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

Today I'm proud to rise and support the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, as it implements another one of the election promises that we took to the Australian people last year. The opposition say this is some sort of surprise. But this government is simply implementing our commitments, as we said we would. Those opposite should take note. This is what good governments do: they implement their policies. And it builds on the government's commitment to ensure workers get better rights and conditions, after years of neglect and of having their wages deliberately kept low.

We are building on last year's secure jobs, better pay legislation, which sought to raise the floor of Australian industry. This legislation reaches into every workplace in the country. But now it is time to close the loopholes, to make sure that no worker gets left behind and that no worker is ripped off and unprotected. This legislation, despite the song and dance from the coalition, won't affect the majority of Australian workers, but, for those who have slipped through the cracks, it will truly be life-saving.

The four major elements of the closing loopholes bill are: criminalising wage theft, introducing minimum standards for workers in the gig economy, closing the forced permanent casual worker loophole and closing the labour hire loophole. The introduction of this bill follows months of extensive consultations, including with employer groups and unions.

Other important elements of the closing loopholes bill include allowing the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for road safety in the transport industry. It is so important for our truckies. I know, from my own personal experiences of seeing them, the devastating effects that it has when truck drivers are forced to work long hours for little pay. I've been to many road accidents involving heavy vehicles where drivers were forced by unscrupulous operators to work hard for nothing—and that means that they sometimes have to skimp on maintenance, skimp on safety, or work themselves to the bone, just to try and make ends meet. Meanwhile, the owners of those freight companies are sitting in their big North Sydney offices, relaxing and enjoying a cup of tea. Emergency workers, though, are out at all hours of the night, cleaning up the mess left from the decisions that those owners made which put drivers' lives at risk.

It's also about continuing to implement the Boland review, by introducing an offence for industrial manslaughter and increasing penalties. It's ensuring better support for our first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder—something that is coming to light more and more. We do a lot with our veterans on PTSD, but a lot of our first responders go through seeing the same sorts of things that veterans see. First responders see things that you'd hope other people never get to see. And doing this is a very, very important step for their wellbeing.

It's also about expanding the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to include silica safety and silica related diseases. I've spoken to this House before about meeting with victims of silica and seeing what has happened to them, and seeing the way their lives have been devastated, just for turning up to work. And these are not always people working in the mines; these are people working in the offices. It's a terrible thing; it needs to be addressed. And it's this government that's actually going to make the changes to save people's lives.

It's also about protecting workplace protections for survivors of family and domestic violence. It's providing specific protections for delegates. It's about greater legal powers to challenge unfair contract terms and crack down on sham contracting. It's ensuring that we have better representation for safety and compliance issues in the workplace, including expanding the powers of the Fair Work Commission to permit the right of entry to investigate underpayments.

As the minister rightly said today, if it is a crime for you, as a worker, to take money out of the till in your workplace, then it should be a crime for you, as an employer, to take money out of your employees' pockets. It's something that's been happening for a long time, but it is the Albanese Labor government that is getting on with the job of fixing up the mess we were left and making sure that we look after Australian workers in workplaces. All these measures close the loopholes that have undercut secure jobs, better pay and safe workplaces.

As I said, one of the key components of this bill is closing the labour hire loophole. While labour hire has a legitimate use in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case, we are now closing the current loophole that allows companies to undercut agreements already made with their workers. We are making sure that companies stick to their word, treat their employees equally and don't try to wriggle out of taking responsibility for their own workers. It's a loophole that should be closed and closed now.

We know of the need to close these gaps because, sadly, big companies who make billions of dollars of profits are using loopholes to exploit Australian workers. Earlier this year, I, with many members of parliament, had the opportunity to listen to the stories of Qantas workers. After those workers were laid off during the pandemic, despite the company receiving millions of dollars from the former government to support workers in keeping their jobs, we heard how, despite the collective bargaining agreement which they agreed upon, Qantas then went out and started its own labour hire workforces to get around those agreements. This was done with the tick and support of the government of the day—not our government, the one before us.

Workers working the same flight could be on drastically different wage levels, with some on wage levels that aren't even up to Australian standards. They had also purposely moved operations out of the country, and this bill is going to tackle behaviour like that. Employees, unions and hosts can apply to the commission for an order that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages of the hosting enterprise agreement. Of course, exemptions apply when a host is a small-business employer, and a default three-month exemption period would also apply to avoid impacting labour hire arrangements for surge workforce and temporary replacements. Businesses will be prohibited from taking action to avoid their obligation or to prevent a commission order being made. The commission will be a low-cost and efficient forum for dispute resolution.

As I said, if a worker steals from a till, it's a criminal offence. In many parts of Australia, if a company steals from the workers pay packet it's not, and it's time to make sure that we have an equal arrangement. If you steal from your employer you get charged. If your employer steals from you, they get charged. You'd have to think that that is a pretty agreeable thing to do and to do quickly. It beggars belief that some people don't want to get on with this. They don't want to protect people who are vulnerable. It's generally those working in big companies, but a lot of time it's small companies, too, that are doing this. You should be holding to account people who do the wrong thing. Too many companies have got away with stealing wages for too long. For employers that do that, it's time for them to face the criminal penalties that come from stealing. It's something that should not be controversial.

This is a measure that makes sure people who take advantage of others and commit criminal acts are punished, just like everywhere else in the justice system. It makes sure that, just because you own a business and have a bit of money behind you, you're not walking away from the consequences of your own actions. It's something that you'd think would have been done years ago when it was first raised. But it wasn't. In fact, it took the former government years to actually acknowledge that there was a problem, with their half-hearted legislation. They supported legislation to do this, but, when it came to the Senate, they voted against their own bill. You have to sit there and ask, 'Why would you tear up your own draft laws?' Because they couldn't get the plans, at the end of the day, to cut worker's pay and conditions in other ways, they decided to send a message and a clear signal to those wage thieves: keep it up. Business owners who knowingly withhold wages should face higher penalties. The Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland criminalised wage theft because they got sick of waiting for the then federal government to act. But we need a national approach to the wage theft system to end the rip-offs.

I'm proud to stand and support this bill because of my experience in the transport industry. Truck drivers are the lifeblood of this country. Road trains are pumping goods throughout the arteries of the country, keeping our expansive continent connected. But the industry needs more support. Many of us have heard the stories, whether from the TWU or from industry itself. The government and all Labor MPs know the importance of putting better standards in place and the importance of doing this quickly. We've had many truck drivers and transport workers participating in risky practices, and that means the industry becomes unsustainable. It becomes a huge risk when transport workers' safety is on the line. In the transportation industry alone, 41 per cent of workers know a driver at work who has been killed, and one in four have been involved in a crash at work. Drivers are paying with their lives. So the bill will empower the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for a safe, sustainable and viable road transport industry. It'll give the Fair Work Commission the power to set minimum standards for the road transport industry. The commission will be able to set minimum standards for independent contractors who are regulated road transport contractors performing work under a service contract in the transport industry. It will create road transport minimum standard orders, which can cover payment terms, deductions, insurance and cost recovery. It'll do all this while also providing guardrails for the Fair Work Commission to help balance the new priorities and standards.

The bill provides for a light-touch collective-agreement-making framework that will facilitate registered organisations representing road transport contractors to agree to consent based collective agreements with road transport businesses. Contractors will be protected from unfair termination if they have been working for a road transport business under a services contract for at least 12 months. This will help ease the dangerous pressures that come down from the top of the supply chain and squeeze the transport industry in the pursuit of profits. When money is tight, drivers and operators get pressured into cutting corners. One in four are pressured by employers to drive past legal hours and skip rest breaks. This doesn't only put them at risk. It puts every single road user at risk. It's why these reforms are needed. It's why we need to have minimum safety standards and payments—because, currently, our transport industry is in crisis. It is the deadliest industry in Australia. And we need to work quickly to make sure these protections are put in place.

The last element of the bill I want to go into is something I've spoken about a lot in this House. It's about workers' safety and health. The need to extend the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to address silica related diseases is something that was brought home to me through meetings with the ACTU—sitting there with people who were under 35 and facing a very shortened life, just for the fact they'd been turning up for work each day and there had been no protection in place for them—no protection from these silica related diseases. We have to have a coordinated action, across work health and safety and health portfolios, to address the alarming rise in the number of workers developing silicosis and other silica related diseases caused just by inhaling silica dust. So, we're establishing the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency as a cross-jurisdictional governance mechanism to coordinate, monitor and report on the silica national strategic plan. This goes with other legislation we've put through this year, including the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Bill, which is about protecting workers across the nation, and the funding that we have committed in both funding at the start of the year and within the budget.

I said to those workers on that day that we would fight to get things done, and we have. I want to particularly pay tribute to my good friend the member for Cooper, the assistant minister, Ged Kearney, for being so willing to listen to people, to listen to our thoughts, and get on with it straightaway. There were no ifs or buts. It was about getting this fixed, and that's so important.

Just in closing, the bill, while not affecting every worker, will have changing effects for many thousands of people across a range of industries. In Victoria, 14,300 workers will be eligible for closing the labour-hire loophole element in this bill. It will bolster 194,100 Victorians who are earning less than the minimum national wage. And that's only a slice of the full effects of this legislation. I am proud to support this bill and be part of a government that takes Australian workers' rights seriously, and I commend this bill to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad the member for Hunter is in the chamber because he gave a very good contribution last night in the adjournment debate about a mining tragedy in his electorate and it struck me at the time that there was a similar tragedy in my electorate, commemorated for the centenary thereof in 2012, on 13 January 1912. The Barrier Mine disaster claimed the lives of six men, leaving five widows and leaving 13 children fatherless. The member for McEwen is right when he says that people have the right to get home safely, that employers have an obligation to make sure that they do everything in their power to ensure that the workers in their care get home safe and sound. It doesn't matter what job you are in, you have the right to, at the end of your shift, go home in one piece to your loved ones safe from your day's toil.

This Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 is an important piece of legislation, but I don't agree with the member for McEwen when he talks about the particular piece of legislation that was brought forward some years ago under the guise of road safety remuneration and, even in this particular legislation, the closing loopholes piece. I have to give Labor credit: they title their bills very well. It's not always about the content of the bill and what is actually going to be legislated. The road safety piece that the member for McEwen based most of his address on was not anywhere near making sure that truck drivers got home safely; it was about unionising the transport sector. It was about putting those family owned and operated businesses that are so prevalent in regional Australia off the road, making it almost impossible for them to compete against the big conglomerates. We know who they are, and they do a great job. They do. I know the owners and operators of those big companies very well, and I commend them for the job that they do because everyone's next meal is probably coming to them on a truck.

But then there are those small family owners and operators. I well recall one from Coolum and another from West Wyalong and particularly the one from Bland shire who came to a rally at this place on 18 April 2016. They were concerned that the bill in its form back then was going to force them to unionise their businesses and basically put them out of work. It wasn't about road safety. I heard the member for McEwen say shortcuts are taken with vehicles et cetera because they don't have the time and there is not the safety push in those companies. Well, there is. Those companies take their jobs very, very seriously. They ensure that their trucks are what they need to be. The modern fleet that we have these days makes it everyone's business for those trucks to get where they need to be on time and safely.

I would perhaps more endorse the member for McEwen if he were to go to the minister for transport and urge for the 90-day review hold on infrastructure that she put in place—and it has now been 125 days—to be lifted such that we can get some of the bitumen rolled out on some of the roads. That would, then, assist and aid road safety. If you drive around regional Australia at the moment, including the Newell Highway, one of the busiest trucking freight routes in this country, it is in appalling condition. I am not blaming Labor for the condition of the road. The weather events have ensured that the potholes are everywhere. But I am blaming Labor for not getting on with the job of making sure that some of that infrastructure spending is out there and is being put in place and working with states to ensure that it is so. Labor haven't actually put a hold on their own election commitments in 2022, just the commitments that the coalition had in place prior to that. That is such a shame, a pity, and it is quite appalling, in fact.

I was a union member, and I know that this is largely about repaying the unions for what they did prior to Labor returning to government. I get that Labor wants to pay back its union dues. I was a union member for 21 years and probably have more union experience than most of those opposite, which sometimes comes as a surprise to them. That said, we need everything to be in balance. Unions running the show is not going to be a good show, but we need to balance the union rights—and, yes, they have rights—against small businesses' ability to operate, particularly in an economic environment where cost-of-living pressures are so high. Whether it is the good folk up in the gallery or people right across Australia, they are doing it tough because inflation is high. They are doing it tough, and many are working two and three jobs just to make ends meet. They are doing it tough because power costs are high. They are doing it tough because grocery costs are high.

Yesterday I spoke to a group of seniors for whom fuel costs are one of the biggest factors in their weekly household budget bills. They can't afford to pay for their fuel needs, and what does this government talk about? It is appeasing its union mates. They talk about everything but what is really crucial and meaningful to Mr and Mrs Average out there doing it tough at the moment. I would urge and encourage members opposite to go back to their electorates not to talk at people but to listen to them and hear what they have to say when it comes to making sure that cost-of-living issues are addressed.

The National Farmers Federation said this week that for most farmers their workplace is also their family home. 'The farm is the kids' backyard,' the NFF Vice President David Jochinke said. He continued:

There are safety and biosecurity considerations. We can't just have union reps waltzing in unannounced.

I know those opposite would love union reps to be able to just walk into a workplace, demand the books and demand everything and then make that that was the status quo across the nation as part of this legislation. But business and farming operations are particularly concerned about new rights of entry without notice, and they should be concerned. They should be worried because, if the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has his way, it will be open slather. That's the problem. It's Labor appeasing its union mates, and, like everything Labor does, you don't believe what they say. You don't believe what they pledge or promise; you believe what they do.

What they do is usually completely the opposite to what they say they are going to do, like in this legislation, which they say is 'closing loopholes'. It all sounds good, all sounds nice, all sounds as though the Australian public should say, 'Well, yes, why wouldn't we just do that?' As the member for McEwen said, 'Why hasn't this already been done?' But it is not about closing loopholes; it is about making sure that the union runs the show, making sure that the union can just march into a workplace, a small business, and demand everything that they want. They'll be able to make unreasonable demands. The difficulty here is that small business is once again being trampled on by this government. This government doesn't understand small business. This government isn't heeding the calls of the Australian people about cost-of-living pressures, and more is the pity. They will have to answer those questions when they go to the next election. The people will say, 'Why didn't you address those cost-of-living pressures and issues that we were under?' and 'Why did you make it so hard for small business?' Those opposite don't get small business. They never have, and not many of them have ever run a small business. They run to a small business to run a picket line outside the small business, but very few of them have actually run a small business.

Small business operators, they're the ones who take the risks. They're the ones who don't take the holiday. They're the ones who employ people. They're the ones who go without to make sure that their business succeeds. They're the ones who make sure their customers come first. And they're the ones who are being ignored and denied by this legislation, by this ill-thought out, ill-conceived legislation that is before the House.

It's a con job, just like the 94 times Labor promised a $275 cut in electricity prices prior to the last election, long after Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine—an excuse given as one of the reasons why the power costs went up. Many, many times after that invasion took place, Labor continued to promise that $275 would come off power bills. And has it? Those listening, those driving their trucks at the moment listening into this broadcast, well, they'll be watching the road, but they'll be shaking their head because they'll know that that cost hasn't come off. People right throughout Australia know it hasn't either. Electricity prices came down under the coalition government, and they're just going up and up and up under Labor. It's such a shame, and it's so unnecessary.

We have increased costs that are going to be passed on to consumers. And let me tell you, if this bill is passed in the way it is written it will have an impost on small business and small business can't afford it. They're struggling even as we speak. They're struggling with poor policies and bad legislation by this dreadful government that doesn't consider small business. And unfortunately, when costs go up for small business and the bottom line deteriorates, they have to pass the costs on to consumers. More people pay more, pay through the hip pocket, because of the decisions made by those opposite.

It doesn't matter to the employment minister. He doesn't care. He just wants to appease his union mates, and so do all of those opposite who will come to the microphone with their Labor talking points, reading them line by line. The Labor dirt union, at its finest, is dredging up why we should be appeasing unions, why we should be making sure it's better for workers. Labor forgot workers. They forgot them years ago. They don't care about workers. They don't care about workers, they just care about the unions and making sure they appease the unions.

There are many reasons as to why this is a bad bill. It's impossibly intricate. There's too much uncertainty. It adds additional costs to businesses, particularly small businesses—particularly those many thousands of small businesses who had come out of the back of COVID and were looking forward to better times ahead, and now they cop this legislation. It makes Australians pay more in a cost-of-living crisis. It does nothing to increase productivity. We've heard the member for Bradfield so often talk about the importance of increasing productivity. Well, this bill ain't going to cut that, let me tell you. It does nothing to enhance competition. We heard earlier today about the decision to block Qatar Airways and how that's going to lead to less competition. It risks jobs. It only rewards unions, the paymasters of the Labor Party. It institutionalises conflict in our workplace—something we do not want to see. The government says it has made concessions for businesses. It hasn't. Don't believe what Labor says it's going to do. And it weakens our economy, making a bad situation worse. That is unfortunate. That is unnecessary, particularly at a time when Australians are looking to the government that was elected to do a job, that said it would do a job, and all it is doing is turning its back on Australian consumers and Australian small businesses.

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

As a member of the Albanese Labor government, I could not be more proud than to stand in this chamber tonight to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, which was introduced by my colleague the Leader of the House and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. This legislation is incredibly important. If you were interested in creating fair and just workplaces in Australia, then you would be supporting this bill. Australia needs an industrial relations system that is there to support all of its workers, not just some. This set of workplace reforms before us tonight is about four really key platforms. One is an explicit effort to criminalise wage theft. Seriously, if you think wage theft is okay, then you need to stand up and explain to the Australian people why you would vote against this legislation. If you think that cracking down on the labour hire loophole that's used to deliberately undercut pay and conditions in this nation is not okay, then you need to stand up and explain to the Australian people. If you think that properly defining 'casual work' so that casuals aren't being exploited is not a fine endeavour or something that you'd want to aspire to, again, you need to explain why the hell not. And, certainly, if you cannot see your way to making sure that gig workers are not being ripped off in this country, you have got a lot of explaining to do to the Australian people.

At the moment, certain Australian workers are missing out because of loopholes that allow pay and conditions to be undercut. For these workers, the minimum standards in awards and enterprise agreements are just words on a paper with little, if any, relevance to their daily lives. If we want workers to be paid properly, we need to close these loopholes. As the Australian Council of Trade Unions Secretary, Sally McManus, said:

This is a great day for Aussie workers.

…   …   …

The laws that the government is bringing forward will give Australian workers greater job security, and it will stop employers stealing wages.

Seriously, I think it is indefensible for those opposite to oppose this legislation. If a worker steals from the till, it's a criminal offence. But, in many parts of Australia, if an employer steals from a worker's pay packet, it is not. I'm telling you, people in my electorate of Newcastle do not think that is a fair or just outcome. Many people in my electorate of Newcastle know just too well what this kind of wage theft looks like when it comes to unpaid superannuation. Too often I get calls from Novocastrians at their wits' end after being shortchanged thousands of dollars that are rightfully theirs. Recent figures show that one-third of Hunter-Newcastle workers were owed superannuation payments totalling $139 million. Industry Super Australia, which represents 12 Industry SuperFunds, says almost 74,000 Hunter workers missed out on employer contributions in the 2018-19 financial year alone. That is astonishing—74,000 workers in my region being explicitly ripped off.

