Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians have a right to work, and it's pleasing that 96.4 per cent of our population are exercising it. You have to go back 49 years, to 1974, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, to find a lower unemployment rate in Australia. In my electorate of Mallee, the unemployment rate is even better, lower than the national average, at 2.4 per cent in the north-west of Victoria. The right to work I mentioned is a fundamental human right, including the right to choose to work in the way individuals want to. Australia's employment diversity includes the gig economy, casual, labour hire and independent contractor arrangements, but these non-employee arrangements are anathema to the union movement that controls the Albanese Labor government. So, in light of Australia's near full employment, Labor chooses now to bring this bill forward for a radical industrial relations shake-up—not at a time of double-digit unemployment, not at a time of mass retrenchments, sackings or redundancies. This is when Labor bring this awful legislation to parliament. Perhaps the unions fear their wholly owned subsidiary the Australian Labor Party won't be in office for long, so it's best to get on with the real agenda.

Minister Burke tries to sell his new industrial relations bill, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, by describing it as 'very modest'. As my colleagues on this side have mentioned already, the same description of 'modest' is the selling point for the radical constitutional change proposed for the referendum on 14 October. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

One of my constituents is a building company owner, Paul Locke, who says: 'The bill takes the gloss off running a small business. It is typical of Labor policies, more red tape. They're putting the brakes on the building industry, and what we need is a stable economy, not the roller-coaster we are experiencing. The fact is, if you get a good worker, you pay more to keep them, especially in light of our unemployment rates. We don't need government controlling everything. Business can work it out themselves. Small business is the backbone of the nation. Why try and chop them off at the knees?' To be clear, when I'm talking about small business, I'm talking about 2.5 million businesses in Australia, over 97 per cent of all Australian business with fewer than 20 employees, according to the ABS. As the provisions in the Fair Work Act apply to those with 15 or more employees, to say the least, it is confusing for those simply trying to run a business.

This bill affects builders like Paul at a time when the building industry is in dire straits. The housing construction industry is on its knees due to rising interest rates, ongoing supply challenges, energy costs and workforce shortages, and there is a huge need for housing to address housing affordability and homelessness. Let's remember, today's news that the mortgage interest rate bill of $83 billion this year has doubled in the past financial year, cooling home building activity. In fact, the Master Builders Association told me that, of the five major reforms to industrial relations law in the past 30 years—30 years—this bill represents the worst. The Minerals Council are horrified at what this bill could do to Australian businesses and productivity and ultimately to Australian jobs and the cost of living.

Those opposite say this is scaremongering, but that's not true. Business owners need to know that this bill will expand the right-of-entry powers by union officials to exceed police powers. Under the ACTU's policy, which is part of this bill, unions will have more powers than police to engage in searches and seizures, including in private homes, and to interrogate individuals. And, in business offices, to gain immediate entry—no warning—the union only needs to assert that they suspect, without evidence, mind you, a case of wage underpayment. By contrast, police can only enter premises or access documents with a warrant. They cannot go fishing for information. But the union reps, regardless of their criminal record I might add, can waltz in under this bill.

I represent regional communities where for most farmers their workplace is also their home. Union thugs should not be able to storm into people's homes unannounced, threatening and intimidating farming families not to mention posing biosecurity risks. Livestock producers have already faced animal activists entering their farms. Now the union activists are coming too. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive, Andrew McKellar, hit the nail on the head when he said:

…the only winners in this are union chiefs.

The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership.

That brings me back to my opening point about unemployment. Labor is holding the union knife to our productivity.

About 2.7 million Australians choose the flexibility and higher rates of pay that come with being employed as a casual worker. This bill's new definition of casual employment is actually three pages long. A business breaks the law if it cannot tick the boxes of a 15-factor test, even if the employee wants to be a casual worker. For farmers and horticulturalists and other seasonal businesses like tourism that abound in my electorate, the implications of this are staggering. They don't have the capacity to keep employees for 12 months of the year. That's a fact, in seasonal work. They will be letting go of good workers after 5½ months.

Farming, for instance, is reliant on weather and seasonal needs. How is the government assisting farmers? By further restricting their workforce. As I said, unemployment in my electorate is just 2.4 per cent, leaving more work on farms and in small businesses to be done by mum and dad and, if you're lucky, your mum doing the books, and dad on the tractor, or your father and mother-in-law, or perhaps even your children, roped in to do even more work on farm, just to bring the harvest in.

You see, Labor likes to ignore our farmers. In contrast, the Nationals stand with our farmers. We stand against Labor railroading farmers with transmission-line rollouts. We stand against ridiculous biosecurity levies, damaging water buybacks and wage hikes for migrant workers. Now we call out Labor's disastrous industrial relations laws, which will hurt our farmers.

