Mary Doyle (Aston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying last night, these workers deserve minimum standards. That is the role of this parliament and what this bill does. It's modernising our laws to reflect the changing nature of work and saying to a predominantly migrant workforce or a group of workers who might be here studying or on another visa arrangement, 'You, too, are workers, and you have minimum rights.' In my part of the world, a lot of these workers can be parents that are picking up extra money to help pay the bills. They are not the demographic that you sometimes assume when it comes to your Uber Eats delivery driver and so on. But there is quite often a very quick turnover in these roles because they realise how exploitative they are. This bill says that those workers deserve a minimum standard; they deserve a minimum rate.

If those opposite want to come in here and defend loopholes, defend undercutting workers, defend criminal responsibility and oppose increases in the minimum wage, then let them. However, the hardworking people who have made our country everything it is know that we on this side of the House proudly stand by our record on industrial relations reform. If those opposite want to sit there and push back ideas that help protect workers—real, hardworking Australians—instead of doing something for them—maybe even actively contributing to the ideas we put forward at the last election—then they will enjoy being consigned to history as a footnote, because that is where we shall find them.

We proudly stand by the fact that every hard-fought-for gain in workplaces for the pay and conditions of Australian workers was led by the trade union movement in partnership with the Australian Labor Party. This legislation underpins the Albanese Labor government's commitment to continuing our mission to enshrine in industrial relations policy safe and fair working conditions and practices. This bill puts flexibility, security and fairness at the centre of industrial relations policy. It closes loopholes that exploit workers, and it recognises and supports the vast number of businesses that are doing the right thing and valuing their workers.

I commend this bill to the House, and I urge all in this parliament to support it because this bill supports all working Australians and they deserve to be looked after.

Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—What we've seen throughout this parliament have been things that have well-intentioned purposes but have significant unintended consequences. A common factor in all of those is a lack of consultation. There can be no better example of poor consultation than in this process here. We've got this omnibus Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing the Loopholes) Bill 2023, which has lots of talking points that are designed to look well on social media tiles and to look well in speeches here that are then broadcast out. But it has serious consequences for people who are doing it tough, particularly small and medium businesses.

We have already seen reports today that the Reserve Bank is hinting that interest rates may have to rise even further on account of the horrible conflicts that we're seeing around the world. We are seeing families and small businesses being pushed to the edge, where they are asking this place for relief so that they can stay afloat. When it comes to the area of small business and productivity, the relationship that those who are taking risks have with their workers is a very important one. It's one that already has enormous complexity.

If we look to the Fair Work Act, it's already at over 1,000 pages. This omnibus bill seeks to add hundreds more to that sort of complexity. When we look small and medium business owners in the eye and say, 'We are helping you in this tough time,' this is isn't the way that that should be done. There are some legitimate things that are being closed in this omnibus bill, and they have our support. But they should have been carved out; they shouldn't have been lumped together in what we have here. There are many other businesses that are on the edge. They need our support so that they can stay afloat and continue to employ Australians. Thank you.

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To me, this Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing the Loopholes) Bill 2023 is deeply personal. It will change lives. It's a big deal for employees, employers and for broader society.

When my parents came to this country more than four decades ago they had little formal education and spoke very little English, but they were able to find manufacturing jobs with good conditions. The success of our family was possible because of those jobs. They gave our family financial security and the foundations from which my brother and I have been able to thrive. Having a good job with good conditions and decent pay goes to the very heart of our egalitarian society—the idea that if you work hard you can get ahead in this country. But under those opposite the ideal was getting harder and harder for so many families. If I think about what jobs my parents would get if they arrived in Australia today, they most likely would not have been able to find secure work with good conditions.

In many respects, Australia has a pretty effective industrial relations system. It is what has set our country up for success. In 2007 we resoundingly rejected the Howard government's attempt to deregulate our system by removing collective bargaining. We saw it as being unfair and a step too far. Instead, the country chose a Rudd Labor government, and employees and employers across this country benefited from the Fair Work Act. These changes were fundamental in enshrining key workplace rights, including minimum entitlements, flexible working arrangements and the principles of antidiscrimination.

Throughout Australia's workplace relations history, there has always been a battle between the needs of businesses and the needs of workers. We have an industrial relations system that seeks to strike a balance between the two. It's something that we should be incredibly proud of and which is a major source of strength. There aren't that many countries around the world which have the word 'fair' in the title of their primary piece of employment and industrial relations legislation, and that's not a mistake. The concept of 'fair' goes to the very heart of what Australia is about—the fair go, fair dinkum, a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. We can add to that the Fair Work Act.