The previous government did absolutely nothing—I've got to say—to stop wage theft, which rose to epidemic proportions under their watch. It took the Liberals and Nationals years to even acknowledge there was a problem. Eventually, they did bring in some half-hearted legislation, but, when it came to the Senate, they voted against their own legislation. They tore up their own draft laws because they couldn't get enough support for their plans to cut workers' pay and conditions in other ways. Instead, they sent a clear signal to wage thieves in this nation, saying: 'Just keep it up. We won't do anything.' Well, business owners who knowingly withhold wages should face the harshest of penalties.

We're determined to deliver on our promise to Australian workers and make wage theft a crime in this nation. Our proposal is to introduce a criminal offence for intentional underpayment of employees wages and certain entitlements and increased penalties for civil underpayment breaches, in line with the government's election commitments. This is no secret. This isn't something we've just dropped on the table. A number of us campaigned hard on a lot of the issues we are now seeking to seal with this closing loopholes legislation. An employer convicted of intentional wage theft could face up to 10 years imprisonment under this legislation. Significantly, courts will be able to impose up fines of up to three times the amount of the wage underpayment in both civil and criminal contexts, allowing penalties to be proportionate to the scale of misconduct, and that is important.

We're also ensuring our new laws do not water down any wage theft laws already put in place by the states, and that's important because Labor governments in both Victoria and Queensland criminalised wage theft. Frankly, they got sick of waiting for the former government to act. But Australia also needs a national wage theft system to end the rip-offs. This bill has built-in mechanisms to encourage businesses to come forward and self-disclose if they consider they have underpaid their workers, and employers who take reasonable steps to pay correct amounts or who make honest mistakes will not be criminally prosecuted. The Fair Work Ombudsman will be able to enter into cooperation agreements with employers who choose to come forward. As was requested by COSBOA, the council for small businesses, a new voluntary small business wage compliance code will provide assurance to small business employers that they can't be pursued criminally if they take appropriate steps to comply with the law. Furthermore, maximum civil penalties for wage underpayment, including reckless wage underpayment, will be increased, implementing recommendation 5 of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce. This is an important reform that I know will be welcomed by Newcastle workers, and we know migrant workers are particularly vulnerable and at risk of exploitation in the workplace.

There's also a very legitimate role in this nation for labour hire. Nobody on this side says otherwise. It's necessary for surge workforce issues, for specialist work or to provide temporary replacement workers. In Newcastle and the Hunter, labour hire ensures construction and manufacturing industries can continue their specialist work. Because of inherent insecurity, labour hire workers are usually paid at higher rates of pay, and those cases are completely unaffected by this legislation. If you've got a genuine reason to bring labour hire in and they are, as we have already said, workers who usually get paid at a higher rate because of that, you don't get caught up in this legislation. But when a business agrees on rates of pay in an enterprise agreement and then asks labour hire workers to do the same job for less, that is a labour hire loophole, and this bill will close it.

This bill amends the Fair Work Act 2019 to give powers to the Fair Work Commission to make orders that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages in a host enterprise agreement. That is fair and just, and this has been an outstanding issue in our workplaces for a long time. This delivers on the government's 'same job, same pay' election commitment. The Fair Work Commission must not make the order unless it is fair and reasonable to do so. Orders can apply only to pay rates, not to non-monetary conditions. To be very clear, this reform does not prevent employers paying their employees more in recognition of their skills, qualifications and experience, as has been purported through dreadful misinformation campaigns, and it doesn't apply to hosts who are small businesses comprising 15 or fewer employees, to independent contractors or to training arrangements. The Albanese Labor government is committed to providing support, certainty and fairness for Australian small businesses, and we're concerned about companies deliberately using the labour hire loophole in order to undercut the agreements that they've already made with their workers. That's what this legislation is trying to capture.

There's another feature—perhaps a little less spoken about—in this legislation that is also very important. That is making sure that employees who are subject to family and domestic violence are not being further discriminated against in the workforce. From 1 February, employees have had access to 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave, a work entitlement that saves lives and a terrific achievement of this Albanese Labor government. Today's legislation builds on that assurance that we provided to people, mostly women, in the workforce who had to face that dreadful choice of losing their jobs or putting up with violence in their relationships. Well, no more: we put in place that 10 days of paid family domestic violence leave. This legislation builds on this, ensuring that workers are not penalised in any way if they disclose that they have been subjected to family and domestic violence. Violence doesn't discriminate, and neither should the law. That's what this legislation makes very clear.

Family and domestic violence can affect all aspects of a person's life, including their wellbeing and their productivity at work. We know this. Those persons subjected to family and domestic violence should not be subjected to discrimination in the workplace because of their experience. An outcome of the 2022 Jobs and Skills Summit was that stronger protection should be provided against discrimination by including a new protected attribute of 'subjection to family and domestic violence' in the Fair Work Act 2009. This proposal will clarify and strengthen protections and assist victims-survivors of family and domestic violence to avail themselves of their workplace rights. This is a profoundly good thing for the Australian people. This will include requesting flexible working arrangements or accessing paid leave entitlements.

The amendments will prohibit employers taking adverse action, such as termination of employment, against employees, including prospective employees, because of family and domestic violence. They will prohibit any terms of enterprise agreements and modern awards that discriminate against a person on the basis of subjection to family and domestic violence. Finally, the amendments will require the Fair Work Commission to perform its functions and exercise its powers in a way that advances the goal of eliminating this type of discrimination. The proposal is consistent with and will assist in further fulfilling Australia's international treaty obligations, including those under the International Labour Organization's Violence and Harassment Convention, the ILO No. 190.

With the little time that I have left, I want to underline how important this legislation is for the protection of gig workers in Australia. I know many of my colleagues have spoken at length on this, but we have 13 gig workers who have died on Australian roads in the last few years, and that is utterly unacceptable. A New South Wales inquiry into the gig economy heard that riders made as little as $8 a trip, because they were being rushed to complete orders and they had their pay cut during the pandemic. We know there's a direct link between low rates of pay and people's safety at work. It leads to a situation where workers take risks so they can get more work done because they're struggling to make ends meet. This situation cannot continue. This legislation is about protecting workers, particularly those that don't meet the definition of an employee, as is the case for many gig workers, but are not genuine small businesses either. It's a sham to think that all these people are small businesses in their own right.

This is a great bill for casual workers, providing some help for 850,000 casual workers who have regular work arrangements and giving them greater access to leave entitlements and more financial security if desired. There are terrific measures in here to ensure the trucking industry is safe, sustainable and viable, reinstating a lot of work that the former government undid in this nation. As Sally McManus says, 'This is a great day for Aussie workers.' (Time expired)

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the amendment to the second reading of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, because this amendment bill—I think we should just start by clarifying—is this government fixing all sorts of problems with something called the Fair Work Act. I wonder who introduced the Fair Work Act. It was the Rudd-Gillard government. I think in 2009 it ultimately passed the parliament. It is remarkable—and I'll certainly highlight and make the point—that we've got Labor members of this chamber coming in and sledging all these dramatic problems and issues in their own legislation, which they introduced when they were last in government.

Apparently this legislation that the Rudd-Gillard government brought to this parliament and that passed through this parliament is so terrible that they have to call this amendment bill the 'Closing the loopholes bill'. In and of itself, the Rudd-Gillard government legislated spectacular loopholes, in the worst interests of Aussie workers. I appreciate the clarification and that now being on the record. I look forward to the history books recording, by those that can be bothered writing about the Rudd-Gillard era into the future—make sure that the most important thing we know about the Rudd-Gillard government is that they legislated workplace legislation that the Albanese government felt was so poor and so substandard that they brought a bill into this chamber called the 'Closing the loopholes bill' on their own legislation. That's the reality of the legacy of the Rudd-Gillard government's workplace relations laws, and that's what the Albanese government thinks of the Rudd-Gillard government's era of workplace reform.

We know Paul Keating's got his own views, of course, on the regime that exists now—the Fair Work Act and the Fair Work Commission. I join Paul Keating in his lament of the situation we've got with workplace laws in this country now, compared to the excellent reforms of his era and the Hawke-Keating reforms bringing in enterprise-level negotiations. They were certainly transformative for productivity in this nation and for the relationship between employees and employers, putting businesses in a position to negotiate with employees and to have agreements that suited workers and that business that wee unique and specific to their circumstance. Indeed, before my career in politics, I worked for many years in the textile industry, and we certainly had a very unique workplace relationship in that business, and we were certainly appreciative of the ability to have negotiations and undertake enterprise negotiations with unions and, via them, the workforce. It is so lamentable that the Rudd-Gillard government brought in reforms that, as Keating and Bill Kelty have said, really dismantled the great era of enterprise bargaining in this nation. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that the Albanese government has such a low view of the Rudd-Gillard era's workplace laws that they are here again amending those laws in what they claim to be a very substantive way and what they even call 'closing the loopholes'.

This bill, of course, is excellent for the union movement, and I just want to congratulate the union movement on the return on their investment! I haven't recently calculated just how many tens of millions of dollars they gave to the Labor party in the 2022 election, but it was really money well spent for the unions. They've done very well out of this legislation. I'm sure they're very happy that the millions of dollars they gave to Labor at the last election are achieving such a return for the union movement and for the power of the union bosses in this country and in this economy.

I haven't heard many speakers opposite talking about the new rights that unions get in this legislation. That's curious in and of itself. But the union movement is in a tough spot. Private-sector-workforce union membership is down to eight per cent, and those statistics are a year old, so the ABS's most recent statistics—calculations done by the Financial Review are that the private sector workforce is about eight per cent unionised. If you were the union movement, you'd really lean on the political party that you funded into government to make dramatic changes to the laws to try and turn that around, wouldn't you? So it's to be expected that this legislation that's before us now is excellent for the union movement. It's frightening if you're an employer, it's frightening if you run a business, it's frightening if you work in a business that isn't unionised, because they're coming for you. They're coming for you in legislation like this, and no doubt a lot of other little chip-away, loophole-closing future bills will do the same—the salami slicing of expanding union power.