Our fruit and vegetable growers need tens of thousands of pickers, but, on 1 July, Labor hiked the Temporary Skilled Migration Income Threshold to set a migrant minimum wage of $70,000 per annum—a 22 per cent increase on what it was on 30 June: 65 per cent higher than the minimum wage and slightly above Australians' average wage. Labor also mandated that Pacific Australia Labour Mobility, or PALM, scheme workers, had to be offered at least 30 hours per week, as I've mentioned before—rain, hail or shine; harvest or not. These changes are not designed to assist the workers or the farmers. They are, at the behest of unions, designed to force farmers to recruit imaginary people, imaginary Australians, who supposedly exist, who are willing to work in the sun picking oranges or grapes or stone fruit. Labor also believes in imaginary farmers with deep pockets, who are immune to the elements and markets and who can pay a fortune for unproductive workers.

Labor talks about closing labour hire loopholes, but this is rebadged same job, same pay policy. It is unfair and unjustified. The dire shortages of both skilled and unskilled labour are a brake on our economy, as is the backlog in migration cases for workers to enter the country or remain here. It is reckless for the government to add to that pain with this bill that makes it harder for businesses to secure labour.

Labor's rebadged same job, same pay policy won't reward workers for hard work and experience. We saw Labor mint this approach in horticulture, taking away piece rates based on how much fruit you picked; you now get an hourly wage. Labor spurns productivity and loves entitlement. One man might sit on his haunches all day, barely lifting a finger, while his co-worker next to him works his fingers to the bone. If I may quote Labor's mates in Industry Super, 'compare the pair': the bludger and the hard worker; the leaner and the lifter. Under Labor's rules, under this law, they get paid the same.

When it comes to gig workers, the minister himself has admitted that these changes will make your food delivery and your ride home more expensive. Minister Burke has previously referred to the gig economy as 'a cancer'. Australians have embraced the gig economy, as have others around the world, because it meets a need in the market. Workers are choosing to do gig economy work—often as a second job, particularly for students and parents and retirees. Gig workers are innovating to take advantage of the work opportunities digital platforms offer. Some log in on multiple apps simultaneously to access gig assignments that optimise their time and minimise costs. These gig workers are self-managing when and how they work, giving them choice and new work opportunities. Labor's paternalistic policy approach in the workplace arena talks down the gig worker. Gig workers are not stupid. They leverage this business model to their own economic advantage. Labor can't stand the thought that people have self-determination and choose how to organise their own lives and working conditions.

Then come the elements of this bill that attack independent contractors, such as self-employed tradespeople and owner-driver truck businesses, forcing them into the IR system and taking away their freedom to be their own boss. A trucking business owner in my electorate, Anthony Dal Farra, tells me:

… big concerns with the 'same job—same pay' laws and the Fair Work Commission interfering with pay rates and conditions for owner drivers—it will spell the end of these guys being able to competitively tender their services and compete for work.

This bill will play into the hands of the big trucking companies, who, of course, the unions do deals with to recruit members far more easily than with the host of owner-drivers and small-business owners who are all over my electorate. The agenda here, as it always was with the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal before it, is the full unionisation of every workforce. According to the ABS and the Ombudsman, 60 per cent of Australian businesses are non-employing. They are sole traders or potentially independent contractors.

The Fair Work Commission will be given the power to approve agreements between big business and unions, and that in turn fixes prices in commercial contracts through the supply chain. Whatever happened to economic competition and the free market bringing prices down? How will this help the building industry or indeed a logistics sector that not long ago was crippled by the pandemic and flooding? As reported in the Financial Review yesterday, this all-encompassing omnibus bill will give huge, sweeping powers to Minister Burke to change laws to rope in more businesses over time. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar counted at least 32 cases where the minister proposes to give himself a new regulatory power in the bill. This legislation is anything but modest. It is radical, it is dangerous and it robs Australians of choice and their right to work in the way that suits them.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish I'd kept count of the number of times, when I was doorknocking in the lead-up to the last election, that people told me their stories about unfair working conditions and unfair pay. Those conversations, from Bligh Park to North Richmond, in Blaxland or Katoomba, highlighted the many loopholes that were being used to unfairly penalise workers. We were elected on a promise, a commitment to get wages moving and to make things fairer. To do that, we need to close the loopholes that are undermining wages, conditions and safety of workers, and that's what these workplace relations reforms do.

There are four main areas in this very comprehensive piece of legislation that I rise to support, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. We're cracking down on the labour hire loophole that's used to undercut pay and conditions. We are criminalising wage theft. We are properly defining casual work so casuals aren't being exploited. And we're making sure gig workers aren't being ripped off. I'm also pleased that there are measures that support emergency services workers who have PTSD as a result of their work and that support victims of domestic violence.

All the policies in this legislation were announced while we were in opposition, many of them more than two years ago. We took them to the Australian people at the 2022 election. Since May last year, we've consulted widely, including with business groups. They are not radical changes. We are making the current law work more effectively. We're closing labour hire loopholes, which will simply require an employer to pay the rates that have already been negotiated and agreed to. They are rates of pay that are already set for the work that is being done by workers. Our 'employee-like' reforms are really just about making sure workers have some minimum standards to be benchmarked against the existing award rates when they're working in a way which is similar to an employee. The wage theft reforms will simply strengthen the enforcement of existing rates of pay.

