Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How has the Albanese Labor government engaged with business groups on the closing-loopholes legislation, and what has been the response?

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

I thank the member for Robertson for the question and note that his local area of Robertson has gone from being represented by somebody who was passionately committed to having low wages as a deliberate design feature of Australia's economic architecture to now being represented by someone who proudly wants to get wages moving in Australia.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Groom will cease interjecting.

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

Can I take the interjection? The member for Groom might not be aware that, for the last six months, real wages have grown—notwithstanding that, when they were last in office, they fell by 3.5 per cent. Those are the figures that were given in their final quarter.

So, yes, the policies of the government are making a difference. Yes, people are still doing it tough and more needs to be done, and those opposite are about to get a chance to do more when the final votes happen on the closing loopholes bill. That's exactly the issue that member for Robertson has asked me about, because the member for Robertson has asked about the business consultation. There are different attitudes from different business groups. Effectively, there are some business groups who have individual members who are using these loopholes to underpay people. That's what they're doing. Some of them have significant financial gain to be made by this bill not going forward, and every day it is delayed is a day that is better for them to be able to continue underpaying their workforce.

I noticed today that the ads are back. I noticed the ads back in one of the papers. A while ago, when the ads first started, you could have forgiven the groups that were funding them. They hadn't seen the bill yet, so maybe they didn't know that the ads involved misinformation. Maybe they didn't know that this concept that you would be compelled to pay a brand-new worker the same as your most experienced worker was not going to turn up in the legislation. Now they've seen the legislation; it's there in black and white and it's made no difference to the advertising at all because those organisations want to delay, complain about consultation that initially they were part of and then said can they no longer be involved in confidential conversation, and then they want to talk about something that the issue is not.

But contrast to the groups that have engaged. Contrast to the Hotels Association, which engaged professionally. As a result, tomorrow I'll introduce amendments to the casuals provisions. Compare that to Uber, Menulog and DoorDash, which engaged constructively. There will be amendments to the gig provisions specifically making sure that we meet the purposes of the legislation. Compare that to the peak body representing the industrial interests of the resources industry, AREEA—hardly a member of the Labor Party but a professional organisation that has represented its members. There will be amendments as a result. (Time expired)