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

It has been one of those weeks where sometimes I have shaken my head at some of the conversations that have been going on in hallways and what has been talked about in the media. It appears the only workers that the government care about are backpackers. The only conversation they have been willing to have this week about workers has been about backpackers. What we have not heard from the government this week is any talk about Australian workers or about their jobs or the job insecurity that they are facing.

Inequity in this country is at a 75-year high and it is growing. It has been growing under the term of this government. It is growing because of a number of factors but one factor which the government do not rant about or talk about is the fact that it is because wages growth is at an all-time low. We now have a growing group of people in Australia who not only have job insecurity but also have income insecurity. There is an increasing number of Australians who are worried about not getting enough hours—being underemployed, not just unemployed. For all the rants that the government have about jobs and growth, they have failed to really understand what it means to have a good secure job and that is because the government are not talking to workers. Instead, what we have seen in the last parliament and now in this parliament is a number of bills put forward to attack workers and basic working conditions. We have seen that they have only shown an interest this week in backpackers and how much tax they pay.

Australian workers have the right to be frustrated that their government is not only not representing them; it is also not talking to them. When it comes to jobs and job plans from Australians, this government has absolutely no agenda, just slogans. Australians have been met with silence continuously about the inaction of this government. There has been no genuine legislation put forward to protect vulnerable workers and no plans to address the decline in full-time jobs.

Labor, in the government's absence, did something about it. We started to talk to workers. We formed our own caucus committee and we started to engage with workers from not-for-profit organisations, with advocacy groups, with stakeholders and with academics about jobs, Australian jobs, and about the Fair Work Act. Some of the stories from the workers that we spoke to were quite alarming. We heard from seafarers that, with the loss of so many permanent based jobs on Australian ships, the prospect of a permanent job now does not exist. One seafarer said:

So for someone like me who wants to buy a house and start a family, there is no job security whatsoever. I could have a job today but it could be gone tomorrow.

We also heard from another seafarer that he, as well as 76 other co-workers, wait for a phone call on Friday to find out if they have work the following week. We heard from people who work in manufacturing who have been replaced by temporary workers. We heard from people in manufacturing who themselves are directly employed by a company but the person working next to them works for a labour hire firm whether they be an Australian or a temporary worker. The problem is that the people working for the labour hire firms work at lower rates so, when it comes round to enterprise bargaining, the workers on the collective agreement are given a terrible choice: wage freeze, cuts in pay and conditions or being replaced with more labour hire workers. This is the reality of people in our manufacturing sector. This is the reality of people who are working in many regions.

We also heard from workers who spoke about what would happen to them if this government gets their wish and penalty rates are cut. For a lot of people who are casual and part-time, it is their penalty rates that are helping them to pay their bills. If we cut penalty rates, people told us that they would not be able to afford things like their children's school piano lessons, their children's basketball lessons. These are the stories of Australian workers. These are the voices and the stories that the government are choosing to ignore. Instead, they are continuing their ideological obsession of attacking workers and attacking the unions that represent them.