The workplace access allowed in this bill is particularly concerning to us on this side of the chamber. Alas, that need not worry any of us, because if our second reading amendment is supported then a parliamentary inquiry can happily look at all these things and happily dispel any concerns that we and industry have got about what the consequences are, if this legislation is passed by the parliament, for the power of unions in the workplace.

We don't even necessarily know how 'workplace' is defined, on the basis of the legislation that's before us. I've heard examples that are pretty frightening—the Farmers Federation. If you're a farmer and you live on your property and it's also a business and you employ people, what part of that farm is a workplace? If whatever part of the farm, possibly the entirety of the farm, is a workplace, this legislation allows unions unfettered access, without notice, to that home. 'Come on in, fellas. Can I make you a cup of coffee? Take a load off and watch some of my Netflix.' What is going to be possible under this? We don't know, but we can find out by undertaking a parliamentary inquiry into this legislation before this chamber debates and passes it.

There are dramatic changes to the tests for casual labour. Again, we saw this legislation for the first time yesterday and we are already debating it, and I admit it is difficult to digest hundreds and hundreds of pages, so I concede that I am not an expert on the legislation yet. I have to say that I am a little bit sceptical and suspicious about whether or not the legislation in its voluminous detail is designed, in fact, to make it as difficult as possible to properly identify some of the loophole-closing, if not loophole-opening for the unions that may well also be in this bill—all sorts of new loopholes for them to use to access workplaces and to do things that are not in the interests of businesses, that are not in the interests of employees, but are certainly in the interests of union power.

We debated in the previous parliament some clarification of the way that casual labour is determined, on the back of a Federal Court decision. It was important to put clarifications in place because a vital part of our workplace system and a vital part of our economy is being able to employ people in casual circumstances. Indeed, employees get a loading on their hourly salary rate, as we all know, if they're employed as casuals. The changes to the definition of 'casual' and particularly the 12-month mark becoming the six-month mark, as it appears from early cursory glances at this legislation, are very concerning, and I think that's going to result in people losing jobs. I think that's going to result in businesses making decisions about whether or not they open for the same hours they currently do and undertake the same amount of economic activity in our economy as they currently do. I fear that this will lead to job losses. I fear this could lead to businesses reducing their turnover and not trading as broadly as they currently do.

All these are things we can look at, of course, in this inquiry, and we can give industry groups in particular and employers, employees, unions and anyone that wants to a chance to give evidence—and for us to test and look very closely at some of the provisions of this legislation. So why would we not want to do that? Maybe one category have already been thoroughly consulted. Maybe the union movement have already had their special access to put input into this legislation. Maybe this is legislation that was effectively written by them and given to certain people to bring into this chamber; I don't know. But it seems curious that, if this legislation is so important and so good for the economy, the government doesn't support properly scrutinising it, allowing that scrutiny and seeing the results of the scrutiny before we have to debate in this chamber and pass this legislation through this chamber.

It's not the first workplace legislation that we've seen under this government, and in this term it clearly won't be the last. But there's a bit of a pattern here, a bit of consistency. At the Jobs and Skills Summit, some more innocent interlocutors in the process of public policy development would, I think, in hindsight, concede they were dramatically misled by the intentions of the government when it came to consulting and looking to pursue and undertake meaningful reform that achieves the sorts of things that Paul Keating did when his government undertook workplace reform, particularly around the productivity outcome of negotiations and ensuring that growth in the economy is appropriately shared between return on capital and return on labour—that is, rising wages.

We all want to see that happening and we all want to see businesses, at the enterprise level, working together to talk about how their employees can earn more and their businesses can be more profitable. We had that in the enterprise bargaining era, and it's been lost to us, through the Fair Work Act under the Rudd-Gillard government, but even more so now that we see the return of the spectre of pattern bargaining in our economy, through reforms that were rushed through this chamber last year.

We're very concerned on this side of the chamber, and obviously I commend the contribution of our lead speaker, the member for Bradfield, and the second reading amendment that he has moved. I urge the chamber to support that amendment because we are in a situation where we are debating legislation we saw for the first time yesterday. We are very concerned about the ramifications of it. We would certainly like to give others that do not have the honour of serving in chambers like this, but who have views on this and are important stakeholders, the opportunity to put their views and have their questions answered. By supporting this second reading amendment, that is us supporting holding this inquiry and reflecting on the results of that inquiry before this progresses through the parliament. On that basis I commend the second reading amendment to the House.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fairness and equality is a fundamental human right that we must protect and uphold in our society. Apart from my first speech, there hasn't been an item on the Notice Paper that I have been more excited to see than the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. I've lived and seen firsthand the inequality that labour hire has in a workplace. The growing use of labour hire firms by employers has become a scourge not just in the Hunter but right across Australia. It's a business model that is used by bosses to undercut pay and conditions for workers and it drives a race to the bottom for employers looking to dodge their responsibilities to their workforce. This is really important reform in order to improve the job security, wages and conditions of workers in Australia.

For too long, labour hire employees have been treated like a second-class group of citizens. A lot of them have ended up on long-term labour hire engagements as casual workers for years on end, with no job security and lower wages and conditions than the people working directly alongside them. It's coincided with the erosion of secure employment in favour of casual work and independent contracting. Labour hire is just another form of work which seriously disadvantages employees. Around 80 per cent of labour hire staff in Australia are engaged as casuals, a smaller proportion are engaged as independent contractors and very few of them are engaged as permanent employees. Thirty years ago, most people in a warehouse would have been direct employees of the business that was running it. But it's a different story today. Originally you would have had labour hire being used to meet fluctuations in demand, but what's happening now in workplaces, particularly in the mining sector, is there are fewer directly employed core workforce employees.

Many of the workers in these types of workplaces are now long-term casual labour hire workers. The ramifications for workers are significant. Safety practices suffer as employers uncouple themselves from the responsibility for employee training, leaving workers vulnerable. In the event a worker is injured, the employer's situation is simple: just pick up the phone to the labour hire provider and ask for the worker not to be sent back to the job. For workers without permanency, simple things like establishing a credit record for renting a home, securing a loan or buying a car are near impossible. Workers are left in an employment twilight zone.

When I was working at Mount Thorley Warkworth I would travel to work in a car crew with Gary, Benny, Adam and Benny and Yatesy. Three of us were full-time employees working at the time for Rio Tinto and the other two were labour hire, getting paid up to $30,000 less than what we were for doing the exact same job. We drove to work together every day. We drove home from work together every day. I did the same hours of work as the rest of them, but the difference was they got paid $30,000 less. When they got sent home due to rain, they didn't get paid. Permanent staff remained onsite and got paid. When we took holidays, we got paid. The labour hire guys didn't. When we took sick leave, we got paid. The labour hire guys didn't. How is this fair?

I also worked for seven years with a guy called Graham who had been working for a labour hire company for more than eight years. It took him over eight years to get a full-time gig. That was eight years of his earnings being $30,000 less than the rest of us. That's eight years when that money wasn't being spent locally in the Hunter region in our shops, restaurants, florists, pubs and clubs. It was eight years when Graham's superannuation was worse off than ours. How is that fair? Graham was a fantastic worker. He did everything right and worked as hard as the rest of us but is now far worse off than the rest of us are.

We have seen the pathetic scare campaign run by the Minerals Council about lazy gardeners, but I'm not surprised they resorted to a scare campaign to muddy the waters about this important and necessary reform. It's interesting that they chose not to feature the mining industry in their ads, because mineworkers would have seen right through this rubbish. As a proud member of the Mining and Energy Union, we have invested heavily over many years in trying to change this law to prevent the business model that has seen permanent jobs shrink at the expense of casual labour hire. The groundbreaking wins for in the WorkPac, Skene and Rossato Federal Court matters meant coalminers could no longer lawfully be employed as casuals if the nature of their work was permanent and ongoing. Many current and former casuals also became eligible to claim back-paid entitlements. However, we were all gutted when One Nation backed the Morrison government and bowed to the business demands to overturn these wins, meaning mining companies could continue replacing permanent jobs with lower paid casuals and exploited casuals were denied the compensation that they deserved.

It is only a Labor government that delivers fair work, and this is what this bill will do. Most workers will be unaffected by this bill, but, for those who are affected, this will be life-changing. This bill is simple. It will give powers to the Fair Work Commission to make orders that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages in a host enterprise agreement. Employees, unions and hosts can apply to the commission for an order that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages in a host enterprise agreement. That would mean that the labour hire employees covered by an order of the commission would be entitled to be paid at least what they would receive under the host's enterprise agreement or equivalent public sector determination. Labour hire employers will be required to pay affected employees at least the wages payable underneath the host enterprise agreement for all labour hire employees when covered by an order. Labour hire employers can request information from the host to assist their compliance with this obligation where information is needed to calculate the correct rate of pay, and the host must comply. As an example, a labour hire employee working at BHP's Mount Arthur minesite would be entitled to be paid the same as someone who is directly employed by BHP underneath the EA. Exemptions apply where the host is a small-business employer, and a default three-month exemption period will also apply, to avoid impacting labour hire arrangements for surge work and temporary replacements.

The commission is not required to make an order if it is not fair and reasonable in the circumstances, including where an arrangement relates to the provision of specialist or expert services, like under a services contract. Businesses will be prohibited from taking action to avoid their obligations or prevent a commission order being made. The commission will be a low-cost and effective forum for dispute resolution. Applications can be made to the Fair Work Commission, and from 1 November 2024 the Fair Work Commission orders will become enforceable.

We are standing up for casual workers who want to become permanent employees. We are closing the labour hire loophole that leaves people stuck classified as casuals when they actually work permanent, regular hours. That means that they work just like a permanent employee but don't get any of the benefits of job security. We are legislating a fair, objective definition to determine when an employee can be classified as a casual. This will help more than 850,000 casual workers who have regular work arrangements, giving them greater access to leave entitlements and more financial security if desired. Rent isn't casual. Electricity bills aren't casual. School fees aren't casual. They're all a certainty.

