Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to stand to speak on this motion moved by the member for Paterson because, like the member for Paterson, I'm acutely aware of the negative impact that this tired eight-year-old Liberal government has had on job security and wages for people in the Newcastle and Hunter region. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to one of the biggest economic crises in Australian history. Yet, unlike previous Labor governments, that successfully navigated the turmoil of earlier economic crises with a strong recovery program, this government has been found very wanting. The Prime Minister had two jobs this year: a speedy and effective rollout of the vaccine, and quarantine. He failed at both, costing millions of workers and their families their livelihoods and wellbeing.

Nowhere has this incompetence been felt harder than in the Newcastle and Hunter region. In June last year, Newcastle's unemployment rate reached its highest level in 17 years. Following nearly a decade of almost non-existent wage growth, the people of Newcastle need a government that's willing to take on the big issues facing workers in this country—issues like the increased use of labour hire companies to avoid proper wages and work conditions.

People in insecure work, like those employed by labour hire firms, are some of the most vulnerable workers in our country. Being in insecure work means that people can't plan for their lives. They struggle to pay their rent or mortgages. They always have to worry if they'll be able to pay their weekly bills. Australians in precarious work—like contractors, freelancers, gig workers and those on temporary contracts or working in labour hire—miss out on the many benefits of a permanent job, like fair pay, guaranteed work hours, leave entitlements and job security. When people don't have a stable job, they have less money to spend in their local economy, and that hurts all of us.

The issue of labour hire and insecure work is one that extends far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Australian workers today face some of the most precarious work conditions and arrangements of any industrial country. This government will tell you that this precariousness is natural or inevitable, but it's not. It's the result of years of deliberate policy decisions made by Liberal governments to sell out working men and women. The Prime Minister tries to market an image of his government as working for the people, but this government never has and never will. The Prime Minister can say what he wants, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. This government's policy decisions have consistently prioritised profits over people and the interests of big business over workers. This government has always cared more about the national budget than the household budget of a family in Wallsend or Minmi. Instead of cracking down on cowboy labour-hire firms, this Prime Minister and his government want to give them the green light to continue to exploit workers. They have fought against an increase in the minimum wage. They've created an amnesty now for the dodgy employers who did not pay their workers adequate super entitlements. They've tried to implement Work Choices 2.0 and deliberately suppressed wage growth for hardworking Australians.

Even in my electorate this government has shown that they're no strangers to exploitative labour hire practices. In 2019 the Morrison government placed a cap on public sector hiring, which meant that agencies like the Australian Taxation Office in Newcastle were forced to employ temporary staff under labour hire firms. Last year it was revealed that the Morrison government was spending a jaw-dropping $5 billion per year on labour hire firms within the Australian Public Service, a decision that has not only cost taxpayers more money but which has also left workers employed by these labour hire firms receiving less pay than their colleagues sitting next to them. More recently, we saw BHP tell its miners from the Mount Arthur mine in the Hunter to pack their bags and move interstate if they wanted to have a job—or maybe just resign. Those 80 miners were employed by labour hire companies.

As the member for Newcastle, I'll always stand up for the rights of workers and fight to protect Novocastrians from wage theft, insecure work and the exploitation of working families. That's why an Albanese Labor government has a plan to improve job security for all Australians. Labor believes in the simple principle that if you do the same job then you should not be paid less. We will crack down on cowboy labour hire firms and guarantee 'same job, same pay' for everyone.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Groom.

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, how good it is to be back and seeing your smiling face once again!

I'm going to go off the talking points and deal with my own views on labour hire, which have changed since I first encountered it quite some years ago. I very much welcome an informed debate on labour hire. I entered the workforce as a miner—I was a mining engineer. In 2001 the mining boom was yet to kick off and there was very little opportunity for mining engineers, but there were still good mining jobs out there. So I began work as a contractor, working with a company by the name of PYBAR and Eroc at a mine called Ridgeway. I became very aware very early on of the very different groups around me—the different contractors and the labour hire groups. At that point I very much formed a contractor's first view of the mining industry.

I think there's something which should be part of a debate on labour hire, particularly in mining: it isn't just about pay or conditions but safety must come into it. I will always firmly believe that a contractor led model, even over an owner-operator, is one of the best mechanisms for that. I think the safety stats do stand with that and that's why, when we look across the industry and see somewhere around 1.1 per cent of employees being labour hire, it probably reflects industry's view as well.

There's a further point here about labour hire which is very important. I think the Labor members may pick up that potentially I have some things in common with them—I know I have a lot in common with the member for Hunter when I speak on this. There are some particular aspects of the mining industry that are relevant to this conversation. It's a very small industry at heart. I can travel from mine to mine and find friends who have worked at one place or the other and I can find mining names I know which are three generations deep. The other issue is that it's quite a dangerous industry at points; it has quite dangerous points. I think there's bipartisan support for the mining industry's work in reducing the risk involved and increasing the safety.

