Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this bill, because the protection of vulnerable workers is something that we have been calling on this government to do for years and years. Under this government's watch, there are still scores and scores of examples of workers being exploited by their employers. There've been many high-profile cases, and we've seen in the media reports on cases like 7-Eleven and Pizza Hut happening right under the noses of those opposite.

Who would have thought that we would still be here telling these tales in 2017? What has the government been doing about it? Basically, very, very little. More than a year ago, with much fanfare, the government announced it would take action to crack down on workers' exploitation. But, despite multiple promises to deal with this urgent legislation, the Turnbull government have dithered and delayed, proving their callous disregard for workers who have been exploited.

This bill goes some way to deal with some of the exploitation issues concerning vulnerable workers across the country, but it falls significantly short. I will get to this in a moment. We know those opposite do not take workers' exploitation seriously, which is why Labor has put forward amendments to address the deficiencies with this bill.

I'll touch briefly on what this bill does. It amends the Fair Work Act to increase penalties for serious contraventions of prescribed workplace laws, increase penalties for employer record-keeping failures, and make franchisors and holding companies responsible for underpayments by their franchisees or subsidiaries in instances where they knew, or ought to have known, and failed to take reasonable steps to prevent them—a measure that falls short. This bill also seeks to prohibit employers from demanding that a proportion of employees' wage be paid back in cash. Finally, this bill seeks to give the Fair Work Ombudsman and employees at the SES level the power to compulsorily question persons as part of their investigation into breaches of the Fair Work Act.

As I just said, this is a start, but it isn't enough. It's good to have the chance to speak on this bill tonight, because protecting workers' rights, and the government's failure to act on workers' rights, is something Labor has strongly campaigned on for a long time. The reality is that Labor has led the government every step of the way in proposing measures that will actually protect vulnerable workers. Those opposite have had to be dragged to the table to bring forward any measures to address exploitation of vulnerable workers. This legislation has been a long time coming, but unfortunately what we have before us tonight is a bill that falls short of what is actually needed. It doesn't go anywhere near far enough. The measures in this bill don't go far enough to address the extent of workers' exploitation, and we have seen, really, some terrible examples of shameful abuse of workers under this Liberal government. The bill falls short of Labor's suite of policies and legislative reforms that we announced 12 months ago, well before this out-of-touch Liberal government even thought about protecting workers. The bill as it stands doesn't even come close to the policies Labor took to the federal election last year to combat sham contractors, license labour hire companies, reform the Fair Work Act to strengthen protections for workers, and criminalise employer conduct that involves the use of coercion or threats.

The other serious shortfall of the government's bill, which really highlights their inability to address the issue of worker exploitation, is their refusal to protect penalty rates. There is absolutely nothing in this legislation for those who rely on penalty rates, who are some of the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers in Australia. But is this really such a surprise? I don't think so. This is a Prime Minister who has thrown his support behind cuts to penalty rates at every opportunity. He owns the decision to cut penalty rates.

You have to wonder whether the Turnbull Liberal government actually cares about protecting workers at all. Instead of trying to defend everyday workers from having their wages cut, they want to give a $50 billion tax cut to big business and the banks. If this out-of-touch government really cared about protecting workers, 700,000 Australians, including 40,000 Tasmanians, would not have lost their penalty rates last month. If those opposite really cared about vulnerable workers, the threat of penalty rate cuts extending to other industries and other low-paid workers would not exist. If this government really cared about vulnerable workers, the Minister for Women, Michaelia Cash, wouldn't have thrown her full support behind the cuts to penalty rates, which will disproportionately impact on women. How out of touch can you get? Are you not moving around your electorate? Do you not listen to people to see how far the inequality in this country has actually gone? This government just doesn't get it, and I'm not sure they ever will.

During question time on 30 March this year the Prime Minister said, 'Everything we're doing is creating jobs.' I'm not sure whether he was being sarcastic or is just living in a different country, because in the last 12 months there's been more than 700,000 Australians having to hold down a second job in order to make ends meet. This is an increase of 9.2 per cent over the past six years. Employment growth has halved and remains well below trend. Full-time jobs have declined, with job creation dominated by part-time work. Underemployment is at a record high. More than 1.1 million Australians want more work but can't find it. Wage growth has fallen to new record lows. Inequality is at a 75-year high. And apprentice numbers are still spiralling downwards. There are now only 265,000 apprentices in training compared to 413,400 in September 2013.

In a media release on 1 August, Minister Cash said, 'The Turnbull government is getting on with the job of helping more young Australians into work.' Well, you aren't pulling the wool over the eyes of our minister. I mean, all you have to do is go to regional areas around this country, go to our home state of Tasmania, to know the reality about the high level of unemployment among our youth. Under this Liberal government, the economy is not working as it should. It's not working in the interests of everyday working Australians. Too many people are working harder for less. Too many people are living from pay cheque to pay cheque. Too many people have less money in their pay packet and less security in their job. Too many people are underpaid, under-represented and, in many cases, frightened of complaining. The digital divide, all the barriers to quality education, rising house prices, escalating energy prices, older workers being displaced—the list goes on and on.

But despite all of this the Prime Minister does nothing, because he leads a government which cares more about protecting the privileges of the top end of town than it does about making life easier for everyday Australians. And we've seen today in that other place that the Prime Minister's only motivation in relation to jobs is to protect his Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, to protect his own job. Any other Prime Minister would have asked their Deputy Prime Minister to step aside. That's what a leader would have done; that's what a strong leader would do.

So it doesn't matter how many times the Prime Minister tries to tell us that he's a strong leader. He's not strong at all. Perhaps he should keep telling himself—perhaps he should stand in front of the mirror and tell himself, 'I am a strong leader, I am a strong leader.' The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce: if he were the calibre of a good man, he would stand aside. He would stand aside until the issue is resolved by the High Court. But the dysfunction and the chaos within this government just rolls on and on. Really, it's like a bad soap opera; it just gets worse and worse. The characters aren't even good characters!

The Prime Minister takes every opportunity to tell Australians that he's delivering and that he's keeping his promises, but all he's achieving is absolutely nothing. The Australian community see right through him. They see the dysfunction; they see the chaos in this government. When the Deputy Prime Minister has called into question whether or not he is eligible to sit in the House of Representatives and he continues to sit there and continues to vote, then that says so much about the character, the honesty and the integrity of this government.

But tonight Labor has been and will be putting forward some relevant amendments that will try to make the most out of this bill. If you look at the facts and the figures, the Prime Minister is taking Australians nowhere, and it’s the people he's supposed to represent who have to live with the consequences of a chaotic and dysfunctional government. What is crystal clear is that the Turnbull government doesn't take workers' exploitation seriously. This government isn't interested in the wellbeing or the safety of workers; it's interested only in quick political wins.

I'm glad we're finally dealing with this bill tonight, because Labor has fairness and workers' rights at the core of our mission. It's part of our social fabric and it's part of Labor's DNA, which is in stark contrast to those on the opposite side of the chamber. We know that if the government were serious about tackling the horrendous examples of workers' exploitation then they would have taken action before the winter break like they said they would. What they have proposed in this bill is inadequate. There's a lot more work to be done, which is why Labor is moving amendments to properly address workers' exploitation. So I urge those on the other side of the chamber and on the crossbench to support our amendments.

We on this side of the chamber will continue to fight to protect vulnerable workers. We will put their interests ahead of ours—unlike the Prime Minister, who only puts his own job and the job of the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, before Australian workers.