John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Crooked farmers? Never heard of one! Senator Cameron is saying in his interjection, 'What about crooked farmers?' All the farmers I know have been the honest, hardworking people who do such a great job not only feeding all of Australia but millions of people around the world as well, and who suffer some terrible times. Luckily, with good irrigation equipment and good pumps, these days they can do well.

This bill will amend the Fair Work Act to increase penalties by 10 times for serious contraventions of payment related protections in the Fair Work Act, which will apply when contraventions are systemic and deliberate. The bill will also raise penalties for record-keeping requirements to make them consistent with penalties for underpayment of workers. The bill will outlaw cashback and other coercive behaviour by employers where employees are paid correctly but then forced by their employer to repay part of their wages. How is that for a cheating system? They say, 'The award's $20 an hour and we'll pay you $20 an hour, but here's the deal: you give us $8 an hour back for giving you a job.' What a disgusting treatment! It will hold franchisors and holding companies responsible for underpayments where they should have known about them but failed to take reasonable steps to prevent them, as in the case of 7-Eleven and no doubt more to come. The amendments will strengthen the investigation of underpayments by giving the Fair Work Ombudsman effective evidence-gathering powers similar to that of ASIC and the ACCC and outlawing the provision of false or misleading information and the hindering and obstruction of inspectors who carry out investigations into compliance with the Fair Work Act. Those powers will be welcomed by the ombudsman and are, as I said, similar to those of ASIC and the ACCC.

A point on building on a record of protecting vulnerable workers: the bill builds on steps already taken by the government to protect vulnerable workers, including establishing the Migrant Workers' Taskforce chaired by Professor Allan Fels—a man who I have been privileged to meet on several occasions, and who is a thoroughly honest, decent man, in my opinion, who will do a great job of chairing that task force—to target employers who exploit migrant workers and to continue to monitor the progress of 7-Eleven in rectifying workers' underpayments. Hopefully, the compensation is going out to those workers with interest on top. We will be boosting funding to the Fair Work Ombudsman by $20 million to ensure that the regulator has the resources to investigate and prosecute employers who exploit workers. That is another good thing. There is no point having a good oversight cop on the beat without the funding for them to carry out their duties; they need to be resourced well. Taskforce Cadena was established in June 2015. This is a joint task force between Australian Border Force and the Fair Work Ombudsman to target and disrupt criminals organising visa fraud, illegal work and exploitation of foreign workers. Also, we are requiring a valid payslip as proof of paid work before a second working holiday visa will be granted to temporary migrant workers. The amendment outlaws payments to sponsors of foreign workers by making it a criminal offence for employers and visa applicants to solicit or receive a payment in return for visa sponsorships. That's good thing to bring the heavies down on those people who wish to cheat in that way. We are funding enforcement bodies to ensure that employers comply with their obligations as sponsors of skilled visa holders.

As I said, the first person to bring this to the public arena was Adele Ferguson, with her Four Corners story, and I commend her for her great work. It is simply wrong that employers use all sorts of bribes, threats or whatever to threaten workers for one reason other another, and then underpay them or not pay them by the award. It is disgusting, and I've known those companies that will no doubt be under the spotlight when we get this inquiry going, and I hope we do: not only 7-Eleven but Muffin Break, Gloria Jean's, Subway, Caltex, Domino's and Pizza Hut franchises.

I bet you there are more people cheating, because these students who come here, especially the students, have to work and get a job to try and make their way through tertiary studies. We know what our education system is like in Australia. One of our huge income earners for our nation is education—people coming here to get a top-quality education. Our standards are tremendous, our reputation is great, and many from overseas—India, Asia or wherever—like to come here because they can hang their hat on one thing that makes them extremely proud: 'I have got a degree from an Australian university.' Of course, many of them come from very poor families, and when they come here they work very, very hard, and they need to work hard to pay their way through university, to pay for their accommodation and meals et cetera and the cost of living, only to find that some of these franchisors are simply abusing them. So the amendments put forward in this legislation make it a criminal activity and set up a watchdog with Professor Allan Fels at the lead—as I said, a thoroughly decent man—to see these people are not cheated, they're treated with respect, they are paid the correct award wages and they can get on with their lives without having to be bribed, blackmailed or whatever into receiving pay that is simply unacceptable and, of course, well below the award.

We have an award system in this country. We have umpires that set those awards: as I said, Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman, who make various decisions. Of course, when they make a decision that those opposite don't like, because those opposite set the whole system up, they blame us on this side of the chamber. That's quite amazing—blaming us for their activities, for establishing the umpire. The umpire makes a decision. I've seen it all my life. I've said it before. When the umpire was put in place to work on things such as the shearing award, when they gave a pay rise, we as graziers paid the pay rise with no questions asked. But, of course, when they said, 'You can use wide combs as an option,' what did we have? We had strikes, fights and sheds black-banned by the unions. My brother Peter and I had our shed black-banned because the umpire made a decision but the Australian Workers' Union didn't like it. So this is typical: when the umpire makes a decision, if those opposite don't like it, they say, 'Let's cause havoc and strife, as we did in the shearing industry.' Luckily, since then we've never seen a dispute in the shearing industry.

Hopefully this amendment will clean this mess up in Australia—I'm confident it will. With the inquiry into this by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, we can have a good look over several months—six months or eight months; there'll be no hurry once the workload's off. We know how stressed the committees are for work at the moment. Let's look at the terms of reference. Let's have another look at the franchisors and the franchisees, how they've behaved and what pressure they're under. Is it the franchisors causing the pressure? That's one of the arguments under 7-Eleven: small profit margins and the small business battling to keep their head above water to survive financially. Look at the franchisees and their behaviour. Look at the compensation and how it's working.

It will be very good to have Allan Fels in front of the committee and ask Mr Fels some questions about how he carried out his duties at 7-Eleven, where he was going with it and why they kicked him out. That's the question I'd like to have answered, because he was brought in as a man who commands enormous respect in Australia. He was doing the right thing, serving out millions of dollars of compensation—rightfully so—to those foreign workers who were cheated, blackmailed, bribed or whatever, only to find that next thing Allan Fels was booted from his position as the independent umpire making judgements on those compensation packages.

I look forward to the ride ahead and say that, if we can see more wrongdoing in the franchise industry, hopefully the committee inquiry will bring that out. If necessary, we will come back into the chamber here and make more amendments, if we can find it out. That's what committees are there for: to find out what's wrong, to see the current laws, to recommend to the government and say, 'Hey, this needs changing; this is something you've overlooked,' and to hear those witnesses come forward.

I hope we get some of those young workers and students, many of them from India. We see them out there. They are great workers in the service stations, 7-Eleven stores, et cetera. Let's hear from them, let's hear their side of the story and let's see what else we can find out to see what else has to be done so that employers, franchisors and franchisees treat their workers properly. I've been fortunate in my life. I've been an employer and an employee. I worked as an employee as a truck driver, in small business, EMS, agricultural spraying and as a shearer. I've also been an employer in business and on the farm, so I have a good understanding of both sides. People should be treated fairly, paid at least the award and looked after—a fair day's work for a fair day's pay.