Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the opposition amendment to the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2014, as circulated under my name:

(1) Schedule 2, page 28 (after line 15), after item 58, insert:

58A Guidelines

The amendments to section 65 of the FMA Act made by this Schedule do not affect the continuity of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines 2012, as in force immediately before the commencement time.

As I said earlier in my contribution to the debate on these bills, the opposition has grave concerns about the impact of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines and their potential impact upon cleaners' rates of pay going forward. In this place we had the Prime Minister, when questions were put to him on this matter during question time, give an unqualified guarantee that cleaners who work under Commonwealth contracts would not lose any payment or suffer any loss to or reductions of their hourly rate of pay. If this amendment is not supported by the government, those unqualified statements will be found to be untrue. The only issue is whether the Prime Minister intentionally misled this parliament by answering as he did the questions asked of him about the impact on cleaners under Commonwealth contracts.

As the member for Watson and the member for Bendigo have said in this debate, the repeal of this guideline will mean that, when future contracts are tendered, those tendering will be able—if they are successful—to reduce the rates of pay for cleaners under that contract by almost $5 an hour. That is what would happen to cleaners as a result of the provision contained within this bill. For that reason, and so that we can ensure that the Prime Minister did not mislead this place in question time when asked about this matter, we would expect the government to support this amendment. Clearly, if the Prime Minister and his government have no intention to cut that hourly rate upon the tendering of Commonwealth contracts to do with cleaning, then the government and the Prime Minister will support what we are putting in this amendment.

The contrary of course is also the case. If the government vote down or seek to oppose this amendment in this place when it is put, then clearly the intention of the government is utterly opposite to the commitment and guarantee the Prime Minister gave at the dispatch box a little while ago, a few weeks ago, when cleaners that are actually under those contracts were in the gallery. He would have effectively lied to their faces. So the government have to consider whether they want to make a liar of the Prime Minister or whether in fact they support the opposition and remove the provision that will expose cleaners on Commonwealth contracts. That is what we are now debating—whether you can trust the Prime Minister when he makes a commitment in this place when asked a question in question time.

We already know that there is a litany of broken promises insofar as what the Prime Minister said before the election and what he has done after the election—it is writ large in the budget—but here is a simple provision, the effect of which has a dire impact upon the conditions of employment for low-paid workers in this country. He has an opportunity, as does this government, to make clear that they have no intention to cut the rates of hardworking Australians under Commonwealth contracts. As the member for Bendigo said, the Prime Minister wants to argue for his Paid Parental Leave as ensuring that private sector employees receive conditions of employment commensurate with those of public sector employees. And yet with this stroke of a pen on this provision the government will be cutting conditions of employment for those who perform public contracts on behalf of the Commonwealth. That is now the question that is before us. There is an opportunity here for the government to make sure they do not make a liar of the Prime Minister, voting up this amendment and ensuring that that guideline is not repealed. I ask the government to entertain that view.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are back on irony again today. We have a government making amendments to a bill called the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Bill 2014, and they are doing it by introducing it yesterday at 4:30 and giving it one hour of debate today before they gag it. It is supposed to be about public governance, performance and accountability, and what we are seeing here is a government that does not want scrutiny or transparency in any way. That meant, if we have an hour of debate, that the debates by the members of the government today were very important because they were the first real opportunity that the public of Australia, public servants and many members on this side get to understand what is actually in this bill.

They did not have many speakers—I think they had one—but they also spent their time not talking about the bill but talking about us. One person spoke on this and he spent the whole time talking about us rather than this bill, so it is very difficult to get a sense of the detail in this bill. We had the member for Bowman saying we were making a fuss about nothing and it was just cross-referencing, minor amendments, nothing serious, basically our bill, really nothing to worry about, nothing to see here. Then we had the minister saying our bill was a disaster and they had to put the flesh on the bones, which means they had to fill it up and change it. So which of those is true and what those changes are we have had since 4:30 yesterday afternoon to get our heads around and one hour to debate today. Basically, the government is forcing through a bill that has not been scrutinised and by the words of the minister should be because they have added considerable flesh to the bones.

