Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1) acknowledges the position previously taken by the House that the division of a bill in the House in which it did not originate is undesirable;

(2) without departing from this position, distinguishes this occasion on the basis that it involves the division of a Government bill in the Senate, at the initiation of the Government, setting it apart from previous occurrences;

(3) therefore concurs with this action taken by the Senate on this occasion; and

(4) agrees to the amendments made by the Senate.

We have a chance right now to close loopholes that have been undermining pay and safety in the workplace. We have an opportunity as a House right now to change the law to criminalise wage theft, to stop companies using labour hire arrangements as a way to cut pay, to change the law to ensure better support for first responders with PTSD, to change the law to protect workers subjected to family and domestic violence from discrimination at work, to change the law to expand the functions of the asbestos agency to also include people affected by silica and to close the loophole in which large businesses claim small business exemptions during insolvency as a way of avoiding redundancy payments.

We hear so many times in this House about the challenges people are facing with cost of living. There is no stronger way of acting on cost of living than to improve people's wages. There are no people with a worse wages deal than the people who are having their wages stolen. We should never forgot the 7-Eleven footage of the worker being marched across to the ATM in the corner, having to take out their pay that had just been deposited and hand half their pay to their employer, knowing full well that if they had walked around behind the counter and taken the exact same money out of the till, it would have been the worker who had committed the criminal offence. It should be against the law for a worker to steal from the employer. As of today, we should change the law so it's illegal for an employer to steal from a worker.

I want to acknowledge this is in front of us today because of good work that has happened in the Senate involving the Senate crossbench. I want to acknowledge the constructive role played by the Senate crossbench, including the Australian Greens. In particular, I acknowledge the member for Melbourne and Senator Barbara Pocock. I want to acknowledge Senator David Pocock, Senator Jacqui Lambie, Senator Tammy Tyrrell and Senator Lidia Thorpe. All these people have decided to stand on the side of working Australians.

I am proud to be part of a government that made a decision that it had been going on too long in this place that every time someone found a loophole that would undermine tax revenue, the parliament would come in with a taxation laws amendment bill to protect the revenue of government. But when a dodgy employer came up with a way to cut the revenue that is meant to go into the bank account of a worker, for too long this parliament has done nothing. Well, that should end today and that should end with this vote that will come today.

I say to those opposite: 34 times voting to keep wages down probably ought to be enough. It was only a week ago those opposite went through a series of measures in this bill and said, 'Well, if the Senate agrees, and you can do it right now, what is standing in the way?' Well, I say to those opposite: the Senate agrees we can do it right now. Don't stand in the way. Australian workers have a right to have safer workplaces and we can legislate for that right now. Australian workers have a right to know that we will close the loopholes, in particular the labour hire loophole and wage theft that have been used to hit the pay packets of Australian workers. If those opposite have any integrity when it comes to claiming that they care about issues of cost of living, step one is to give people better pay packets. We have the chance to do that today. I commend the resolution to the House.

See this speech in context