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

I rise today to talk about the response by cleaners to the actions of this government. This morning I had the privilege to speak to cleaners, and indeed to others, about the outrageous actions by the government to cut the wages and conditions of those cleaners. It is important, I think, in this grievance debate to outline the history as to how we have come to this point. This indeed has some history. It is important, when we are looking at issues like this, to really understand that in politics the best thing to do if you are trying to judge someone's character is to look at their deeds, not their words. If you want an indication of the character of a government, look at how it treats its own. The case in point that I would like to raise tonight is the reprehensible conduct by the government in relation to cleaners that are employed under Commonwealth contracts.

Almost a year ago in the House of Representatives the Prime Minister responded to a question of the opposition by saying that no cleaners wages were cut as a result of the abolition of the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines. The Prime Minister, in response to a question by the opposition, made it clear, and I think impressed upon the listeners, that there was no intention and, indeed, there were no consequences as a result of the abolition of those provisions. So I guess it came as a shock not only to cleaners but also others to see subsequently, once there were tendering processes underway, that cleaners under such contracts were losing large sums of money. In the case of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, I am advised the figure was up to $6,000 per annum. In the case of the department of immigration, I am advised that the cuts amounted to $2 an hour—an enormous amount of money for low paid workers in this country. Therefore, we really do believe that the Prime Minister misled, intentionally or otherwise, the parliament when answering the question almost a year ago.

Today, which just so happens to be International Cleaners Day—an event that I think started in the United States under a similar name—is quite an appropriate day for those cleaners to come together and protest about the conduct of the government and the fact that the Prime Minister's words did not hold true and they were left with very serious consequences because of the drastic reductions in their wages.

Some of the cleaners that work in this place have worked here for many a year. In some cases, cleaners who have worked and cleaned the offices of members, senators and ministers have been here for many years. Even in those times when things were relatively better, they were working this job and perhaps another job, and in some cases three jobs, just to make ends meet. I spoke to a cleaner this morning. I will not disclose her name. She spoke quite passionately to me about the effects that these types of cuts will have upon her and her colleagues. The fact that you cut wages of this amount from these workers means that decisions like trying to give their kids the chance of a better education, and perhaps a better life than their parents, are going to be very difficult. She talked about doing three jobs just so she could send her children to university, because she wanted her kids to have opportunities in life that were not afforded to her. So this is not just about whether she could afford the bills today; this was about whether her children were going to have the future that she hoped they could have but that she did not have an opportunity to have.

I think, therefore, that in essence it really does talk about what sort of country we want. Do we want to have a country where people are aspiring to a better future for their children? Do we want to have a country that allows for people, however difficult it is, to provide opportunities so that their kids can access education, including higher education, and go on to professional careers and not have to decide on very limited opportunities in the labour market? It really did strike home to me today what those cuts by the government meant to these workers.

So I think it is very important in this grievance debate that the government really come clean and explain to the Australian people why they would take such an action against cleaners. Let's remember the history of the proposed abolition. It was found in the so-called red tape regulations. Buried among 8,000 regulations was a provision that would abolish these guidelines, which was effectively abolishing the minima or the floor for Commonwealth contracts. Anyone with an ounce of intelligence—I would even suggest that some of those in the government would have such a thing—would know that, by abolishing the floor, future tenders would be based on lower rates and would therefore force down the wages of people who are already on modest incomes, are having difficulty paying the mortgage or the rent and providing for their children, and are making decisions about going on holiday without spending too much money—all of the difficult decisions that families can have, made all the more difficult by a government too callous and cruel to be concerned with the plight of their own workforce, the workforce that cleans the offices of these buildings, including the offices of the Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment and the Treasurer, and indeed my own office and your own office, Deputy Speaker. These are people who should be treated with some decency, dignity and respect at work but have been treated instead like the enemy, as if they have done something wrong and ought to be punished by the government. I think that for that reason it is important that I raise it in this debate this evening.

What we really need to see from the government is for them to firstly acknowledge that what they have done is reprehensible and then to say how they are going to rectify the matter. This can be resolved. People can admit to making mistakes. The government can admit that it was too harsh and unfair towards these hardworking Australians and can say, 'What we're going to do instead is restore the floor of minimum conditions and rates under these contracts, and we're going to allow for those tenders to be based on those minima or above so that people do not find themselves working with such a drastic reduction in their wages.' We do not expect that that is likely to happen, but we implore the government to consider that. We think that is the best course of action.

You have had cleaners now losing money to take action today, which is something that would be furthest from their minds in normal circumstances. These are not militant workers; these are people who get up every day—very early, I might add, before we get up—and clean our offices before we get there. Then they go about looking after their families or go on to the next job. To treat workers this way really is a testament, I think, to the enmity that the government seems to have towards working people—an unnecessary enmity and a very unusual level of hostility towards working people.

There is an opportunity for the Prime Minister to admit that what he said last year was what he meant and therefore he will rectify the situation. If he does not rectify the situation, we have to conclude that the Prime Minister knowingly said in the parliament a year ago today, when asked by the opposition, that he wanted to see the reduction of wages for those cleaners and that is exactly the sort of recipe he would like to see across the labour market in this country.

He now has an opportunity to fix that, and so too does the Minister for Employment and indeed this government as a whole if it does care about the concerns and the future of workers and their children. To date, we have heard nothing from this government about restoring dignity and respect and affording those workers a decent rate of pay. But they have an opportunity, and I would impress upon them that they do so. I would make this very clear: Labor will hold the government to account for this decision from now until election day, until this decision is reversed. It is absolutely critical that the government show a level of decency and restore the conditions of employment for the cleaners who do a great job in this building and the many public sector offices around the country.