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

Some great news for coal workers: yesterday, hundreds of labour-hire workers at Batchfire's Callide mine at Biloela in Central Queensland received some great news from the Fair Work Commission, with the first order under the new same-jobs same-pay laws being issued. This order covers over 350 labour-hire mineworkers employed by WorkPac at Callide. It means their pay must be lifted to match the rates under Batchfire's enterprise agreement covering permanent employees from 1 November this year. This is great news for employees, who will now receive between $10,000 and $20,000 extra a year in their pay.

Around 60 per cent of the operators at Callide were labour-hire employees. This pay rise will have a strong impact for so many in that local community. A huge congratulations to Grahame Kelly, Tony Maher and Mitch Hughes from the mighty Mining and Energy Union on getting the first order done and dusted. The labour-hire loophole is officially closed. This will be the first of many such decisions that will deliver extra pay to workers all over Australia. We've already had the Mount Pleasant site in the Hunter get rid of all labour-hire positions, making those positions permanent.

Labour-hire has a legitimate role, but it should never be used to undercut rates of pay. This is just another way the Albanese Labor government is delivering cost-of-living relief for workers right across Australia.