We on this side do know of one major change in this bill compared to the original bill last year, and it is one that I am not surprised the government does not want to talk about. In fact, the Prime Minister in the House last week denied that there would be serious changes attached to the abolition of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, but this bill abolishes protections for cleaners who work in government departments. That is quite a savage change. For the benefit of the member for Bowman: I would not call that cross-referencing. You cannot call abolishing protections for cleaners something as simple as 'cross-references' and get away with that. Nor would I call it flesh on the bones. In fact, for the cleaners it is probably more like flesh off the bone. In fact, we know that cleaners stand to lose $344 a week because of this government's decision—a cut from the Clean Start rate of $22.02 to the award rate of $17.49. It is a really quite savage act hidden in what is a very large bill pushed through this parliament without the opportunity for any real scrutiny.

Like much of the government's budget, it will hit the lowest paid workers in Australia. This hit to cleaners, who we already know are Australia's lowest paid workers, is being pushed through under the guise of removing red tape and shows just how ideologically driven this government actually is. We know that this government is not really willing or happy to talk about their budget very much, so it is again not surprising that they have not mentioned this at all in any of the speeches that were made today.

Last Monday we heard the Prime Minister stand at the despatch box and say that there would be no cuts to cleaners' pay. He said:

I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that no cleaner's pay is reduced.

He went on:

This government has not reduced the pay of any cleaner full stop, end of story. This government has not reduced the pay of any cleaner.

He might be able to get away with that because he said it on Monday, but this bill that the government is pushing through today without appropriate scrutiny does exactly that. It is a savage attack on some of the lowest paid workers, and we have moved amendments to the bill in the consideration in detail stage to ensure that these changes can be debated in a reasonable way.

If the government wants to make the story of this government about a lack of transparency and arrogance then this is the way to do it—to introduce at 4:30 one afternoon a bill that has things hidden in it that they are not prepared to concede: nasty cuts to some of the lowest paid workers. Hide it in a bill, introduce it at 4:30 in the afternoon, gag debate, give it an hour the next day and then fail to mention it. Hope no-one notices. 'Maybe no-one will notice.' Well they will. The cleaners of Australia who suddenly find themselves over $300 a week worse off are going to notice, and they will remember this day when you pushed it through without appropriate scrutiny. (Time expired)

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The context in which we are debating this bill is a context in which inequality has been rising for a generation. Since 1975 earnings in the top 10 per cent have gone up 59 per cent after inflation. Earnings in the bottom 10 per cent have gone up 15 per cent after inflation. So we have had a generation in which earnings have risen three times faster for financial dealers and anaesthetists than they have for checkout workers and cleaners. To put it another way: if cleaners had enjoyed the same wage growth over the last generation as people in the top of the earnings distribution, they would be $14,000 a year better off.

And so it was in that environment that Labor put in place the Clean Start agreements. This was an approach, very much in the spirit of living wage cases in the United States, in which the government said we thought it was reasonable for those who clean Commonwealth offices to be paid a reasonable rate of pay. That is not a rate of pay that would be regarded as overly generous right through the labour force. What we said was that cleaners would be paid a Clean Start rate of $22.02 an hour, above the award rate of $17.49 an hour. But the government has decided to backtrack on that. After a generation of rising inequality, as part of their so-called 'red tape repeal day' they tried to sneak in this repeal of the Clean Start agreement.

Red tape repeal day would have been nothing but the removal of the hyphen from the word 'e-mail' and changing 'fax' to 'facsimile', or the other way around—I can never remember which way we changed it. That is all it would have been but the three big things the government has slipped into it. First of all they announced the removal of financial protections from pensioners—great for bankers at the top of the distribution; not so good for those like the victims of Trio, Storm and Timbercorp. They have pressed the pause button for the time being on their FoFA changes, but if they go ahead with them they will hurt the most vulnerable. Then they put in the repeal of the Charities Commission, a body supported by four out of five charities and by the vast majority of Australian donors, who get protection from an agency that is there to look after their interests. Then there was the removal of this Clean Start agreement. As a members for Bendigo and Gorton have so articulately pointed out, as the member for Parramatta highlighted, this is a mean and a tricky deal. As a result of the removal of this protection cleaners stand to lose up to $344 a week, nearly $5 an hour being lost from cleaners' pay as a result of the cessation of the Clean Start agreement.

The Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box opposite with cleaners in the gallery and he said, 'No cleaner's pay is reduced.' What he meant by that was that it wasn't going to be his fault if, after the expiry of the Clean Start agreement, another tenderer was to come forward and instead of paying the Clean Start rate of $22.02 was to pay the award rate of $17.49. He would wash his hands of that dirty deal that would affect cleaners. But he knew full well as he said those words that those words were a mistruth at best—that cleaners would lose $5 an hour, because when you open it up to the market, how is a tenderer who pays the Clean Start rate of $22.02 an hour going to compete against someone who undercuts them paying $17.49 an hour? The Prime Minister will knew full well the practical effect of ripping away this protection from cleaners would be that cleaners' pay would be reduced.

That is the great failure of this government—the failure of imagination; the inability to put themselves, with their salaries that place them comfortably in the top one per cent of the earnings distribution, in the shoes of cleaners, whose salaries place them in the bottom 10 per cent of the income distribution. Five dollars an hour probably isn't much on the government benches—or, let's be honest, for anyone with the privilege to serve in this House—but $5 an hour for a cleaner is the difference between being able to pay for a school excursion for your kids, being able to get a new set of tyres on the car, being able to make ends meet when there is a health emergency. This is a mean and tricky deal which will hurt some of the most vulnerable in the Australian community.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise in this section of the debate to ask a few questions and to speak in favour the amendment being moved. My questions to the parliamentary secretary quite simply go to the heart of what we are debating right now: does the parliamentary secretary think that it is fair that cleaners working in government buildings should take a pay cut? Does the government agree with the Prime Minister's statement before the House that:

I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that no cleaner's pay is reduced.

If he agrees with that statement, what guarantees will the government put in place to ensure that cleaners' pay is not cut if this bill is approved today? Will the government ensure that cleaning contractors will compete on quality and not on price that could see cleaners face a pay cut of $340 a week?

My next question to the parliamentary secretary is: why is the government prioritising a $50,000 per year Paid Parental Leave scheme for some of our highest paid workers instead of prioritising the pay and conditions of the lowest paid workers—the cleaners? Further, if the government is so concerned about pay parity between private sector and public sector workers, why is it not doing more to support and ensure that cleaners' pay in government buildings continues to be at a pay parity rate with cleaners working in the private sector?

We have heard that this bill is being rushed through. There has been a gag motion placed to stop the opposition being able to ask these questions, to have the proper scrutiny in relation to many measures outlined in this very large bill today. The one that we have highlighted is that buried in this bill is an attack on cleaners' wages. These cleaners are some of our lowest paid workers in in our community and this government seeks through this measure to ensure that their wages could be cut by as much as $5 an hour. The government, by passing this bill, will either demonstrate that the Prime Minister has lied in this chamber, does not understand how contracting works or is simply behind the times when it comes to what his government is doing. It is not fair to stand up and say, with cleaners in the gallery, that their pay will not reduce and then a few weeks later introduce a bill that seeks to do exactly that. Contracting, by its nature, as we have seen, if you are competing against companies that pay the award, it will go to the lowest price; it will not go to the quality with cleaners.

So my questions to the government go to the heart of contracting. Are they going to stand by and watch cleaning companies competing on the award undercut cleaning companies currently paying the Clean Start rate, currently paying in accordance with the cleaning guidelines that this government seeks to abolish? This is purely and simply about fairness. This is about making sure that some of our lowest paid people working in the Commonwealth sector continue to see decent rates of pay—that they have pay parity with people working in other office environments, cleaning in other offices for other major corporates and businesses in our CBD and in Canberra. It is not fair for somebody cleaning a government department to be paid $5 an hour less than someone cleaning BHP head office. It is the same work. Yet what we have seen from this government in this bill— (Time expired)

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be agreed to.