Most employers out there do not want to do the wrong thing, nor do they want to be undercut by the bad apples in their sector who are doing the wrong thing. They want an even playing field, and that's what these reforms will do. Our new definition of 'casual employment' will clarify what was always intended as casual employment—that is, if you are working regular and predictable hours and you want to be permanent, you'll have that pathway available to you. The laws are going to strengthen the current workplace relations framework and they will provide, really importantly, certainty, fairness and a level playing field both for businesses and for workers.

I want to be very clear about small business. The way we think about small business is we know it's different to big business. There will be a number of exemptions for small businesses with 15 or fewer employees. Like the minister, I grew up in a small business family. I also ran my own small business for 25 years. I know absolutely the pressure small business carries; the weight of responsibility it has for the people it employs. That's why, as part of the closing loopholes bill, there are the exemptions for small businesses.

In order to support small businesses, we are going to include the following exemptions. Exempting small business employers who use labour hire from the pay obligations under the closing the labour hire loophole measure. Small businesses with 15 employees or less will be exempt. There will be a longer, 12-month service period for casual employees of small businesses to access the new voluntary casual employee choice pathway to change to permanent, so double the time to do it. There will also be an exemption around the businesses who inadvertently underpay workers, and there will be the development of a voluntary small business wage compliance code to provide certainty for any small business with fewer than 15 employees who inadvertently commits wage underpayments, ensuring that only intentional wage theft is punished. Small business will also not be required to provide access to paid time for workplace delegate training.

These are adjustments that recognise the additional pressures that small businesses have and the fact that they don't have an HR department on hand. And while we want to see the same rights for every worker in every workplace, we do recognise that there are special considerations needed for small business so that the burden is not too great. Small business remains at the heart of our government's decision-making, and we will continue to do things that support them.

I would like to look in a bit more detail at some of the elements of this bill. I'll start with casual workers. We are standing up for casual workers who want to become permanent employees, and that means closing the loophole that leaves some people stuck, classified as a casual when actually they are working permanent regular hours. It means they work just like a permanent employee, but they don't get any of the benefits of job security, and that has real implications for their lives. It affects whether they can qualify for a mortgage. Their bills aren't casual, their bills come in week on week. Without that job security, the pressures are much greater for some employees. So employees who want to follow a pathway to permanent work will now have an additional pathway, but let's be really clear: no-one is going to be forced to convert to permanent and lose their casual loading base. For some people that casual loading base is more important than the permanency. We're legislating a fair, objective definition to determine when an employee can be classified as casual, which could help more than 850 casual workers who have regular work arrangements and give them greater access to leave entitlements and more financial security if desired.

There is no net cost to business in this measure. Employers will pay a loading if someone is casual, and they will pay leave entitlements if someone is permanent. They don't pay both. The new employee choice pathway recognises the objective status of the employee. It applies where their working arrangements have changed so they no longer meet the definition of being casual. The employee choice pathway is entirely employee driven, and employer obligation is to respond only if the employee notifies that they believe their status has changed.

Employees in medium and large businesses will be able to access the employee choice pathway after six months, but, in small business, it won't be until after 12 months. Small businesses will continue to be exempt from the existing casual conversion pathway. The pathway will remain for larger businesses, which is an obligation to proactively assess all casuals after 12 months of service if they have a regular pattern of work and offer them conversion, but small business will continue to be exempt from that obligation.

Another of the key changes is around the labour hire loopholes and closing those loopholes. Labour hire has a legitimate use in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case. We're concerned about a loophole where companies deliberately undercut the agreements they've already made with their workers. They've agreed on a fair rate of pay with their workers, they've made an enterprise agreement and then they bring in another group of workers, undercutting that agreement by paying those labour hire workers less. That's a loophole.

This is delivering on our commitment for same job, same pay. The way it will work is that 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's enterprise agreement. I want to point out that the process for this is going to be a low-cost process because, again, there will be exemptions for small-business employers, and a default three-month exemption period will apply because we don't want to impact labour hire arrangements for surge work and temporary replacements and we want to make it a fair and reasonable process for people to be able to do. Again, this is something we said, and we are delivering on things we said we would do.

The gig economy is another area of important reform in this bill. The current rules have cost people's lives—people like Burak Dogan, a 30-year-old Turkish student who was killed by a truck in Sydney. He was denied workers comp because Uber said he wasn't working at the time, despite being logged on to the app and receiving Uber Eats orders on his phone as he lay dying under the truck. The current rules have also cost people's dignity and safety. Nabin Adhikari is a food delivery worker in Canberra, working for multiple apps, which many in the gig economy need to do. After costs, he currently earns $13.60 an hour and sometimes as little as $4 per gig, but there is such a lack of transparency over earnings and the algorithm that this is often difficult to measure. With every order, he's also worried about the potential to be deactivated from the app if the algorithm decides he hasn't made enough deliveries or he is too slow, and, as a result, he's under immense pressure to rush through traffic. These are just some of the many stories that have been shared with us about the issues we face in the gig economy.

