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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Last year, the government passed the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act. Secure Jobs, Better Pay delivered on the next step of the government's plan to lift wages, improve job security and close the gender pay gap.

Secure Jobs, Better Pay was about raising the bar—raising the bar on awards, raising the bar on enterprise agreements, raising the bar on bargaining and lifting the floor for workers. This year, it's about closing the loopholes that some businesses use to undercut those arrangements. This bill is the first step.

This bill is about protecting worker entitlements including by enshrining the right to superannuation as one of the National Employment Standards. The bill will also promote gender equality—the amendments to the unpaid parental leave scheme will provide families with greater flexibility so that work and care responsibilities can more easily be shared. The bill will also deliver reforms to improve fairness in the workplace relations system—by protecting all workers (regardless of visa status) and ensuring casuals in the coalmining industry are on par with their permanent colleagues with respect to long service leave.

My department and I have engaged in close and constructive consultation with businesses and unions on these reforms.

I'll now outline in detail the measures in the bill.

Coverage of all workers by the Fair Work Act

All workers working in this country are entitled to and deserve protection from exploitation.

It's the view of the government that the Fair Work Act should be clear that it also applies to migrant workers—workers who are not Australian citizens. Doubt has been raised about this, and the government is acting to fix this.

So while this change might turn out to have been unnecessary, it is it an important protection to make sure that Australian workplace rights apply to everybody. That's why this bill will make clear that all the protections of the Fair Work Act—including full pay for time worked—apply to all workers working in Australia, regardless of their migration status.

There are too many workers in this country being exploited by unscrupulous employers who rely on an incorrect view that workers on temporary or working visas have fewer workplace rights than other workers.

This amendment is to protect workers like Kate Hsu, a Taiwanese national system worker who I have met with. I've spoken about Kate before—a worker who had come here from Taiwan. Her story has stayed with me since we spoke.

Kate was engaged as a fruit picker in regional South Australia, getting paid $4 an hour to pick oranges. Just to survive, Kate was forced to sift through public rubbish bins to find food. Sadly, Kate's story is not a unique one in an industry in which some employers rely upon vulnerable overseas workers on temporary visas.

This amendment closes a loophole for employers whose business model relies on the false assertion that workers on temporary or working visas have fewer rights than other workers.

This change gives effect to recommendation 3 of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce report, which this government has committed to implementing. It also implements recommendation 3 of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee's inquiry into the government's secure jobs, better pay legislation.

Unpaid parental l eave

The parental leave reforms from our government are a significant step forward in both fairness and economic participation.

This parliament has recently passed the largest expansion to government funded paid parental leave since the scheme was established in 2011. The changes in this bill go hand in glove with changes which have been made by the Minister for Social Services. These changes provide the commensurate employment rights to ensure that the government's changes to paid parental leave have real meaning.

The Fair Work Act also has a key role in implementing our vision for women's workforce participation—as well as ensuring families can jointly share work and care responsibilities.

The amendments proposed by this bill will modernise unpaid parental leave to give parents more opportunity and more choice about how they balance and share their work and caring responsibilities.

Parental leave works best as an entitlement when it suits the circumstances of each family. Balancing work and care looks different for every family. Our government wants a flexible unpaid parental leave entitlement that reflects modern Australia.

This bill also significantly increases the days of leave which can be taken flexibly from 30 to 100 days. This allows families to work out arrangements on their own terms.

The bill also allows for pregnant employees to access some of their flexible unpaid parental leave entitlement before the birth of their child.

It also removes unnecessary restrictions on two working parents in a family taking more than eight weeks of unpaid parental leave at the same time.

Notice periods will remain the same, providing certainty for business.

Our government is serious about acting to close the gender pay gap. Making it easier for families to balance work and care is critical. This bill will deliver greater flexibility for working families.

Superannuation in the National Employment Standards

The bill will also protect workers' superannuation entitlements by including superannuation in the National Employment Standards.

Australians are quite rightly very proud of our world-class superannuation system. Superannuation is a key part of workers being able to build a financially secure retirement.

Currently, the Fair Work Act does not have an explicit requirement for an employer to pay superannuation to their employees. This is a loophole that needs to be closed.

In almost every instance of wage theft, superannuation is also part of how workers have been ripped off. This amendment is about making sure that a worker can recover both superannuation and wages in an underpayment claim under the Fair Work Act. Until now, many workers have had to claim the take home pay and superannuation through two separate processes.

It will still be possible (and preferable for some people) to recover superannuation via a complaint to the Australian Taxation Office. However, the red tape that requires workers to apply to two different systems for the same underpayment ends with this bill.

Workers who do not have the protection of an award or an enterprise agreement can be left exposed as they do not have a statutory right to superannuation under the Fair Work Act. Enshrining the requirement to pay superannuation in the National Employment Standards puts on notice those who seek to exploit this loophole that payment of superannuation is a non-negotiable minimum standard.

These changes will expand coverage to thousands of award-free employees, such as those on the national minimum wage, and employees in certain occupations such as accounting, human resources, marketing, public relations, and information technology specialists.

Deductio ns

For a long time, workers have signed deduction forms which are frequently used for both for both union membership and health insurance, and they've signed them in the knowledge that payments may vary from time to time. At any stage, workers can decide whether they want the deduction to continue. There have been some legal questions raised as to whether the initial deduction authority can continue if fees change over time.

This change simply makes sure that the law is consistent with the intention of the individual worker when they sign a deduction form as deduction amounts change over time, without employers or workers having to go through endless red tape.

Technical amendments to clarify the interaction between enterprise agreements and workplace dete rminations

One of the significant achievements of secure jobs, better pay was to increase access to arbitration. We have an amendment here that clarifies that when there is an arbitrated outcome, it takes precedence over an agreement that covers the same workers.

Coal Long Service Leave Scheme changes

Until now, there has been, effectively, a glitch in the scheme—casuals have always been ripped off when it comes to long service leave in the coal industry. If a casual coal industry worker works a significant number of hours one week, and then has a week when they don't work any hours, the system does not average the hours fairly. This means that casuals are accruing a lower entitlement than their permanent counterparts even though they could have worked the same—or more—total hours. This amendment means that whenever you are working a week-on week-off roster, it all counts towards your long service leave.

In December 2021, an independent review into the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Scheme (the Scheme) found that casual employees in the Scheme are treated less favourably than permanent employees. Measures in this bill will amend legislation enabling the Scheme to address this inequity and implement a recommendation of the independent review.

The amendments will make clear that the levy imposed on a casual employee's wages within the Scheme and payment of an employee's entitlement include casual loading. This gives employers greater clarity and ensures that casual employees are not disadvantaged when accessing their long service leave entitlement. Currently, if you're a permanent employee who takes a week of annual leave, the time that you're on leave still counts to long service leave. Casual loading is meant to be in lieu of this certainty, but the loading hasn't been included. That unfair situation will end with this bill.

Conclusion

The secure jobs, better pay bill of last year was, as I said, about raising the bar for workers and their entitlements. There is no point raising the bar if loopholes that then undermine worker entitlements remain open. This bill, protecting worker entitlements, is the first step of our government's reforms to close loopholes. These reforms contribute to the fairer workplace system that our government is delivering for Australian workers.

Debate adjourned.