Labour hire has a legitimate use in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case. What we are concerned about is the labour hire loophole which companies are deliberately using in order to undercut the agreements that they've already made with their workers. They've agreed to a fair rate of pay with their workers, made an enterprise agreement, and then they undercut the agreement by bringing in a labour hire workforce that is being paid less. That's a loophole that we have closed. But these people in insecure work do not have the same certainty about their hours or their income.

The other major elements of the closing-loopholes bill are criminalising wage theft and introducing minimum standards for workers in the gig economy. We announced these policies when we were campaigning for the last election, and we took them to the Australian people. The introduction of this bill follows months of extensive consultation, including with employer groups and unions.

Our government will extend the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include employee-like forms of work, allowing it to better protect people in new forms of work from exploitation and dangerous working conditions. This change will allow the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards for new forms of work such as gig work. We're not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees. A whole lot of gig workers like the flexibility from using this technology, and that won't change under these laws.

We know there is a direct link between a low rate of pay and safety. It leads to a situation where workers take risks so they can get more work because they are struggling to make ends meet. We can't continue to have a situation where the 21st-century technology of the gig platforms comes with 19th-century conditions. Just because someone is working in the gig economy shouldn't mean that they end up being paid less than they would be if they were an employee. We don't want to become a nation where you have to rely on tips to make ends meet.

We are also criminalising wage theft. If a worker steals from a cash register, it's a criminal offence. But, in many parts of Australia, if an employer steals from a worker's pay packet, it's not. Employers who intentionally steal from their workers should face criminal penalties. The previous government did nothing to stop the wage theft epidemic. It took the Liberals and Nationals years to even acknowledge that there was a problem. Eventually they did bring in some half-baked legislation, but, when it came to the Senate, they voted against their own legislation. It's something that they are becoming good at. They tore up their own draft laws because they couldn't get enough support for the plans to cut workers' pay and conditions in other ways. They decided to send a clear signal to wage thieves: 'Keep it up. We don't care.'

Business owners who knowingly withhold wages should face the harshest penalties. We must ensure our new laws do not water down any wage theft laws already put in place by the states. The Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland have criminalised wage theft because they got sick of waiting for the previous federal government to act. But Australia also needs a national wage theft system to end the rip-offs. We are determined to deliver on our promise to Australian workers to make wage theft a crime. All of these measures are designed to close loopholes that have undercut secure jobs, better pay and safe workplaces.

These are not radical changes. All we are doing is making the current law work effectively. Closing the labour hire loophole will simply require an employer to pay rates that have already been negotiated and agreed to. These are the rates of pay that are already set for the work being done. Our 'employee-like worker' reforms simply require workers to have some minimum standards benchmarked against existing award rates when they are working in a way which is similar to employees. Our wage theft reform will strengthen the enforcement of existing rates of pay. Most employers out there don't want to be undercut by bad apples doing the wrong thing. These laws will strengthen the current workplace relations framework and provide certainty, fairness and a level playing field for businesses and workers.

I am proud to be a former coalminer. I am bloody proud of my electorate's mining history. I'm proud to be mates with many people who work in the pits. We need jobs that are well paid and secure and aren't dominated by dodgy labour hire arrangements. Put simply, whenever you work, if you are doing the same job as the person next to you, you should be paid the same—same job, same pay; it's simple. That's the difference between us on this side and those that play dress-ups on the other side. We back mining and we back our miners. I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House.

Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese government's latest industrial relations legislation changes are some of the most extreme interventionist workplace changes that have ever been proposed in this great country of ours. The changes will inflict immense harm on the economy, the weight of which—

We were very quiet on our side whilst he did his speech. I wouldn't mind the same thing over here.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Braddon has the call, and he will be heard in silence.

Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But don't take my word for it. The Minerals Council of Australia's Tania Constable calls on the Albanese government to 'rip up this bill and head back to the drawing board'. That's what she said! This is a sentiment also shared by the Business Council of Australia, Master Builders Australia and the Australian Industry Group—

Government members interjecting—

My word, they're noisy over there, Deputy Speaker! You might need to be a bit more interventionist—who knows!

It's a sentiment that business owners right across my electorate—across the north-west, the west coast and King Island in the great state of Tasmania—share. As their representative, it's a sentiment that I share also. It's not that I'm opposed to industrial relations reform, not by any means. If done right, industrial relations reforms are the correct mechanism to make our workplaces more productive and more competitive. It's all about productivity. Improved productivity and competitiveness will drive our nation forward and make us more prosperous as a nation, employing more people and allowing more people to prosper in great small and local businesses. If implemented correctly, good IR legislation benefits all Australians. I believe in it strongly. But the legislation before us today does not fall into that category. It is not IR legislation that will drive us forward; it is IR legislation that can only take us in the opposite direction, and that's backwards, downhill. Again and again, Labor demonstrate that they just don't understand how businesses work.

I've been in business for quite some time. I've had quite a few of them. In Labor, however, very rarely do we see anybody that's had anything to do with the ownership of a business ever. Labor believes in government controlling every aspect, big government and wiping out small businesses. Labor believes unions are best placed to control our workplaces, and this is misguided. It's not a sentiment I share at all. I have stood up many times in this place and defended our enterprising business sector. Again I must remind the other side that they do not create jobs. It's our enterprising business sector that creates jobs. It's our individual enterprise that maximises our economic growth and forges national prosperity.

Governments do, however, have a role to play. Their role is to create a fertile environment that will create businesses, allow businesses to prosper and give them the tools and levers they need to go about their business, employ people, return to their bottom line and produce a product which effectively grows their business, and so on and so forth it goes. No efficiency has ever occurred when a government, particularly a big-fisted government, have inserted their beady little hands into any business's business, let alone the business sector—more so.

Priorities—let's talk about how not a single business owner, jobseeker or employee for that matter has ever raised the matter of IR reform as a priority in my time. It's not something they talk about. They talk about cost of living. They talk about how difficult it is for them to register their car. They talk about getting jobs. They talk about providing for their families. They talk about infrastructure that makes their job easier. They talk about airports. They talk about getting product in and out of their workplaces. Very rarely do they talk about IR reform. It's not something they talk about in the local pub. They talk about supply chain issues. Why then is IR legislation such a priority for this government? The mind boggles, and I think the unions are prodding at this all the time.

The general consensus is that the IR proposal in front of us will not create a single job. It will not strengthen job security. It will not contribute to wage growth. What the proposed legislation will do is stifle productivity, increase red tape, increase the complexity of undertaking business and prevent businesses from taking on new employees. The workplace relations changes will add uncertainty and complexity to the employment of millions of casuals, contractors and labour hire workers.

To move forward as a strong modern economy, governments must understand that employees are demanding flexibility in their workplace. This has never been more important, as employers are facing critical workforce shortages, and this is impacting sectors of our economy, particularly in my state of Tasmania. Speaking to businesses across my electorate, they're telling me flexibility is key. Not all businesses are the same, and not all businesses fit into the sanitised categories and the model that obviously the other side feel they do. I come from the agricultural sector, where we use many subcontractors, many people, casual labour hire—all sorts of business models are utilised when it comes to employment and getting that job done.

To give you an example, if you take a normal dairy farm in my electorate, often the casual milkers, the employees that do the morning milking, work for another company. They come and milk the cows. A separate person comes in, a contractor if you like, a stockman. They take the cows from the cowshed to the paddock. Then another contractor might come in with a piece of agricultural machinery, a tractor and fertiliser spreader. They might fertilise the paddocks with great nitrogen fertiliser that comes from our state also. The point I'm making is that many people from many different places, many different sources, employed under many different models and many different award rates, all operate on the one farm, returning to the one bottom line, producing milk that feeds our nation.

The other issue that needs to be raised is the mum-and-dad businesses out there. These people, partnerships and sole traders don't have a HR department that can read 800-odd pages of IR legislation and get their heads completely around that. They're nervous about this. When they see a piece of IR legislation that is 400 or 500 pages long, then what hope have they got?

When we start looking at the new laws, we see the complexity around the ability for Fair Work Australia to inspect, without warrant, a particular business's office. What you've got to consider is that we live in our businesses. I live on my farm. So does that mean that the Fair Work Commission can just kick my door in and come into my house, where my business's office is, and conduct an inspection? Is that fair? This is Australia. That is not the Australia that I want to see.

I think there are these nuances. Take the truck driver, for instance, who comes and picks up the produce from the farm. That particular driver, that owner-operator, works in a completely different environment, in a completely different situation, from people clocking on at seven o'clock in the morning and knocking off at five o'clock in the afternoon in a normal environment in a big city. It doesn't work like that in the bush. These are the nuances that need to be considered when we introduce complex IR legislation like we're seeing in this bill.

As I mentioned earlier, we don't have a clock on, clock off mentality. We have a 'complete the job' mentality. We have a 'fill the order' mentality. We have a 'get the job done and then we pack up and go home' mentality. We don't have this clock on, clock off mentality.

We can talk about subcontractors and their ability to work infrequent hours and times and dates, particularly around our weather situation. I come from the great state of Tasmania, and obviously, during the winter, the weather has a big impact on workload. If I put a person on as a permanent employee and then it rains for a week, that person can't be employed in that particular role. These are all considerations. What I'm getting at is: these nuances need to be considered. And I don't believe that they have been.

In the electorate of Braddon alone, there are just over a thousand small businesses in the building and construction sector alone. Between them, they employ around 4,000 tradies. That's around nine per cent of our population in Braddon.

For the benefit of those opposite, I feel obliged to explain how the building and construction industry works. We have, in the building sector, a very complex, finely tuned, well balanced and highly efficient system of business owners, apprentices and independent contractors, and things called subbies—subcontractors. They're a necessary part of that employment sector and that industry. This is a time-proven model: having subcontractors on a job, doing very specialised jobs, at specific parts of that job, over many, many months, but only for specified portions of time. Yet those in Labor believe that that is not the way that they want to see it. They don't believe in the flexibility, independence and responsiveness of these less rigid parts of the employment model. Instead, they want them to be part of the employee role. They want them to be responsive to that rigid employee schedule. They want them to be beholden to the union movement and bound up in red tape. As far as I'm concerned, that's just an absolute stifle when it comes to a successful business.

