David Smith (Bean, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year this parliament will have the opportunity to close a loophole that allows a company—a company like Qantas—to radically undercut enterprise agreement rates of pay via labour hire. I was contacted by a constituent who wished to share her experience working as a contractor for Qantas:

I wear the Qantas uniform just like my other colleagues but I earn substantially less than what they do. We all do the same job, we work the same hours and take on the same responsibilities. But my paycheck, worker benefits and rest periods are significantly different. My role was Cabin Leader on the last shift I worked, which means you have more communication with the flight crew, ground staff and more responsibility for the cabin. But my colleague who is employed by a different subcontractor is getting almost double what I'm earning. On that day I was in a higher role than her, but she was out earning me.

I love my job, I enjoy going to work with my colleagues and interacting with passengers onboard. But it's hard to be in love with your job, when the company doesn't care for its workers. It's hard to respect Qantas when it's employees' pay, benefits and contractors are so different yet we all look the same and do the same work.

That experience is something many in this chamber should think about the next time that they're flying. In the country of the fair go we have a responsibility to fix loopholes like this. This is what the same job, same pay legislation will fix.