Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report entitled Report 206: International Labour Organization Convention concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—I'm glad to make a statement on the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report into the International Labour Organization Convention concerning minimum age for admission to employment. The purpose of the convention is to effectively advance the abolition of child labour, to see it abolished the world over. Child labour by definition means improper, unacceptable harmful forms of work by children, and the abolition of child labour is to be achieved by protecting the right of children to attend school, by regulating the types of economic activity that may be undertaken by children and by ensuring that children's health, safety and morals are protected.

The convention contains three key obligations. Members that ratify are to specify the age of completion of compulsory schooling, which, in any case, shall be not less than 15 years of age, as the minimum age of admission to employment. They are to establish 18 years as the minimum age for hazardous work or 16 years where certain protections are in place and, where permitted by national law, specify the conditions for children no younger than 13 years to undertake light work.

While there's no Commonwealth legislation governing the minimum age for employment or work in Australia, while practices across jurisdictions differ, it is nevertheless the case that state and territory legislation governing school attendance in effect sets 15 years as the minimum age for employment or work. Although Australian law does not specifically preclude a person under the age of 16 from engaging in hazardous work, the committee was made aware of a combination of work place health and safety laws, compulsory schooling requirements and sector-specific regulations that effectively limit its occurrents in most fundamental respects.

Like other international labour organisation conventions, this agreement provides flexibility mechanisms to accommodate the differing legal systems of members. Australia plans to rely on one such mechanism, article 4, to exclude from the application of the convention limited categories of work. These would be categories that allow children under 13 years to undertake light work like delivering newspapers or pamphlets or working in a family enterprise like a farm or market stall either because it's permitted by existing state and territory legislation or because the type of work occurs in practice, and the available evidence suggests to us that such work is undertaken in beneficial circumstances without impact on the health and wellbeing of children.

It is worth noting that Australia has not exactly moved swiftly to ratify this convention and will in fact be the 176th country to do so. Considering that we exist in a region where relatively new nations have ratified the convention where preventing child labour is a relevant challenge, Australia's ratification will strengthen our credibility when it comes to promoting strong measures to eliminate child labour in the Asia-Pacific. For all those reasons, the committee supports the convention and has recommended that binding treaty action be taken. I thank the deputy chair, our fellow committee members and the secretariat for their work on this inquiry. On behalf of the committee, I commend this report to the House.

Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I thank the House for the opportunity to make a brief statement on this report. It would surprise no-one that Australians do not believe children should be engaged in child labour. It's been a long-held view and something which has not been allowed for a very long time. Children should be just that—children. They shouldn't need to worry about a job, especially one in which they are exploited. They should be focusing first and foremost on their education. The responsibility for laws which govern the arrangements around whether young people can work lies with the state and territory governments.

While it might come as a surprise to some Australians that it's taken so many decades for our country to sign up to this convention, we have more or less been complying with it the entire time. So it is good that the Australian parliament is saying to the world formally that we agree with the intent of the convention and that is something we should all support, which is why the committee has agreed that binding treaty action should be taken. In doing so, we join 175 other countries around the world that have committed to eliminating child labour through the convention. Importantly, the convention does allow some flexibility, which is something I raised during the public hearings. Not every young person fits the cookie cutter mould when it comes to going to school; my own experience attests to that. So it's good that there are some exemptions for apprenticeships, which are effectively work in conjunction with education. It also doesn't mean we will put an end to the newspaper or catalogue runs by young people in the neighbourhoods or the stocking of shelves at family-run convenience stores.

Hopefully, as was mentioned through the committee process, the ratification of this convention will go some way to allowing us to show leadership in our part of the world. As we know, this is a significant issue in developing nations in our region. We need to be able to say to our Asia-Pacific neighbours that child labour is not okay. This move gives us that edge. I thank the committee members, those who made submissions and the secretariat for their work on this, and I commend the report to the House.