Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise today and speak on the Senate amendments to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. For the last 27 years I've been a labourer, I've been on the end of a shovel, I've driven trucks and I've worked at sea as a seafarer. Throughout the time of my professional career, I've often been at the coalface when it comes to things like wage theft, and it's a really important day when we see provisions within our industrial relations framework that criminalise wage theft.

Far too often during my time as a union official at the Transport Workers Union, I was sitting across a table from unscrupulous employers, both small and large, who had been taking calculated risks and ripping off workers. The problem you have with that is that, for a company, a few dollars doesn't make a lot of difference, but for a worker it means the difference between whether or not you have a roof over your head, the ability to pay the bills and the ability to feed your family. More importantly, it also affects your ability to retire with dignity. That's why making sure that wage theft is criminalised is so important. A vital part of our society is that, if you go and do a fair day's work, you get a fair day's pay. It's not un-Australian to expect that.

I note that both Sally McManus, the secretary of the ACTU, and Michele O'Neil, the president of the ACTU, are here in the chamber this afternoon. They are two giants of trade labour movement. They've done a lot of work for the working-class people of this country, and I commend their work on this bill.

That gets me to the next point I want to talk about, which is the same job, same pay. I know it's an issue that is very close to member for Hunter's heart as well. There have been quite a few workers from the TWU who have been affected by this, most notably the Qantas workers—the under-wing workers. They saw their enterprise agreements effectively usurped by the former head of the company, Alan Joyce, through unscrupulous practices of outsourcing through labour hire. It is vitally important that we close the loophole whereby a company can actively seek to undermine an agreement that has been negotiated in good faith, as a result of which you have multiple employees—not just one or two, but potentially four or five—working under a wing loading an aeroplane who are all being paid different rates of pay. It's absolutely outrageous that this is acceptable in 2023. That is why this bill is so important. The return of dignity in the workplace is important so you don't have workers being pitted against other workers for turning up and putting in a hard day's work.

I note the member for Wentworth made a few comments about delegates' rights earlier. I spent the best part of my time at sea—10 years in the offshore gas and oil sector—on the back deck trying to keep my work colleagues safe, and for most of that time I was a delegate. You become the conduit between the workforce and the bosses. It is vitally important that you have empowered delegates who feel like they have the ability to speak out on behalf of those who don't feel like they have a voice to ensure that they stay safe and to ensure that they have the right to be respected in their workplace. It isn't too much to ask. On the other side are the bosses, who have their own associations that represent their workers. It isn't too much for us to ask for unions to look after our workforce and it's not too much to ask for delegates to be their representatives in the workplace. That ensures an effective conduit on issues of importance.

I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to voting on it in a very short while.

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