We are extending the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include employee-like forms of work, allowing it to better protect people in the new forms of work from exploitation and dangerous working conditions. The change will allow the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards of new work, such as gig work. We're not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees—and a whole lot of gig workers like the flexibility—but just because someone is working in the gig economy shouldn't mean that they end up being paid less than they would have if they'd been an employee, nor should it mean that they are working in a more dangerous situation.

That really brings me to the new requirements around the transport industry. I want to talk about these because one of my constituents, Jasmine Payget, whose son was tragically killed by a truck driver, has been a huge advocate of improving the standards for the transport industry, and that's what we'll be doing in this piece of legislation. I really honour her advocacy and the advocacy of the TWU to persist in ensuring that the Fair Work Commission will be able to set minimum standards for independent contractors who are regulated road transport contractors performing work under a services contract in the transport industry. There'll be ongoing work on this, but it will save lives.

I turn to the amendment to criminalise wage theft. You wouldn't think we'd need to do this. You'd think that, if it's theft, it would already be a crime. If a worker steals from the till, it's a criminal offence, but, if the employer steals from the worker's pay packet, it's not. That needs to be changed. I'm conscious that some states are ahead of us on this, because this has been a push for many years and those opposite refused to act on this, and Labor governments in Victoria and Queensland have already done it. Our proposal will not undercut what the states have done. It introduces a criminal offence for intentional underpayment of employees' wages. If it is unintentional, it will be treated differently, particularly for small businesses, but the safe haven framework will ensure that this measure is focused on intentional wage theft. There are many details that I'll be very pleased to discuss with the members of my community.

We're also introducing an industrial manslaughter offence and increasing the penalties. We're extending the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency in this bill so that it addresses silica related diseases. This is part of a suite of things we're doing to keep people safe at work and ensure there are some standards should they become unwell. The bill also makes it unlawful to discriminate against an employee who is subject to family and domestic leave, and it supports first responders who sustain PTSD, meaning they will not be required to prove their employment contributed. These are important reforms.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Complexity, confusion, cost—that is what the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill will deliver for employees, businesses and Australian consumers. This bill has many components, and I want to address the issue of wage theft first because it's vitally important. The coalition has zero tolerance for any exploitation of workers, including underpayment of wages and entitlements by any employer. Deliberate rip-offs of workers are not acceptable and should have serious sanctions, but these should only apply to intentional conduct, not mistakes. Reforms around wage underpayments and theft should also come with reforms to simplify the workplace system to avoid underpayments in the first place. The Fair Work Act is already over 1,200 pages long, and this bill seeks to add over 200 extra pages to it.

If those opposite were serious about wage theft, then why did they vote down the coalition's proposal to legislate a wage-theft provision in the Fair Work Act in 2021? Why won't they separate wage theft out of this bill? All in this House want Australians to have meaningful employment where they are rewarded for their effort, but the truth is this legislation goes far further than just wage theft. It covers everything: changes to the gig economy; changes to casual work; the reintroduction of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal; same job, same pay policy; changes to rights of entry for union officials; redundancy packages; and implementing the agenda of unions—and that's just to scratch the surface.

They've presented us with this huge bill, which has created uncertainty, with over 800 pages in legislation and explanatory memorandums. It will impact over 260,000 independent contractors in building and construction alone, let alone the many other corners of our economy. The one certainty we have is that this bill will make life tougher for Australian small businesses by increasing their costs, their complexity and red tape. As I said before, we all want employees to find meaningful and well-paid employment. However, this has to be done while also improving productivity to keep inflation down. What Labor doesn't seem to understand about running a business is that, for employers to have to meet these costs without improving productivity, businesses will have to push up prices for their consumers. These changes will impact many sectors, from road freight to the gig economy, resulting in further inflation, driving up prices for Australian families and businesses that are struggling with the rising cost of living.

Don't take just my word for it. The minister himself has admitted that this legislation will push prices up and drive inflation up. He has confirmed that all Australians will pay more for everything—groceries, electricians, movies, UberEATS, everything—when we can least afford it. Even the department confirms it will cost businesses more. The department's solution for increased costs on businesses is that they can pass that extra cost on through 'higher prices for consumers or third-party businesses'. The minister doesn't see business as the job creators of this country. Labor do not see small business and recognise their contribution not just to our national economy but to local economies, local communities and local workforces. Small business have outright rejected these proposed changes, but Minister Burke and those opposite have abandoned small business.

The complexity in this bill will be impossible for a small business to cope with. The increased red tape is something small business simply don't have the resources, time or money to invest in trying to understand and implement. They want to spend their time doing what they do best, running their local bakery, their farms, their building companies, their manufacturing operations, their cafes or their shops. Business are already managing increased costs of supply, energy, rents and wages, and we don't need small business owners having yet another reason to turn away from what they do best. I am deeply concerned that this added pressure amidst this cost-of-living crisis is going to send small business and small business owners into a very dark place.

