David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the minister representing the minister for agriculture. I refer to a northern Australian family cattle property that employs 21 ringers and station hands. Under Labor's industrial relations changes, if a representative for cattle ringers and station hands from that property successfully applies to the Fair Work Commission to bargain a single-interest employer agreement, could all similar family cattle properties in northern Australia be forced into multiple-employer bargaining?

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

On a point of order, the question goes specifically to the interaction of businesses with a piece of legislation that is entirely within a different portfolio; it happens to be mine, but this question is directed to the wrong minister.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, it's very clear that what this goes to is the impact on businesses within the sector for which the minister representing the minister for agriculture is responsible, and that is why she is the appropriate minister to be asked this question and to answer it.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This issue has come up a couple of times this week. Practice makes it clear, on page 549, that where a question may involve the responsibility of more than one minister it should be directed to the minister most responsible. However, a minister may direct his or her answer without question. I will allow the minister, under the standing orders, to answer the question and then another minister may respond as well.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very proud that in the Albanese government's first budget $1 billion has been put into the agriculture sector to make sure that we're actually growing that sector and making sure that we're protecting it from the biosecurity threats that we've seen with foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. The specific question that the minister asked, as he knows full well, is an industrial relations question so I will refer that question to the industrial relations minister to answer.

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

First of all, the example that they have given, as I heard it, refers to a single employer making an application with respect to the single interest stream. A single employer can't make an application to the single interest stream. It starts with multiple employers. That's the way it works. But if the question is wanting to go to the broader point of are these rules meant to be able to reach agriculture? Yes, absolutely. Those opposite presided over a time when horticulture workers were being paid $4 an hour. Those opposite presided over a time when some of the worst examples of wage theft were coming from that exact sector, not because of the farmers themselves but because of the labour hire companies that were going through rorting the systems. The farmers thought they were paying for decent wages but they were being charged for them. There was a rort happening that was never meeting the worker.

I met with workers. I remember meeting Kate on a visa here from Taiwan who was fishing out of the bins beside the supermarkets to get food—she had a full-time job—because that's what was happening under the laws of those opposite. When the Prime Minister gave the example before that this act that has been proposed by the government, the amendments to the Fair Work Act, will make it that you can no longer advertise work for less than the legal minimum rate of pay, you bet we're in favour of that. And you bet that will get away some of the rorts that've been happening. You should be representing all the people in your electorate, including the workers who've been underpaid.