Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I want to turn to a couple of other aspects of the 30-plus pages of amendments—36 pages of amendments, with nine separate sets of amendments which the government made available around midday today and then brought on this debate less than six hours later. Of course, it's under a guillotine which involves a cap of 20 minutes for the consideration-in-detail phase, which is, frankly, making a mockery of the processes of this parliament and showing this minister's, and this government's, contempt for the parliament and contempt for the Australian people.

One of the areas where there has been very significant concern across the economy is the impact of the minister's bill in relation to service contractors because, across the economy, there are many large and small companies that provide services under contract to other businesses. They might be a company like Downer EDI, to take one example, but there are many. I know, from my own time in the telecommunications sector, there are many service contractors who provide particular services to telcos such as Telstra, Optus or TPG. They might be services in relation to the rollout of a network.

The problem with the clumsy and expansive drafting that the government has used is that service contractors are facing the very real risk that they will get caught by these provisions, such that, while they're not, in fact, labour hire contractors at all, they could find themselves in the position that their employees are suddenly employed automatically under the same terms as those used by the company to which they are providing a contract. Minister, you've told media outlets that 'service contractors were completely exempted'. I want to ask this specific question: even with the amendments that you have brought in today, would those firms still be required to prove that they are not labour hire firms? Is there a process that is required? I ask the minister to enlighten Australians on that, which is one of many areas which are deeply murky.

I also want to come to the question of the gig economy because, again, we heard smooth assurances in this minister's best honeyed tones just a few minutes ago which should put any rational person on notice that he's doing something deeply dodgy. In the immortal words of President Reagan—

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