I am concerned for the tradies, the casual workers, the farmers and the small business owners and employees in my community. As the representative for the electorate with the highest number of tradies in building and construction in the country, I know that independent contracting is critical to the industry's structure and to the successful execution of construction work. Master Builders Australia has described the IR changes as like 'tieing a rope around the hands of tradies and creating loopholes for the union movement to increase their stranglehold on the building and construction industry'. This bill will jeopardise the rights of independent contractors to carry out work on their own terms and for self-employed tradies to be their own boss. This bill takes us back in time and not in a good way. It's about reversing decades of history in which Australia moved away from centralised wage fixing to pay and conditions based on productivity and reward for effort. It's about eroding choice and flexibility for individuals who want to work in their own time and on their own terms. It's about putting constraints on business and employers wanting to expand or manage their operations in their own way. Labor thinks governments know what's best for business. The fact is no-one knows what's best for business and their employees than the business owner and the employees themselves. Australians need to be empowered to make their own decisions, not constrained by further red tape.

When we discussed the last round of industrial relations changes, those opposite were very happy to quote from respected organisations like the Business Council of Australia and the ACCI. However, they don't seem as keen to do that this time. So let's see what the BCA and ACCI have to say about this legislation. The Business Council of Australia has spoken out against Labor's reforms. Chief executive Jennifer Westacott said:

Australians should have safe jobs, well paid jobs and rewarding jobs, but the government's radical shake-up of the industrial relations system will not deliver that …

"These changes will create confusion and extra costs for consumers, make it harder to hire casual workers and create uncertainty for employing anybody.

"Any government that's serious about cost of living would not do this.

I echo the words of Jennifer in this House today: the government should not be adding cost and complexity when people are struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table.

The ACCI chief executive, Andrew McKellar, said the legislation will be bad for productivity, those wanting to be their own boss and consumers struggling with the cost of living crisis. He said:

"The only winners in this are union chiefs. The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership …

"This is a continuation of a radical industrial relations agenda, and we are again bracing ourselves for further risky changes to our workplace system.

"The government has not made a case for these changes. It has not been able to outline how this legislation will enhance productivity, lift wages, or make it easier to generate more jobs.

"If you're in labour hire or want a casual job, prepare for unemployment. If you are a service provider and want to advertise online, prepare for unemployment."

Let's hear what Sally McManus, the ACTU president, has to say about casuals:

"I'll just say … one step forward at a time …

… in the union movement, we would love to go 100 per cent now and have a situation where you could just say that they couldn't put people on casual in the first place.

Could you be more out of touch with how a business is run?

I was fortunate to work at a great company called Yarra Valley Snack Foods. We grew that business from seven employees to over 130 when I left 6½ or seven years later. Casuals allowed us to expand, because when you have demand at Christmas you need to bring people on for three months. When you pick up a new contract, you might want to add a new afternoon shift and you need casuals to help with that. But guess what? Once those sales increase and they're at a sustainable level, those casuals become full-time employees when you can do it sustainably. For the union movement and a government run by the union movement to think that casuals should not exist in our economy is an absolute disgrace. It will send us backwards. This is another step, as Sally McManus has said, on their journey to getting rid of casuals altogether. And that's before we even talk about seasonal tourism businesses in the Yarra Valley, or farmers that need support for two to three months when they are picking their crops. They don't have work for a full 12 months. They need casual employees.

Industrial relations reform is, without a doubt, one of the most important of all the economic reforms required to make Australia more productive and competitive. The focus of any industrial relations reform should be to make us more productive and to create more sustainable and secure high-paying jobs. It should make our nation more prosperous, but this is not what we see in this bill. In the words of the National Farmers Federation:

These changes would impale Australia's productivity at a time when it desperately needs a shot in the arm.

The NFF is particularly concerned about new rights of entry without notice, which would allow union representatives to enter farms unannounced. The farms in my community of Casey, including my family's farm, are more than just a workplace. They are often the family home. The farm is the kids' backyard, and Labor's bill will allow union officials to waltz in, unannounced, at any time. We must ensure workers aren't being exploited. But under this bill, union officials only need to suspect a case of underpayment to allow them free entry to private farms.

The coalition has attempted to engage on our concerns with this bill. Those opposite refused our proposal that this 278-page bill be referred to a parliamentary committee for the proper scrutiny it requires. They've refused our request for more time to study the details of this bill, which was only made public on Monday. Labor has avoided scrutiny throughout the entire process of crafting this bill, having forced those who were consulted to sign legally binding non-disclosure agreements to prevent them discussing the bill's contents. When a government goes to such efforts to avoid scrutiny and examination, there can only be one conclusion: it's a bad bill, and they know it. As I said at the start of my speech, this bill will deliver complexity, confusion and cost to small businesses and to all businesses, and those costs will be passed on to consumers, as the minister said, at a time when we can least afford increased costs. Families are struggling to put food on the table, and this government is focused on the union agenda to make Australians pay more for their food.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. Despite those opposite being confused, that's simply all the legislation seeks to achieve. It does what it says on the tin or, in this case, the title. This bill will close loopholes that allow Australian workers to be taken advantage of, loopholes that cheat hardworking Australians of wages that they have earned or conditions that they are entitled to. Specifically, I wish to speak to a part of this legislation that will support workers that are being taken advantage of in the gig economy and through labour hire companies. While there are many types of work that are subject to the extreme casualisation of work that the gig economy represents, I'm going to talk about the experiences of disability workers in this area and what this bill will mean for them.