It's not perfect but it's a system that allows dynamism and innovation to flourish in businesses. It also gives employees a sense of financial security as they go about their work and life. But like any piece of legislation, it requires updating so that it more accurately reflects the circumstances of the time. When the Fair Work Act came into existence, Uber and Deliveroo didn't exist and Mable was a cute name for a baby girl, so we have to update and modernise our employment and industrial relations system to hold on to that precious concept of fairness. As with all great pieces of nation-building architecture, it's left to the Australian Labor Party to do it, and that's what this bill does.

It's aptly named the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill. One of the principle loopholes this bill seeks to close is the labour hire loophole, and there's a simple way of describing what it does: same job, same pay. This bill says that, if you are a business that has an enterprise agreement with your employees, you can't bring in a whole, different workforce through a separate labour hire agreement to undercut wages and conditions. It's not about banning surge workforces or banning specialist workers. Employees will still be paid more if they have expertise and skills to offer. What this bill is about is making sure that people on the same site doing the same job at the same level receive the same pay. It's a simple concept. It's a proposition that even my seven-year-old would understand, and it is what is fair. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a single person in this country who would disagree with this concept, except for those opposite, because they just don't get it.

We are closing the casual loophole exploited by so many companies. There are some workers doing the same hours on an ongoing basis, sometimes working the same roster for years and years and years. It's an employment arrangement that looks like a permanent role, yet they are hired as casuals, and continue to be hired as casuals year after year. Those casual workers will have the opportunity to ask their employers to convert to permanent roles and gain job security. They will finally be able to get job security. Casuals who are eligible may not want to convert, because they want the flexibility and the loading that comes with being a casual, but for those who do, like Ashley, whom I met while doorknocking in Lidcombe, this will make a huge to their lives. Ashley's partner has been working at the same company for 27 years as a casual and has never been offered a permanent role. While her partner's employment was casual, the bills and expenses for Ashley and her family were not. The job insecurity meant that they were not able to plan for the future. They were working hard but unable to get ahead, because everything was stacked against them. It's right that families like Ashley's are given the opportunity to gain financial security and job security.

There's a group of workers who are in the most precarious form of employment: gig workers. Many people think that gig workers—Deliveroo riders, Uber drivers, those who work for Hungry Panda—do it for a bit of extra cash on the side. But that's not the case for most.

Analysis by the McKell Institute and the Transport Workers Union found that 81 per cent of respondents depend on the money they earn from ride share, food delivery or parcel delivery to pay bills and survive and that their biggest concern is low pay. Of those drivers working more than 40 hours a week, 66 per cent earn less than the minimum wage. And that is not to mention the constant threat of 'deactivation', which, for those not well versed in Silicon Valley doublespeak, means 'sacking'. When you combine those three factors—being a gig worker as a primary source of income, being paid less than the minimum wage, and being at constant risk of income being terminated—it creates an underclass of workers because of a loophole that the large tech companies have exploited. They engage gig workers as 'independent contractors', rather than 'employees', which means they are denied basic protections at work. I hope we can all agree that, in Australia, we don't ever want to create an underclass of workers because that tears at the very fabric of the fair go in this country.

There's a very human story to all of this as well. Ching Hang Yong and Zhouying Wang are both gig workers from Burwood in my electorate of Reid. They've both been working as delivery drivers in the gig economy. Both reported low pay. Ching Hang Yong says he often doesn't make any money after all his expenses for the day are taken out. Both have suffered significant accidents at work. Zhouying Wang was knocked off her bike by a car while out on a delivery. She was left with chronic pain in her legs, with no sick pay and no workers compensation—just the offer of free food through the food delivery app as compensation. It's an absolute disgrace. Yet they work with these delivery companies full time, with the threat of deactivation constantly hovering over their heads.

When this bill passes, it will give gig workers basic minimum standards. Both Ching Hang Yong and Zhouying Wang hope that the increased financial security will allow them to break the cycle of living pay cheque to pay cheque. That's why this bill is so important to me. When I think about the jobs my mum and dad would likely have taken up if they had arrived in Australia today, they may have been stuck in casual employment arrangements for years and years, like Ashley's partner, or they may have had precarious work in the gig economy, like Ching Hang Yong and Zhouying Wang. When I was a teenager, my dad was badly injured at work. It was through the support of his union that he was able to be guided through the workers compensation process, and his union worked with management to find a role that would accommodate his injury. That's the way it should be. If you are injured at work, you should get help, but, sadly, Zhouying Wang was left on her own. That's not right; it's un-Australian.

I say to those opposite: you should think about your position on this bill. You're voting against basic financial security for some of our lowest-paid workers. You're against people who do the same job at the same level of experience being paid the same. You're against fair competition between businesses who negotiate enterprise agreements and stick to them. You're against ensuring that deliberate wage theft is a crime. For nine years those opposite were happy to let an underclass of low-paid gig workers flourish for the benefit of a few very large tech companies.