I was at a meeting of the Master Builders Association the other night and I was told that, 'If Labor's proposed IR reforms were to get in, then,' as far as they were concerned, 'these would be the worst possible things that could happen to the building and construction industry in Tasmania.' They believed that the costs to independent contractors and subbies could find them leaving the industry and going somewhere else—ultimately, forcing them to relinquish their autonomy and become employees. It's not what they want. It's not the Australia that we've grown up in. This would mean losing the freedom to choose their working hours, their projects, their clients and their ability to negotiate their own fees and conditions. One subcontractor said that he hopes that the people responsible—and these are not my words; I am quoting from this meeting—for bringing in this new legislation will be held 100 per cent accountable when the construction industry is totally destroyed in Tasmania. That's how desperate he was. He conveyed this to me in a very clear and concise way. It is never a good time for government to put their hand into small business. It is never a good time for governments to make it harder for workers or jobseekers to find flexible employment. As I said earlier about our agricultural sector, that is exactly what this bill from this government is proposing and trying to do.

In the last couple of minutes I want to talk about the new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, the RSRT. The government is effectively reviving the failed Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal. Multiple independent reviews found that its failure had cost the lives and livelihoods of hardworking owner-drivers. This new body within the Fair Work Commission will have the same profound impact on the road transport industry. Owner-drivers will again lose their flexibility, and I talked about how valuable that flexibility is in many industries. The tribunal will remove all that and set their rates and conditions, which will hurt remote and regional operators. Australians will ultimately feel the pinch at the supermarket because we will have to pass these costs on.

Parliament should not bend to the demands of the Transport Workers Union and should reject these changes. In the hundreds of pages of legislation the government has snuck in a small provision that gives the minister the power to make regulations for 'supply chain participants'. In doing so, he or she is handing over control of our supply chains to the Fair Work Commission, and that is not on. As you can clearly see from the reasons I've stated, there is no possible good outcome from this fair work legislation.

Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our government was elected on the promise that we would make workplaces fairer, we would get wages moving and we would tackle the problems of insecure work and wage theft, and that is precisely what the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill is about. In my very first speech in this place, I spoke about the need to do more to address the situation is this country where too many people are trapped in insecure work arrangements, making it impossible for them to plan their lives, and the detrimental impact this has on our communities. It is hard for people to put down roots in communities, to participate in local sporting clubs, art groups, volunteer groups, neighbourhood houses and school groups when there is no job security. This is something I am passionate about, having experienced insecure work myself and having worked with many people over the years who have struggled in insecure work arrangements. I firmly believe that people should have jobs they can count on. I'm so pleased that this bill goes some way towards creating the conditions where this can be realised for workers right around the country and in my beautiful community in the electorate of Chisholm.

It is so disappointing, I must say, to hear the seemingly deliberate mischaracterisation from those opposite about what this bill does. I find it really difficult to understand, and I suspect lots of people across the country find it really difficult to understand why those opposite won't do the right thing by our communities. This failure to understand what this bill does to help workers right across the country is unfortunately just another example of those opposite standing in the way of what is right. This bill is very important. It makes crucial changes to workplace laws and will change lives for the better. It will save lives. I'm exceptionally proud to be part of a government that has the vision and courage to introduce this legislation. I want to take this moment to acknowledge the years of hard work of my Labor colleagues, especially those in the broader labour movement: the workers, their families and trade unionists who stood for what is right, for lawful wages, for safe workplaces, for secure work and for respect, dignity and equality for everyone in this country, never forgetting the marginalised who are so often subjected to exploitation, including workplace exploitation, in this country. Yet to make things right is apparently a bridge too far for those opposite.

I thank those in the United Workers Union for their years and years of work on many of the critical issues this bill addresses, and I think now of the workers I've had the pleasure to know over the years who have inspired me with their courageous focus on justice—justice meaning that there are consequences for wage theft, for neglecting to provide a safe workplace. I acknowledge the work of the Young Workers Centre and the Migrant Workers Centre, who have not only ensured that workers have been able to recover wages they were owed, and could stand up for their rights, but have been fierce and fearless advocates for many of the changes this bill makes for workers, particularly in relation to wage theft, the treatment of workers in the gig economy and regarding industrial manslaughter.

This bill contains four main elements. In this bill, our government is taking action to criminalise wage theft, introduce minimum standards for workers in the gig economy, close the forced permanent casual worker loophole and close the labour hire loophole. We have engaged with business groups and consulted on the design of these measures, and this bill realises our commitment as a government to deliver on our election promises to make sure our workplaces are fairer. This legislation ensures that the current law works effectively.

Closing labour hire loopholes will simply require an employer to pay rates that have already been negotiated and agreed to. Despite some of the bluster we've heard from those opposite, there is nothing strange or odd about this proposal. It's sensible.

The employee-like reforms that will impact gig workers simply require workers to have some minimum standards benchmarked against existing award rates when they are working in a way which is like employees. Again, it is astonishing that minimum standards for workers in this country, in the 21st century, are something that those opposite cannot agree that we should have.

Our wage theft reforms will strengthen the enforcement of existing rates of pay, which is important to highlight, as most employers don't want to be undercut by bad actors doing the wrong thing. It's very, very simply the right thing to do. It will put money back into the pockets of workers, where it should be.

Our new definition of casual employment will clarify what was always intended with casual work—that, if you're working regular and predictable hours and you want to be permanent, you will have that pathway available to you. It's a reasonable measure.

These laws will strengthen the current workplace relations framework and provide certainty, fairness and a level playing field for both businesses and workers.

We know that labour hire has some legitimate uses in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case. Of course it will. What we on this side of the House are concerned about is the labour hire loophole, which some companies deliberately use to undercut the agreements that they've already made with their workers. I've met too many workers in such a predicament. This change is terribly important and will mean that workers working side by side will be treated equally. This is really good not only for wages but for cohesive workplaces. It should be welcome change.

We know that some employers, having agreed on fair rates of pay with their workers through an enterprise agreement, unfortunately seek to undermine that agreement by bringing in a labour hire workforce that is being paid less. That's totally against the spirit of workplace democracy that we should prize in this country. This is a loophole that we must close, and we are.

A significant aspect of this bill is that it amends the Fair Work Act 2009 to give powers to the Fair Work Commission to make orders that labour hire employees be paid at least the wages in a host's enterprise agreement. That's just fairness. The loophole that allows employers to use labour hire workers who are paid less than the rates of pay agreed to in a workplace's agreement will be closed, and that's a good thing.

This bill is delivering on our election commitment. This is something that I'm really proud to be able to speak to in the House today.

This has been the subject of wide consultation. There have been over 45 consultation sessions held with employer and union representatives. In this bill, our government is standing up for workers when it comes to casual employment. We're closing the loophole that leaves people classified as casuals, when in practicality they work permanent, regular hours. They may work like permanent employees, but they're not treated in the same way; they don't have the benefits that job security provides. So we're legislating a fair and objective definition to determine when an employee can be classified as casual so they're not stuck as a casual into perpetuity, making it impossible for them to have the kind of security in their life that a permanent job offers. If desired—and it's very important that it's 'if desired'; it's not forced on workers; it is about a choice for people who satisfy the requirements for being classified in this way—it will help more than 850,000 workers who have regular work arrangements but are classified as casuals. It will give them greater access to leave entitlements and financial security. I would have thought that was something that everyone in this House would want workers in this country to be able to have. Surely all of us in this place know that there's nothing casual about the rent falling due or the electricity bills that need to be paid. This is a really important step we can take to make sure that our communities aren't left behind.

No employee, as I mentioned before, will be forced to convert from casual to permanent if they don't want to. For all the commentary we heard from the other side about choice, it remains the case that either they don't understand the legislation or they are wilfully misleading people by suggesting that there's anything other than a choice here when it comes to those pathways to permanent employment. It's really important here, too, to note that eligible employees will have two pathways to change their status: either through the definition-based employee choice pathway or through the existing casual conversion mechanism.

Of course, we've consulted on this part of the bill as well. As the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations stated in this House yesterday, we know that over 40 per cent of the casual workforce are over the age of 35. With this in mind, we mustn't underestimate the meaningful change this will provide to those casual employees who seek a pathway to permanent employment and being able to support their families. It will give them some really critical financial security and the security to set roots down in their communities, which I think is a really important thing for everyone in this country to be able to do.

We're also extending the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include employee-like forms of work as it relates to the gig economy. That's going to make it possible for the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards for new forms of work, such as gig work, which will allow for better protections for people in new forms of work from exploitation and dangerous working conditions—again, something I would have thought people in this place would agree is a good thing to do.

We're not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees. We know that a lot of gig workers like the flexibility from using technology, and that's not going to change under the laws. But what we do know is that there is a direct link between low rates of pay and worker safety. That leads to situations where workers take risks so they can get more work because they're struggling to make ends meet. There have unfortunately been some really tragic circumstances involving gig workers that I wouldn't have thought anyone would like to see continue in this country. As the minister has made clear, we can't continue to have a situation where the 21st-century technology of the gig platforms comes with 19th-century conditions. Employee-like workers performing digital platform work such as gig work are often engaged as independent contractors, which means that they don't receive rights and entitlements under the Fair Work Act. We've had multiple inquiries highlighting that these workers receive less pay than they would if they were paid under the award safety net and have no protections if they lose their work unfairly. We're making really important changes here to make sure work is safe and work is fair.

Something that is a very important issue for so many people, particularly young people and migrant workers in our community, is the wage theft epidemic, which those opposite didn't do anything to stop. I'm really proud to say that we're closing the loophole that has allowed for that and we're criminalising wage theft. It's a priority for our government. We know that if a worker steals from the till it's a criminal offence, but in many parts of Australia, if an employer steals from a worker's pay packet, it's not, or there aren't sufficient deterrents to prevent this from taking place.