The other aspect that I think is relevant is that the mining industry—if not more than others then it's certainly at the forefront of this—experiences boom and bust in a way that can really play havoc with the careers of those in it. I have certainly watched that myself over time and I've experienced it. I have been in the unfortunate situation of having to lay off a large number of people at once, an experience that I don't think anyone ever comes away from without feeling their humanity pinged.

So mining has these unique challenges and, if I go back and think about my time in the industry, labour hire has some deficits with regard to addressing those things. I think that that's an important conversation for us to have. I strongly believe that there's a conversation around the appropriate use of labour hire. This point is where we will diverge. I will always support a contractor or owner-operator model because I think there's great value in maintaining that corporate knowledge and having the fundamental training that goes with it.

Certainly, if I think of my time working with Macmahon, a great mining contractor out of WA, the depth of experience that was on hand for young people entering the industry was so important. We could partner someone up with a thirty-year miner and have them gradually released into the mining environment knowing that they had full awareness of the risks around them. I stand by that. I may be diverting a little from some of my government talking points, but I think this is an important thing for us to say. I'm very proud of how it got here.

I will say this, though, for those opposite: when push came to shove at the Argyle diamond mine, and for us to maintain health and safety standards, the bottom-dollar realities of cost and risk came to bear. We were faced with an option of almost seeing the entire workforce laid off and very much going back to a minimised skeleton shift. At that point labour hire was the appropriate way to keep those people in employment. That's why I believe it's an important part of a fuller conversation, particularly in the mining industry.

Ged Kearney (Cooper, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion moved by my colleague the member for Paterson. It is an important motion and one that I wholeheartedly support. When people of a country elect a government, elect a party to power, they expect that government to always act in their own interests. You think to yourself, 'There's no way a government that has been elected would do anything that would impact my life, my income or my work that wouldn't be to my advantage.' Well unfortunately in Australia that is exactly what has happened here.

When I was president of the ACTU, we did a very important research project into insecure work in Australia. There are nearly 12 million workers in this country, and our research found that nearly 40 per cent of the workforce are in some form of insecure work. Insecure work has absolutely blossomed under this government—if I can use that word, because it is not something you want to blossom. There's increased casualisation, outsourcing, the gig economy that has absolutely exploded, short-term contracts and, of course, the use of labour hire.

Labour hire is the context of this motion here today. As the previous speaker said, there is a time and place for casual workers to be employed by labour hire firms. But, unfortunately, what we are seeing right now in this country is the use labour hire to undermine wages and conditions. I'm glad that he recognised that this needs to be something that should be looked at. We know the evils with the gig economy. Short-term contracts are an absolute scourge. Outsourcing and casualisation are both ways, along with labour hire, that big business, small business and medium-sized businesses have used time and time again to undermine the decent minimum wage structure and award structures that we have in this country.

In this latest development, we've seen this government team up with big business and dodgy labour hire firms to cut the wages and conditions of workers in the mining sector. We know that they do this. This is a given. It's nothing but a greedy, cost-cutting tactic and it's being endorsed by the government. As a result of the legislation that they've pushed through this place at the direction of their big-business mates, labour hire workers are doing the exact same job as workers who have full-time, permanent, secure jobs; working side by side for less pay and fewer conditions.

Now, you don't mind using labour hire if it is indeed to cover those unexpected peaks and troughs of the labour force; that's what it was invented for. You might go through a boom-and-bust time and there might be a certain part of the workforce that can come and go, and that is what labour hire or casualisation is for. But if you are a worker doing the exact same job, five days a week, week in, week out, you are, for all intents and purposes, a full-time employee, a permanent employee. You should be employed as such, and you should enjoy the same terms and conditions as your fellow workers who are employed on a full-time basis.

Insecure work is a scourge. It leads to anxious lives, people sitting by the phone wondering if they're going to get a shift, day in, day out. This does not make for a secure economy. It does not make for a decent family life. You can't get a loan. You can't buy a car. You can't plan for those weekends. That's bad enough, but when you should be enjoying those terms and conditions you get from a full-time job you can't, because you are employed by a labour hire firm and the big company that employs you doesn't want to pay you what you should be paid or give you those conditions that come with a full-time job.