Ingrained in this country's DNA are some basic standards of fairness, including the idea that, if you work hard in this country, you'll get ahead. That's what this bill is about. I'm proud that this government recognises the importance of working collaboratively with the employer to get good outcomes across all workplaces in Australia, and I'm proud of the trade union movement, particularly the mighty Transport Workers Union. You have always been on the side of workers. Thank you for standing up for all working people who want a better life.

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a pleasure it is to follow the previous contribution. I'm going to pick up on one small ribbon that was left glowing in that speech: that a seven-year-old child could see how obvious this was. I remember Rove McManus rather unsuccessfully deploying a similar argument on another topic quite recently. It was that little thing called the Voice. When we're told that something is so simple a child could understand it, that only dunderheads or dinosaurs—I won't say the other word that starts with a 'D'. You'd have to be in that class of people to stand against something so wonderful and magnificent. It does raise a flag for me. I think it should raise a flag for everyone when that sort of argument is put in place. I appreciate that complexity is very difficult in an eight-second grab, but here on the floor of parliament we shouldn't be afraid of it.

There's another point that I think is worth challenging in the context of this piece of legislation: who is to gain from this? My background is running mine sites around Australia. I've worked hand in hand with unions through many difficult challenges. If you're genuinely there to protect vulnerable workers, that's God's work, and I am proud to have stood beside people who have done that under the union banner. So I don't accept that this is unions versus business. I think this is big business versus small business. I'll come to that as we go along. I'm very proud that the Leader of the Opposition made that point very clear in setting out on our agenda for this term.

We are not the party of big business. We're the party of small business. We're not here to seek to support those who seek or have one monopoly. We are there for those who are in pursuit of happiness, who are trying to build something of themselves. In this bill, if you look and see who is supportive of it, you will see this bill does not harm big business. The complexity increased by this is only marginal for a big business. It already deploys significant funds towards its legal teams. It already has significant influence in the IR space. This hurts small businesses. I'll come to one of those shortly.

The third point I open with is that this bill must be considered within the context of its time. These last 12 months, we have seen the most extraordinary drop in productivity since we began measuring productivity: a six per cent drop. This is probably one of the most difficult things for us to overcome because productivity, as many journalists will tell you, is rarely a sexy thing until it starts hurting you and the clear link between productivity and real wages can't be missed. When you harm productivity, you harm real wages, and we are seeing that today. We have wage of 3.6 per cent and cost of living at 9.6 per cent. Real wages are going backwards by six per cent—surprisingly, the same as the drop in productivity. The link has been there for years. It's quite obvious. When you harm productivity and make it more difficult for business to do more with less, you are harming workers. You are making real wages go backwards. That is indeed one of the criticisms that has stood the test for this particular piece of legislation. This does not do anything to increase productivity at a time when nothing could be more important for a government to be focusing on in the context of looking after workers.

If you want to look after workers, there are two things you do. For one, you raise real wages. The other is to lower tax to ensure they keep more of what they earn. Neither of those things is being done by this government. It's completely contrary to the promises that they made to the Australian people going into the last election. This piece of legislation, coupled with other efforts of this government, will make things worse. They are making things worse.

I had a meeting recently with a small business that has been terribly concerned about the impact of this legislation on it. It's an electrical company. I'm a humble mining engineer. I like digging holes and blowing things up. Electrical engineering is a whole different thing. These are some of our best and brightest. Michael Reiken from Excel Power—they work in new energy battery solutions for both homes and small businesses. Why are they important? I'm not just talking up electrical engineers for no purpose. These are bright people. These are smart people in a complex field. These are people who take in incredible amounts of information and provide complex solutions to them. They're specialists in their field and they're specialists in a field that is growing. What they are not are specialists in IR law. Their concern—particularly as the type of work they do will often see them on a site for more than six months—is that they'll be caught up under this legislation, that they'll go from being labour hire people providing a service or people coming in and providing a service under a contract to being caught up in this.

They've never had to deal with this before. This has never been an issue for them. They've just been merrily going around, growing their business, doing the work of pumping taxes into our economy to keep us a successful and buoyant nation. Now they have two paths: either they have to become experts in IR law—and this is not an easy thing. There are 1,200-odd pages in the Fair Work Act. This is another 200 pages on top of that. This is not a small change. This is not a modest change, to once again echo back to a recent conversation we've had with the Australian people. This is not a modest change. This is a significant change, particularly if you are on the fringe of this legislation. If you are one of these businesses that are now going to be caught up in it, you will go from not having to worry about this to being very concerned about it. Even someone like Michael, someone capable of making these steps, will be challenged.