I've met countless workers who have had their wages stolen. Often these have been young workers and migrant workers—often both. Some of the figures of the underpayment workers have experienced have been eye watering. I've encountered individual workers who have had tens of thousands of dollars of hard work, of wages earned, ripped out of their pockets. It's absolutely appalling. I know that every time stories of wage theft cases are reported in the media, our communities are rightly outraged. It's absolutely time that we made wage theft a crime. Simply, employers who intentionally steal from their workers should face criminal penalties. It took years for those opposite to even acknowledge that there was a problem. They've been well behind our communities on this one, just as they are out of step on a number of other issues—and increasingly so, I must say.

When those opposite did eventually bring in some half-baked proposal, they voted against their own legislation in the Senate. Preposterous! Absolutely preposterous! They tore up their own draft laws because they could not get enough support for their plans to cut workers pay and conditions in other ways. In doing so, they sent a clear signal to wage thieves: 'Keep it up.' It's our government's position that business owners who knowingly withhold wages should face the harshest penalties. That's why this proposal introduces the criminal offence for intentional underpayment of employees wages and certain entitlements and increases the penalty for civil underpayment breaches in line with our election commitments.

We must make sure that our new laws do not water down any wage theft legislation already put in place by the states, such as Victoria and Queensland, who actually had the vision to criminalise wage theft some time ago. We need this national wage theft system to end the rip-offs though. It's really important. It's the right thing to do. We're making workplaces fairer with this bill.

We're doing a number of other things in this bill. We're allowing the Fair Work Commission to set minimum standards for the road transport industry, to continue to implement the Boland review, to introduce an offence for industrial manslaughter with increasing penalties. Every worker should come home safely to their families, and this will ensure this is the case. We're providing better support for first responders, expanding the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency to include silica safety and silica related diseases, providing stronger workplace protections for survivors of family and domestic violence, and providing specific protections for delegates and better safety and compliance representation in the workplace.

It's a privilege every day to be a member of parliament, and moments like this, when we get to make changes to improve lives, to save lives, is a reminder of that. I'm really proud to be part of a government that is standing up for what is right and what is fair, and I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise in advance for my croaky voice. I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, but I do so with a number of grave concerns. I'm concerned for the 35,598 businesses on the Sunshine Coast. I'm concerned for the 178,000 locals who are employed by those businesses. We have nearly 14,000 labourers on the Sunshine Coast, many of whom are independent contractors, just like support workers in the community sector, like truckies and tradies across almost every industry in our local economy. I'm concerned that this government and this legislation will strip them of their ability to work for themselves, to build their businesses and to make their own decisions.

I listened to the last speaker, the member for Chisholm. The government boasts that this legislation we're discussing today comes after a great deal of consultation. Now whenever the government comes into this place it basically prevents the opposition from being able to review legislation. We were provided with a draft copy of this legislation—over 800 pages of legislation and explanatory memoranda—yesterday and the government wants us to debate this today. Those Australians who are at home right now listening to this would be concerned, and would be thinking, 'That should cause everyday Australians a bit of concern.' They would start to think: 'Why would the government do that? What have they got to hide? Why are they trying to rush something through with very little dealings with the opposition?'

Those opposite talk about consultation. Small businesses across Australia weren't consulted. The independent contractors and subbies at worksites across the nation weren't consulted. The mum-and-dad business owners, who are already struggling to keep their doors open, weren't consulted. Young entrepreneurs, whose businesses were growing thanks to our government, weren't consulted. The private sector employers beyond the big end of town weren't consulted. The government talks about consultation and collaboration, yet it refuses to listen to those who are impacted the most. Who did they consult? They consulted with their union mates. What a surprise! They are the same unions that fund their campaigns, the same unions that determine who wins preselection. That's very interesting! The same unions pick and choose and distribute power whenever Labor takes the reins of government.

That is the reality. I want to remind those members opposite: trade unions do not represent the Australian people. The ACTU is not a representative body for Australians. The House of Representatives is the body that represents Australians. That's why it is unbelievably shameful of those members opposite—800 pages of legislation and explanatory memoranda; they provided us with a copy yesterday, and here we are debating it today. Every day, average Australians who are driving home from work should be thinking, 'What has the government got to hide?' The Labor government didn't even have the guts to put the legislation on the table for a meaningful exchange before bringing it to the House today. Not only that, but, for those big businesses that they did speak with, they signed them up to confidentiality agreements. Those businesses couldn't share with the opposition or anybody else. Come on, what is this? What's this about? You're signing the people up to confidentiality agreements about legislation you're going to bring to the House. What is this? How does that work?

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

Imagine if you'd signed up PwC to some of those!

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In three words, let me explain to the House why this bill is a dud: complexity, cost and confusion. We'll call them the three Cs—complexity, cost and confusion. Did you see what I did there, Member for Fremantle?

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

I see what you did there.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps the Prime Minister hasn't read this legislation. We know he has this penchant for not wanting to read things in detail. We know that.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why would you!

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why would he!

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Member for Fisher. The Chief Government Whip?

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, under standing order 76, I ask you to bring the member back to the substance of the bill.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is in order, and he is speaking to the bill. The member for Fisher will continue.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's amazing that the Chief Government Whip would try and even have the gall to raise a point of order on relevance. You've had your chance of raising relevance—

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The Chief Government Whip has the call.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd ask the chair to ask the member to respect the chair's direction.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The member for Fisher has the call. The member for Fisher is relevant and will continue to be relevant. You may continue.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Is relevant.' Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I am being relevant.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You're rabble. That's what you are.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The Chief Government Whip is not helping. The member will be—

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't like differences of opinion.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't like differences of opinion.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. Shadow Minister, I have control. The member for Fisher will be heard in silence.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is demonstrative of the way that the Australian Labor Party work. When someone tries to raise issues about the way that the Australian Labor Party seek to conduct themselves, they raise spurious points of order. But I'll move on because I don't want to run out of time. Now, perhaps the government doesn't have a choice, because we all know that they are beholden to the trade unions and they are obliged to implement the unions' demands. We all know that they owe their pre-selections to the unions, of course. This is a government who talked about wellbeing but slashed mental health care and essential services. What was really interesting yesterday was that the Leader of the House spoke about the pharmacists and talked about the importance of mental health care.

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

Relevance?

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You've already had your go with relevance.

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

You brought a rabble into the House.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Fisher has the call. He'll be heard in silence.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those members opposite talk about the importance of respect in the workplace, and yet what do they see on building sites? How many of those members opposite have actually worked on building sites? I ask that question. There are only three of you in here. I would suggest there are very, very few who have. If they think that building sites are pure as snow, where everybody behaves themselves, let me tell you that the CFMMEU do not provide the same level of respect that those members opposite would talk about in this place. The hypocritical nature of those members opposite knows no bounds.

The reality is that this is a callous and careless Labor government. This workplace relations reform is reckless, wrong and potentially disastrous. It's just another example of a Labor government who doesn't care. They talk about closing loopholes. We've heard the minister talk about this bill and how it closes the loopholes in employment. It's a tricky slogan, but it's far from the truth. The bill won't close any loopholes.

What it will do is widen the gap between the big end of town and hardworking Australians. What it will do is tear an enormous hole in Australia's economic productivity. It's nothing less than an attack on businesses and subcontractors. It'll cripple businesses. It'll crush subcontractors. It'll constrain business growth. It'll contract employment participation. These reckless reforms will send a shock wave through the economy, shatter business investor confidence and decimate Australian innovation and ingenuity. Labor's plan for workplace relations is to punish workplaces for their success and give unions a free ride into board rooms and to back room decision-making tables. At the end of the day, this is all about providing unions with power.

We talked about costs earlier. What is this bill going to do in relation to costs? You would have thought, as a result of this government, when the cost of living has gone sky high for Australians in all areas: rentals, mortgages, fuel, electricity, gas and food—everything has gone up. Everything has increased in cost, and now they want to introduce this bill, which, according to their own figures, is going to cost an additional $9 billion in wages over the next 10 years. Those members opposite may not understand this, but, when you put an impost on businesses, that will flow through to the people who take those services—that is, consumers. Not only are those members opposite driving up the cost of living for everyday Australians; there are now additional costs that people are going to have to pay, additional costs that they cannot afford.

The legislation uses words like 'protecting' and 'safeguarding', but whose interests are they protecting and safeguarding? Protecting bargained wages in the way that they have proposed will hurt labour hire workers, not benefit them. Those members opposite have a pathological hatred for labour hire. Why? Because they can't unionise the workforce—that's why. Dismantling the casual workforce, Labor's mighty goal, will drive up unemployment, drive down investment and shut down businesses left, right and centre. Do you know what else it will do? It will drive down Australia's productivity. We already have plunging productivity rates in this country and the government will make it worse through this bill.

Removing subcontractors' independence only strips them of their ability to work for themselves, balance their lifestyle, set their own conditions and grow as sole traders with the ebbs and flows of our dynamic economy. These are not workers trapped in the gig economy. That is essentially what the minister has done here. He has roped in hundreds of thousands of independent contractors under this wide umbrella of the gig economy. Subbies, casuals, entrepreneurs and business owners are not the gig economy or trapped in an underregulated sector. They are the heartbeat and the backbone of the Australian economy. They don't need the government to come in and save them. They want the government to get out of the way.

