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

Some of those opposite, in particular, might not be aware of just how unfair the labour hire loophole is, and so I want to repeat an account given by the member for Hunter himself from when he worked in the coal industry. There were five workers in a car, and he was one of them—I don't know how you got five people in the car when he was one of them—and the five of them would drive to work together. All five were doing the same job. All five were on the same roster. Three of them were directly employed, and the other two were labour hire. The difference in wages for those people with the same qualification on the same shift was, each year, a total of $30,000. Simply because there was technically a different employer, miners were earning $30,000 a year less.

Imagine if some of the companies that have been responsible for this behaviour had spent a little bit less on advertising and a little bit more on paying their workers. But, when it was simply asked of them why they were using this way of underpaying staff, the answer was, 'Well, it's legal.' Well, it's not going to be legal anymore. It's not going to be legal anymore, and, after question time today, the message will come back to this House and the final part of the passage of this legislation will be before us. So far, this term alone, when it's come to the passage of legislation, those opposite have voted 34 times to keep wages low. The final chance will come this afternoon to vote on whether or not they believe wage theft should be a crime and whether or not it's time to close the loopholes that see workers underpaid.

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