Work providing services supporting people with disables is important work. It's often physically and emotionally demanding work, and,, as with many of the caring professions, it is arguably not well paid. It's certainly not paid at the same level as the work is valued by the recipients of care, their families and their loved ones. Our most vulnerable members of the community need to be supported by workers that have stable, secure jobs, which in return provide stability and security for those that need it, and these two elements go hand in hand. If it isn't hard enough to put together a living wage, pay your mortgage or rent and feed your kids on a casualised wage or in series of part-time jobs, imagine finding out that your employer is ripping you off. Imagine finding out that your colleague is being paid more than you simply because you're employed through a gig platform or a labour hire firm. Imagine finding out that, no matter how hard you work, how much of your heart and soul you put into your valuable work, your work isn't valued—you are not valued—sufficiently to be paid properly, to be paid according to an enterprise agreement. That's what this bill is about: closing the loopholes, valuing workers according to their work, not according to whatever loophole an employer can find to underpay you. The bill does what it says on the tin: it closes loopholes.

I've met with workers in the disability sector, through their union, and they've told me their stories. They're heartbreaking. This legislation is welcomed by unions that represent disability workers, as they've listened to these heartbreaking stories and they've heard directly from their members how unstable work through labour hire companies means they struggle to make ends meet.

Around 40 per cent of the community services workforce, and more than 60 per cent of the disability support workforce, is in part-time or precarious employment, without entitlements. The submission made by the Australian Services Union to the Senate Select Committee on Job Security goes to the heart of this issue. The current legislation is not robust enough to protect disability workers and, by extension, their clients. Work in all sectors of the economy has been transformed in recent years by the growth of insecure or precarious employment. This precarious employment comes in many forms, including temporary or casual jobs, greater reliance on nominally independent contractors and other forms of self-employment, and the use of digital or online platforms to recruit and deploy labour.

There has been a rapid rate of growth in all forms of precarious employment, but the growth of this kind of instability has negatively affected not only workers in the disability sector but their clients as well. It is a defining feature of the disability sector that workers are employed most often in some form of precarious employment. The labour market has evolved with the disability sector in response to changes in funding arrangements and the impact of 10 years of mismanagement of the NDIS by the former government. This mismanagement opened the doors to workers being taken advantage of and letting these platform providers undermine the workers and their pay. It is not technology that workers in the community and disability sectors fear but rather how that technology is implemented, managed and controlled and whose interests prevail as the process unfolds. It is systemic issues—laws, institutions and social expectations—that determine the impact of technology and other changes in the workplace on working people and on their families. It is therefore the responsibility of government and its regulators to ensure workplace rights for all workers, and that is what this legislation seeks to do.

This legislation provides stability for workers, which in turn provide stability for those they care for. The growth of precarious work poses fundamental challenges to the traditional model of employment and to traditional methods for regulating work and ensuring minimum standards for the rapidly growing disability workforce. Traditional labour regulations which have been developed over time and are most familiar to workers in other sectors of the economy often exclude temporary or independent workers. While employment across the disability sector is marked by the highly insecure nature of the employment, there has been an alarming increase in the number of workers employed as so-called platform workers. The submission by the Australian Services Union found that, in Victoria, platform work is more prevalent than previously thought and is growing. Independent contracting arrangements are very common, and there has been a steady increase in ABN registrations as a result.

The report describes the major characteristics of modern precarious work. Several factors have facilitated the expansion of precarious forms of employment, including independent contracting, self-employment, casual or temporary jobs and digital platform work in the disability sector in recent years. Technology such as smartphones and computers has played a role, by allowing employers to tap pools of labour, assign them to tasks and supervise and compensate them more easily. Broader economic conditions have also been important—particularly, the ongoing existence of a large pool of underutilised labour. All these factors contribute to the problem and are creating a situation that employers and conservative governments like those opposite can take advantage of, and workers are the victims of this. The Albanese government were elected on a promise to fix these loopholes, and that's what we're doing. To do that, we need to close the loopholes that are undermining wages and conditions. That's what this set of workforce relations reform is all about. We are cracking down on the labour hire loophole that's used to undercut pay and conditions. We are criminalising wage theft, properly defining casual work so casuals aren't being exploited and making sure that gig workers aren't being ripped off. Closing labour hire loopholes will simply require an employer to pay the rates that it has already negotiated and agreed to. These are rates of pay that are already set for the work being done. These employee-like reforms simply require workers to have some minimum standards benchmarked against existing award rates or employment agreements when they are working in a way which is similar to employees.

These wage theft reforms will simply strengthen the enforcement of existing rates of pay. Most employers out there don't want to be undercut by the bad apples, their competitors, doing the wrong thing. This 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. This is cost neutral. Employers will either pay casual loading or pay leave entitlements, not both. 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 legitimate uses in providing surge and specialist workforces, and that will continue to be the case. What we're concerned about is the labour hire loophole where companies deliberately undercut the agreements they've already made with their workers. They've agreed on fair rates of pay with their workers and made an enterprise agreement, and then they undercut that agreement by bringing in a labour hire workforce that's being paid less for the same work—and that's the loophole we have to close. Simply put, the bill 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.

