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

I thank the member for Hunter for the question and acknowledge that from the moment he arrived here he's been arguing that we need to close the labour hire loophole. We're going to do that today. Today is a great day for workers across Australia. Today's legislation will make workplaces across Australia safer. Today's legislation will also stop underpayments by closing the labour hire loophole and finally making wage theft a crime. I want to thank those members of the Senate crossbench who were part of this—the Australian Greens, Senator Lambie, Senator David Pocock and Senator Lidia Thorpe. I want to acknowledge, though, that those opposite did what they have always done. Once again, when given the chance, which way do you vote on wage theft being a crime?

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