An Albanese Labor government, on the other side, has a plan for secure jobs. We want people to have secure lives. We want them to know that they can rely on a job they have, that the pay is good enough to put food on the table and to pay the rent. We have a plan. We will make job security an explicit object of the Fair Work Act. We will make sure people in labour hire or the gig economy are better protected. We will criminalise wage theft. We'll make sure workers are paid their entitlements. For those employed in precarious industries or insecure work, we will make sure that their entitlements are portable, at least, so that every worker in this country is given the security of a holiday, paid leave and other entitlements that they have earned. An Anthony Albanese Labor government will be on your side, the side of Australian workers, because we are the party of secure jobs. We are the party of decent jobs.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

COVID-19 and the recession have taught our country, I hope, a lot of things and revealed things about us, good and bad. One lesson that I believe we must not let go of is that casual and insecure work in this country has gone too far. The pendulum has swung too far. There are millions of Australian workers now that cannot get a permanent job. They want a permanent job but they're stuck on casual contracts or employed by these insidious labour hire firms that have gone way beyond what they were originally for, a bit of surge or a bit of unexpected work. They now constitute the dominant share of the workforce in some industries and companies. Some people choose this—fair enough—but most people don't. It means they can't get a home loan. How can you ever buy a house if you can't get a home loan, because you're stuck on a labour hire contract? They have no sick leave, and we saw from the pandemic what that did to our health systems. Sick people felt they had to go to work with the virus. They have poorer OH&S outcomes and an increased chance of wage theft and exploitation.

They were originally used for surge and seasonal work, but there are many reasons now why employers are increasingly using them. They use them to cut costs and cut wages. They get around unions, so unions can't collectively bargain for a pay rise. They get greater control over their workers because labour hire inherently splits the contractual and the control relationship. That's what it does. The contractual relationship is with the labour hire firm, and the day-to-day control is with the employer. That means it's much easier to exploit employees and workers to cut corners on safety and cut wages, because you can literally just flick off your labour hire worker overnight if they speak up about anything. If they ask for a pay rise—gone. If they say, 'Hang on, that safety practice isn't right'—gone. In the case of the government, they shifted out the permanent public servants and replaced them with labour hire workers, who were not going to call out their blatant illegality with robodebt. The Federal Court called them out on that scam. But the labour hire workers knew that if they spoke up they'd be given the flick overnight. That's exactly what happened.

For workers who choose this, fair enough. But it's no longer a minor add-on, a small bit of flexibility at the margins. In some sectors, mining for example, labour hire is now significant; it's even the majority of the workforce. Up in north Central Queensland—I've been up there—I've seen in Rockhampton two people doing the same job, side by side, with one of them being paid 30 to 40 per cent less because the labour hire firm clips the ticket on the way.

Even before COVID, wages were falling under the Liberals. They don't like talking about this: their fake good economic record. Wages in this country went backwards under seven years of this failing, miserable government even before the COVID economic crisis, according to OECD data. One of the big reasons is that casualisation of the workforce has gone way too far and workers can never bargain for a pay rise—that's how the employers like it—which means we need structural changes to the rules. A decent government would address this. They'd learn the lessons of the pandemic and the vulnerabilities revealed in our society. Not this mob. Instead, the Morrison government passed laws with their good mate Senator Pauline Hanson and their mate Clive Palmer—now the leader of the Palmer party—to entrench this unfairness: they are anti workers. Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer are just Liberals in drag, in disguise.

A Labor government will end the labour-hire rorts that rip off casual workers. We've got a clear plan for this. Workers doing the same job should get the same pay. It's a simple, compelling and fair proposition. It's part of Labor's Secure Australian Jobs plan. We'll overturn the government's nasty scheme, end the rorts and restore rights to workers. This is really important stuff. We get to choose the kind of society we want to be. We don't all have to walk like lemmings off the cliff, off to the free market where employers have all the rights and workers do what they're told. We don't have to be that passive. There are choices that we could make.

The government always talks about flexibility. It's funny, isn't it? The solution to every economic problem that the government sees is a cut to wages, and more rights for employers, and a cut to workers' rights. Always. This mad ideology has now infected the Public Service. Their privatisation by stealth through labour hire workers is trashing the Commonwealth Public Service. Tens of thousands of jobs in the Public Service are now labour hire. It wastes money, paying an overhead to a firm instead of employing a public servant.

The Auditor-General has found $2 billion to labour hire workers in the last few years. There's no job security, it's unfair, it's differential pay, someone doing the same job gets less, they don't get the same training, we lose the capability for the taxpayer and the services degrade. We've got the veterans affairs minister now employing McKinsey, we've learnt, to fix services in Veterans Affairs. Why didn't you employ the public servants instead of labour hire workers? They cut the public servants, bring in labour hire workers and then bring in overpriced consultants, who are mates of the government, to try and sort it all out. It's a scam and a sham! (Time expired)

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no further speakers, the debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate made an order for the next day of sitting.