I hear those opposite talking about this costing employers $1 billion a year, and I can only presume that this is how much they guesstimate is being stolen from Australian workers now. If they're making an issue of it, I guess they're okay with it. If your business model cannot support a living wage for your workers—if you cannot meet your legal obligations to pay people according to the award and the enterprise agreement—then maybe you need to be rethinking your business model.

This 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 work conditions. We're not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees. There are a whole lot of gig workers who like the flexibility from using this technology, and that won't change under these laws. But we know there is a direct relationship between a low rate of pay and safety, and it leads to a situation where workers take risks so they can get more work because they're struggling to make ends meet or they're unsure whether they'll be cut off the platform. And there have been tragedies. We can't continue to have a situation where the 21st century technology of gig platforms comes with 19th century work conditions. And we don't want to be a nation where you have to rely on tips to make ends meet.

The evidence is in. A number of inquiries have highlighted that some of these workers receive less pay than they would if they were paid under an award safety net, and they have no protections if they lose their work unfairly. This measure gives the Fair Work Commission a new power to set minimum standards for employee-like workers performing digital platform work. Standards may be mandatory and enforceable with civil penalties or for guidance only. The Fair Work Commission can only set minimum standards for independent contractors who perform digital platform work, also known as work in the gig economy, and also have one or more employee-like characteristics, which are low bargaining power, low authority over their work, receiving remuneration at or below a rate of comparable employees or other characteristics that may be prescribed in regulation.

The bill provides a non-exhaustive list of content that minimum standard orders can cover, including payment terms, deductions, insurance and cost recovery. Orders must include coverage and dispute resolution terms. The Fair Work Commission must not make standards in relation to rostering and overtime arrangements, matters that would change the nature of engagement or status of workers, or matters relating to work health and safety that are dealt with comprehensively under another law of government.

The bill provides comprehensive guardrails to govern how the Fair Work Commission is to perform its functions, including the requirement to balance several competing factors included in the new minimum standards objective when considering making standards. And, importantly, orders cannot change the form of engagement or the status of employee-like workers' engagement. Noncompliance with minimum standards orders carries a civil penalty, and the Fair Work Ombudsman has the responsibility for education, compliance and enforcement. The bill also provides protection for unfair deactivation for employee-like workers. This is where an employee-like worker has been operating on a platform for six months or more and is deactivated without fair reason. For deactivation to be fair, the deactivation would have to be for a valid reason and the process consistent with the new digital labour platform deactivation code. The Fair Work Commission can order reinstatement but not compensation.

This bill does exactly what it says it does. It closes loopholes. It seems an obvious thing, but loopholes that mean Australian workers are unfairly underpaid or have unsafe or unfair work conditions should be eliminated. I'd like to thank the Australian Services Union for their submission. Australians, as a whole, are a hardworking bunch, and we in government want to see them be able to get ahead as a result of their labours, and that's what this bill does

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality is that the Australian people must understand that the changes proposed by this bill are far from very modest, as the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations describes them. This is a radical re-ordering of Australian workplace law, which every business organisation in Australia has pleaded with this government not to go ahead with. But it falls on deaf ears. The minister doesn't care. He has no interest that the job creators of Australia are telling him that it will be harder to keep people in jobs. That means the people who employ other people will not be able to employ them under this regime, and the government, again, is not listening to their concerns. This sort of complexity and the costs associated with it will be impossible for small business and medium business with more than 15 employees to deal with.

In my electorate on the Gold Coast—everybody enjoys Surfers Paradise; they enjoy the central Gold Coast—there are 32,000 small and family businesses who could be impacted by this regime. There are 72,000 small and family businesses on the Gold Coast. Medium businesses—I don't have a number for you, Deputy Speaker—will definitely be affected by this legislation, and so will the local economy when it comes to job losses as a consequence. Once again the Labor Party seeks to erode the choice and flexibility of individuals who want to work in their own time, on their own terms. This is an affront to liberalism. Choice and flexibility are the bedrock of the Liberal Party of Australia, and they're the bedrock of entrepreneurialism, which is the bedrock of the Gold Coast. Therefore I see this as an affront to any family or any individual who wants to get ahead on their own terms and build something worthwhile.

It's an example of big government intervention at the behest, of course, of their union masters, moving the dial so that unions have access to a whole new marketplace of membership fees. That is what it blatantly is; let's be clear. It's about putting significant constraints on businesses and employers who wish to expand—in other words, grow—build something and construct new projects and infrastructure or simply manage their own operations in their own way. It is taking away choice, not delivering choice to more Australians. That's the basic difference between us on this side of the chamber and those on the other side of the chamber, who seek to take away your choice, who seek to tell you what to do, who seek to come into your business and instruct you on what you should be doing behind your business doors. When running a business gets impossibly complex, impossibly hard, impossibly uncertain and costs just too much, what do Australians across our nation understand happens? Businesses close their doors. They don't employ those Australians any longer. So those families who work in businesses, small and medium, are at risk of being on the unemployment line. But those on the other side don't seem to understand that as a basic premise—that its job losses; it's livelihoods that will be lost.

