Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry. I apologise, Chair. Through the chair, Senator Hinch, have a think about this. Senator Hanson, have a think about this. Senator Xenophon, have a think about this. You cannot portray yourselves as heroes of the workforce and ordinary working families when you come here and deliberately introduce a code that restricts workers' rights to bargain.

Collective bargaining is the one way workers get decent wages and conditions, and building industry workers are not like white-collar workers—middle managers, to whom the human resource manager can walk in and simply say, 'We've restructured, and you're gone.' That is where we are heading with this. What we need is a bit of understanding, a bit of strength, a bit of courage of your commitments and a bit of delivery on your rhetoric. Come in here, protect Australian jobs, protect Australian apprenticeships, protect collective bargaining and protect the right of workers to have a union representing them, because this is nothing more than an attack on the Australian workforce, and you are facilitating it. Senator Xenophon, Senator Hinch and Senator Hanson are facilitating this debilitating bill, which will mean lower wages, lower conditions and less money in the community for small businesses.

Senator Hanson, if this went around and you still had your fish and chip shop and you were working near a building site, there would not be much fish and chips getting bought, because the workers would not have the money to buy the fish and chips. I have heard you pontificating about fish and chip shops in the past. Think about it: if building workers do not have the money to get takeaway fish and chips, your business is gone. Workers will be put on the award wage on this. The employers foreshadowed it yesterday. This is a terrible bill, this is a terrible code, and that is why we are saying nothing in the code should take away from the rights that workers enjoy under the general act. That is what we are saying. We are protecting workers' rights; you are going to take them away. You are going to allow employers to sack Australian workers and keep on workers from overseas on 457 and other arrangements. Have a look at clause 11(3)(h). When you sign that off, you are signing away the rights of working people in this country to protect their permanent construction jobs against 457 visa holders.

I would like to hear how you intend to justify this to the people to whom you portray yourself as the great defender of workers' jobs. The three parties have allowed themselves to be conned by the coalition. You have demonstrated so far that you do not understand these issues of importance to working people. Senator Roberts has continually run antiworker rhetoric. How One Nation can ever portray itself as a defender of workers and of Australian jobs has got me beat, and Senator Xenophon should know better. He just has given in. (Time expired)