This legislation will smother Australia's pioneer spirit and elevate the Fair Work Commission to the role of employer, not just regulator, of thousands of hardworking Australian subbies, casuals, labour hire workers and business owners. Removing decision-making powers for business owners and subcontractors is big government gone mad. We all know that this government, like every Labor government, is all about big government. This government, like any labour government, always and at every occasion believes that the bigger government is the better because it thinks Australian workers and Australians in general don't know what's best for us; government always knows what's best for us! It's the antithesis of Australia's reward-for-effort economy. It's uniformity at all costs and it fails to appreciate the unique contours of our local, regional and national economies, particularly in the building, tourism and social sectors on which Australia depends right now. This bill is a mechanism to disempower hardworking Australians and we should fight it every step of the way. (Time expired)

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

I am glad to make a contribution to this debate on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. Safe and fair working conditions are one of the building blocks of the Australian way of life. The existence and guarantee of those conditions are one of our core values and core operating principles. That's not surprising because, without those conditions, working people and those who depend on them, which is the vast majority of Australians, are at risk. Their core wellbeing is at risk and their physical and material wellbeing is at risk. This Labor government is going to do what Labor governments have always done. We are going to be the responsible stewards of that building block of the Australian way of life, safe and fair working conditions, after a period of 10 years when that task was utterly abandoned by those opposite. Some of the things that have been said in this debate have just been utterly ridiculous on that front.

I've often said that the most important things are the things we share. That's my view. Those are the things that define our communal life together and that define our values in the way that we as a nation go forward as we live in our communities right around this country. If you think about what those things are, they are public health and education, our environment, community infrastructure and fair and safe working conditions. Every Australian ought to be able to go through their life taking that as a bedrock guarantee of life in this country.

When I have the privilege of participating in citizenship ceremonies and I talk about what becoming an Australian citizen means and I say, 'You are joining a country that is egalitarian and fair and that is multicultural and democratic,' I always make the point that all of the qualities that create our Australian way of life, including safe and fair working conditions, didn't happen by accident. Those things that we enjoy today evolved over time and they were fought for over time. In the case of fair and safe working conditions, they were fought for by workers, they were fought for by workers' representatives in the union movement and they were fought for by the Labor Party.

The things that we enjoy today haven't been with us forever. It wasn't really that long ago that we ended child labour. It wasn't that long ago that we made sure sick and annual leave entitlements were a permanent, expected and reliable feature of working life. It wasn't that long ago that we put in place effective occupational health and safety laws, and of course the developmental evolution of effective occupational health and safety laws is something that occurred over decades and needs to continue. It wasn't that long ago that there weren't awards, penalty rates, superannuation or bargaining frameworks with union membership rights, access and advocacy. All those things which we now take as being core to the framework of fair and safe working conditions in Australia were fought for. A hundred years ago very few of those things existed.

When I go to citizenship ceremonies, one of the points I make about lots of areas of life but is certainly relevant to this part of our life is that we have to be the stewards of those values. We have to be the stewards of those conditions. Fair and safe working conditions were fought for to get them where they are, and they need to continue to be fought for. We take that stewardship responsibility seriously. If you don't take that stewardship responsibility seriously, you will see an erosion in the degree of protection offered by the framework that is there to guarantee fair and safe working conditions, because things change. Times change.

We're talking a lot at the moment about the gig economy. When I was a kid, the challenge of the gig economy and way that puts people's pay at risk and puts not just their livelihood but their safety and their life at risk just did not exist in the way it exists now. The idea that you have people being seriously underpaid, taking jobs through a digital platform, being forced to rush from one thing to another on a bike, delivering takeaway food and suffering in some cases, unfortunately, fatal accidents as a result—there have been stories in recent times of delivery drivers ending up being hurt in a motor vehicle accident and, while they die, continuing to receive delivery order messages on their telephones. This is a feature of 21st-century life, and if we don't change the framework to protect those people, they will go unprotected. That's the way it is now.

But it's also the case that loopholes in any framework will be exploited. The vast majority of businesses and employers in Australia do the right thing. There are some people, organisations, consultants and peak bodies that, unfortunately, make it their business to look for loopholes where they can take otherwise fair shares of profits and productivity and shift them from the worker who has earned them to the corporation and to the CEOs. That's something that has to be resisted. That's something we have to keep our eye on in every area of Australian life and certainly when it comes to the framework that's supposed to protect workers, and we're going to do that.

It was a task completely abandoned by those opposite for the last 10 years. What did you see as a result? You saw stagnant and falling real wages, you saw a complete disconnection between productivity and profits and you saw rising inequality, and that's exactly what you'd expect. If you don't tend to that framework that should guarantee, to Australian workers and the people who depend on them, fair and safe working conditions, you will find that their share of the enterprises to which they contribute through their labour will diminish.

It's funny that those opposite talk about how wages rising can't be tolerated—that it'll cause this, that it'll cause that, that this will go through the roof, that business will close down, that building construction in Tasmania will stop altogether. I think the previous speaker said it would decimate innovation and ingenuity and destroy the building industry and that thousands of businesses would go out of business. When all the catastrophising and the hysterical, extreme rhetoric die away, what are they essentially saying? They're saying people can't be paid properly. They're saying that workers can't be safe—that the whole show will crumble into dust if people get their fair share of the enterprise to which they contribute. How utterly ridiculous.

What happened in 2022? We ensured that the minimum wage rose at a time of high inflation caused by global factors. That was so that all the cost-of-living pressures that the former speaker referred to actually don't hurt households to the extent that they otherwise would have. When you get wages that are at least keeping in touch with inflation let alone staying connected to record corporate profits and rising productivity, what you are doing is making sure that Australian families and Australian households are not falling further behind. We were prepared to support that rise in the minimum wage almost as soon as we were elected, as the Prime Minister made clear during the course of the campaign with the famous dollar coin, which those opposite thought would literally bring Armageddon to Australia. How utterly ridiculous.

But just to make it more ridiculous there's one thing you will never hear from those opposite. You hear all this catastrophising about wages and how dangerous it is that workers get paid properly, how dangerous it is that workers receive their fair share of the enterprises to which they contribute, but you never, ever hear those opposite saying a cautionary word about CEO wages. To them that is not the problem. The laws of economic orthodoxy that they have imbibed and they seek to apply don't seem to have any application in the case of CEO wages. Last year, ordinary wages across the Australian economy rose on average by 3.7 per cent, and that was apparently dangerous. CEO wages rose by 15 per cent, five times as much. Did you ever hear any one of those opposite say: 'Well, hang on a second, that is a bit risky, that is a bit much. That's a bit out of kilter with the circumstances of the day. That is going to make your milk prices go up and your gas prices go up and the building industry close and thousands of businesses shut.' No, there is never a problem with CEO wages going up or bonuses going up or share issues going up.

They think that is fine because it is within the laws of the jungle. They think that is a healthy economy in practice, people getting rewarded for effort, as the member for Fisher said. But God forbid that the people on the minimum wage should get a pay rise. To them that will let loose the four horses of the apocalypse the very next day, ridden by bikies from the CFMMEU or some kind of bizarre dark fantasy that those people have. They should put some employment the way of the counselling and psychology sector and get some of those weird fantasies attended to. That is what they should do. That would help the economy. Go and lie on the couch and confess to some of those bizarre visions and have them attended to, but we're not going to go along with that.

We know that fair and safe working conditions are a core value of the Australian community and that Australians absolutely insist on the right and on the inherent justice that is involved in workers being able to get a fair share of the outcomes of their efforts, to go to work and come home safely and to have the benefit of evolving reforms like we've done with 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave. They have the benefit of having a government that doesn't say: 'Look what happened with asbestos and asbestosis. Let's let the next version of that creep up on us.' Instead this government is saying, 'No, we know that there is a problem with silica related diseases, and we are going to seriously get on the front foot about that before we see more people affected by something that will result in acute and in some cases grave health issues down the track.' What we're going to do are the kinds of things that those opposite somehow seem to regard as the most extreme changes in the history of the world, not something moderate and tempered.

We are going to make sure that there is a fair and objective definition of casual employee—shock, horror. We're going to protect bargained wages in enterprise agreements from being undercut. We think that, when people are working in the same job in the same place, you shouldn't be able to surreptitiously or cunningly make use of a labour hire arrangement, or at least not for a legitimate purposes because there are legitimate purposes to which labour hire arrangements can be put. But we don't think it's okay to simply create a labour hire arrangement as an additional subsidiary and subordinate workforce, with the purpose of undercutting the wages of people who are already there. We don't think that's okay and we're going to change it. We don't think that wage theft should go unchecked in this country. People—particularly young people, but not just young people when you think that 40 per cent of casual employees are over 35—should go back into their communities, or even to their families, and ask people that they know, 'Do you reckon you've ever worked somewhere where you weren't getting paid properly or where you knew what the award was but you got a couple of dollars less?' Perhaps they knew that there was a penalty rate but their employer quietly said, 'Yeah, but we don't pay that.' My kids have experienced it. My mum has experienced it. My brother has experienced it. You ask around. You will not find many people out of 10 who, at some point, haven't worked in a place where the employer has decided to cut a corner and help themselves to some of the output of their worker in order to put a little bit more coin in their own pocket. Well, we're going to do something to turn the wheel on that issue.

We're going to allow the Fair Work Commission to set fair minimum standards with respect to the road transport industry, an industry that has been beset, for understandable reasons, with risks to those workers for too long because of the nature of the work.

We are doing what any responsible government would do. We start from the position that fair and safe working conditions are an entitlement of every Australian; they are a core value of our Australian way of life. They didn't happen by accident. We didn't end up where we are today, with the existing framework, by accident. We fought for it. The labour movement fought for it. Unions fought for it. Workers fought for it. Labor governments answered those calls and implemented those changes and built that framework. But it is a dynamic living thing. It will always be subject to erosion. It will always be subject to the possibility that people will pay consultants to find loopholes and ways around things out of their own self-interest, and against the interests of workers. It will always be subject to being less effective over time because the world changes. Things like the gig economy—Deliveroo and all that sort of stuff—come along, when perhaps 25 years ago they weren't anticipated.

We are doing this, pretty smartly, in our first term, off the back of the jobs summit and all of the consultation, and with the clarity in the lead-up to the election about what our intentions were in this space. We are going to turn the wheel to make working conditions in Australia fairer and safer for Australian workers. That's what Australians deserve. That's what they insist upon, that's what they voted on, and that's what the Albanese Labor government will be delivering.

Debate adjourned.