This bill also does nothing to increase productivity. Business groups and employers say that the proposed IR changes will smash productivity, investment and job creation. This is at the very time, as we've heard from the shadow Treasurer, that we have entered a per capita recession. Labor puts the brakes on productivity as we've entered a per capita recession. It's unbelievable that they would choose this time in the Australian economic landscape to introduce these changes. Ultimately, it will lead to an economic slow-down that could lead to a full-blown recession. In a cost-of-living crisis, Labor is introducing this. They are slamming it through the parliament quickly at a time when Australians can't pay their bills, can't pay their mortgages and can't pay for their grocery bills. It's unconscionable. Australians are barely making ends meet. This government is ramming through this legislation to make things more expensive by $9 billion in one decade, and that's just the tip of the iceberg because those additional costs get passed on to consumers. That adds to inflation.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations said that business would likely be able to pass on extra costs through higher prices for consumers or third-party businesses. The minister himself admitted that the new laws will increase costs for consumers for everyday services they have come to rely on—with a smile. You've been told that this bill will increase prices to you as an Australian consumer by a minister, with a smile on his face, telling you it's going to cost more. Let's be clear. During a cost-of-living crisis for Australia, he's ramming this legislation through the House, which will cost you more. If you don't believe my words or you have doubts about my words, you should listen to the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, Jennifer Westacott.

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

What did she have to say?

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A highly regarded and highly experienced business person in Australia, she said:

Australians should have safe jobs, well paid jobs and rewarding jobs—

we agree with that—

but the government's radical shake-up of the industrial relations system will not deliver that …

She said:

These changes will create confusion and extra costs for consumers—

that's the $9 billion in wages I just mentioned—

make it harder to hire casual workers and create uncertainty for employing anybody.

Any government that's serious about costs of living would not do this. They should not add costs and complexity at a time when people are struggling to pay their bills.

If you don't believe me today, listen to Tania Constable of the Minerals Council of Australia. You saw her this week on your TV screens. Tania very eloquently said:

The Albanese Governments latest industrial relations legislation changes are some of the most extreme, interventionist workplace changes that have ever been proposed in Australia.

The changes will inflict immense harm to the economy, the weight of which will fall on the shoulders of the most vulnerable Australians who will pay more for groceries, housing, and energy.

I would think that, by now, Australians are sick and tired of paying more and sick and tired of waiting for this Albanese Labor government to deliver cost-of-living relief. It's just not coming. It's getting worse.

I would also like to outline what Andrew McKellar, the ACCI chief executive, said. He said the legislation:

… will be bad for productivity, those wanting to be their own boss—

remember entrepreneurialism: the great dream of Australians to build something worthwhile—

and consumers struggling with the cost-of-living crisis … The only winners in this are union chiefs—

there it is; it's highlighted—

The only loophole this bad legislation is looking to close is that of plummeting union membership—

I couldn't have said it better myself—

This is a continuation of a radical industrial relations agenda, and we are again bracing ourselves for further risky changes to our workplace system.

The government has not made a case for these changes. It has not been able to outline how this legislation will enhance productivity, lift wages, or make it easier to generate more jobs.

I think they're pretty believable quotes from well-respected leaders across our nation. We should listen, and so, too, should the Albanese Labor government and the industrial relations minister. They're pretty scary words for the future of our country. Small and medium business is not a magic pudding. It is not something that the government can put its hands into and rip the guts out of. We on this side will not stand for that. We will not stand for this government ruining, destroying, what Australians have worked their whole life for, for generations. We will not watch you pull it apart and tear it down.

Those on the other side think that small and medium business people are rich and that their money can be accessed and given to others. Well, that is not the case. Australian employers play a crucial role in creating those jobs, and we applaud them for it. The Australian labour market is indeed diverse. It provides various forms of work for people of different circumstances and different needs, and it should be diverse. The Albanese government has no respect for that diversity. They only respect union controlled forms of work.

Under this legislation, a union boss can get a waiver from the Fair Work Commission to give you, as a business owner, 24 hours notice to enter your business if they suspect—not if they have proof, not if they've heard it through a complaint—that you have underpaid anybody on your team. To be able to enter a business on a suspicion is not democratic. It's heading towards socialism, and worse.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Communism!

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's right. We banned communism in the 1950s. The minister can't answer the question about what people who are working from home can expect.

An honourable member interjecting—

He hasn't. I think there are some members on the other side who've actually been members of that party in the past. The minister can stand at the dispatch box and yell all he likes at the coalition, feigning his passion for this bill, but what we know he's doing is working on behalf of the unions. They are assaulting entrepreneurialism. They are assaulting businesses that have been built over generations. That's what it's about.

So this so-called closing loopholes legislation equals closing businesses and closing jobs. That's what it should be called: 'the closing businesses and closing jobs legislation'. We are not going to support reforms that will weaken our economy and continue to make a bad situation worse for Australian small and medium businesses.

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

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. If you have some continuation, you'll be granted leave to do so when the debate is resumed.