

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