If you play that out across any of these businesses, it's quite easy to see this when you understand small business. They don't start by setting up a HR department. They don't start by setting up a legal department. They start by knowing what they do, by being experts at what they do. They build a team and they learn how to manage a team. At some point, as you move from a small to a medium business, you have to take those steps and you have to grow. But for those businesses that are on that fringe, that are on that verge, this will be forcing that change for them before time. This is completely changing the playing field. Again, this raises the spectre of fairness. This was raised by the previous speaker. I don't want to pick too much on the speech, but when they're just going over talking points sometimes it is fun to engage with them. In the concept of fairness, this isn't fair for those businesses who will be captured in something that in no way reflects the risk they present to the workforce or their employees.

I want to turn to the other concern I have around this. I want to speak about labour hire. Again, having come from the mining industry, I'm not going to pretend that some of the instances we've seen—and I'm speaking particularly about the Bowen Basin about two decades ago, where we saw companies employing 40, 50, 60 per cent of their workforce under labour hire. These are things that should not have been, were wrong and were rightly called out and stopped. But there is within this legislation and the conversation that the government is having around it a demonisation of labour hire as an option and, quite frankly, the seeking of its end. I want to speak about the relevance of it and how important it is that we maintain a suite of different employment options in the workforce. This again speaks to productivity, to competition and to economic dynamism—the ability for workforces to come in, perform their work, and leave. One of the most important things that labour hire does, particularly on mine sites, particularly on mineral processing plants, when you're looking at operations like mill relining—again, in my own patch, I have a company, RME, that does exactly that—you have people who come in on sites for sometimes more than six months. They're there to do a very specialised job that no-one else does. They move from mine site to mine site, taking their expertise around the country in a manner that ensures, and has ensured, that Australia is able to be a world leader in the mining industry. This has been a crucial aspect of it. The job experience they have is of very concentrated times of work and periods away from work. That is entirely their choice. I have already pointed out where it is wrong, but where it is deployed, the vast majority are people who are paid far more than the average worker. That takes into account the nature of their employment.

I can speak about the mining industry because I employed these people and brought them in, like many other mining engineers around Australia. We would see them come in for a range of things. I know that this happens in energy production, on feedlots and in the construction industry. People with specialist skills come in to do very, very specialised jobs and they're now being caught up in this. The government's push to end this is so shortsighted and not in our interests, particularly at a time—which I go back to—where we have failing productivity.

These people come in and, very clearly, their job is to increase the productivity of that workplace. They come in and repair a mine or they will come in and reline a mill. They come in to do a specialist job that's required to be done on a regular basis and, if they don't do it, productivity sags—

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There'll be a breakdown.

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or we have a breakdown—absolutely! To point out how important it is to keep this stream of employment alive: in the mining industry, mining plant and processing plant are run at somewhere around 110 per cent of their design capacity. Every second that you lose is a cost. It's a cost to the mine, it's a cost to workers who are incentivised on production and it's a cost to the Australian economy in lost tax dollars and revenue—let alone the cost to the customer and all the downside of that as well. And what is often forgotten is the supply side: the local small businesses who provide this work. These are direct costs. When we take away the ability for this, which is what this legislation will do—and this is why I have been so focused on this—it will force companies to hold on to these workers. If they want them, they're going to have to employ them on a full-time basis at a lower rate of pay than they've been experiencing. It will stop them from taking their expertise from mine site to mine site and stop the Australian mining industry from getting ahead.

I know I'm speaking at depth on the mining industry, and I know that's a challenge not everyone can rise to. I'm not being boastful; I'm simply pointing out that this is important to us. It's not something that we've been shortsighted about on this side of the House. We don't claim the winnings and then turn our back on them. This is why we're good at mining—because we've acknowledged this for a long period of time. This is why we're good at it, because we acknowledge that these different types of employment options are required for us to get ahead and that they have been significant contributors to the great Australian mining industry, which we all benefit from. As I like to do when I talk about the industry, I challenge anyone to look around the room they're in and point to anything that hasn't either come out of a mine or been touched by the product of a mine. It's a fun thing, but I'm yet to find someone challenge me on it.

I'll go back to the legislation again. Take the context of its time: we have productivity at an all-time low, with a six per cent drop in 12 months. This is something that we've not seen before. Every step that this government must take should be towards increasing productivity. Every piece of legislation put forward by this government should aim to increase productivity. If it doesn't do so, then it is failing the Australian people. A continued lack of focus on productivity will result in a continued reduction in real wages. That connection is long established; it will continue until kingdom come and I think that is the worst thing that can be said about a piece of legislation—that it will actually hurt workers.

Debate adjourned.