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

I referred to Senator Polley. Does she have another title? If she does have, I'd be keen to learn about that. So Senator Polley takes the point of order. Regional jobs: it is quite amazing where I live that we have Bindaree Beef our local abattoir. We have plenty of young unemployed. Why don't they work at the abattoir? We rely on Brazilian and Filipino visa workers to carry out the work. Why aren't the locals working there? Would it be the fact that some of them don't want to work at an abattoir? Did some get a job there and when they rolled up they failed the grog test or the drug test? You only have to talk to many abattoir owners who rely so much on backpackers et cetera coming in to do that work. We had this big debate about the backpackers tax. We've 730,000 people unemployed in Australia, can't they pick fruit? Can't they help with the vintage in the grape season when the wine grapes are being picked? Can't they work in the abattoirs? Can't they shear sheep? Unbelievable.

Back to the bill in front of us—this is a very important amendment. Could I commend my good friend, Adele Ferguson. My wife, Nancy, and I are very good friends with Adele and her husband, Christian, and their daughter, Emma. Adele tipped me off months before she did the Four Corners story on 7-Eleven. What a disgusting situation it was: youngsters out here on student visas. On none of those visas could they work more than 20 hours per week so 7-Eleven franchisees employed them and worked them for 40 hours a week, but at half-pay. Instead of paying them $17, $18 or $19 an hour, or whatever the rate was—perhaps more on a casual rate—they paid around $10 an hour in many cases. Then they said to those students, 'If you dob us in for underpaying you, we're gonna go to the government and we're gonna dob you in for working more than 20 hours a week, and we'll have you kicked out of the country.' What a good blackmailing system that was to use and abuse workers. I've said it a thousand times: life is about fairness. People should be treated fairly, with a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. It's been around all my life that saying. Congratulations, Adele Ferguson, for highlighting the rorting that 7-Eleven carried out in many of their franchises on many of those workers, and their absolute abuse of them.

Another very respected person in Australia, Mr Allan Fels, was appointed the adjudicator to clean this mess up. It wasn't long before millions and millions of dollars were being paid by 7-Eleven. And what did they do? They sacked Allan Fels. I wonder why? Because a decent man was doing the right thing, that's my suspicion. And so it goes on. There is not only 7-Eleven, but also Muffin Break, Gloria Jean's, Subway, Caltex, Domino's, and Pizza Hut franchises. That's just some.

I've said it before in this place: when the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, which I'm part of, completes our whistleblowers inquiry and our inquiry into life insurance, I'd like to see the committee do an inquiry into franchises and the absolute abuse of their workers and the tactics they use to cheat workers. Why did 7-Eleven underpay their workers? Was it because the actual chiefs of 7-Eleven were not giving a fair deal to their franchisees? Were they forced to actually cheat to try and stay afloat? These are questions we need to have answered, and I think a parliamentary inquiry by the PJC on Corporations and Financial Services could have a good look at that and perhaps find more answers to see if we need more amendments later on.

The conduct by certain businesses is fuelled by inadequate penalties and ineffective laws, which fail to deter lawbreaking and make worker exploitation difficult for the regulator, the Fair Work Ombudsman, to prove. Underpayment of workers is unfair for workers, but also for competing businesses who do the right thing and face higher costs because they are complying with the law. If you are a convenience store other than 7-Eleven and you're paying the correct salary or the correct rate of pay to your employees, you've got certainly an unfair competitive disadvantage to those who are cheating the system. It is so wrong. When someone abuses their power, whether it's union bosses intimidating small businesses or dodgy employers exploiting vulnerable workers, the Turnbull government will take action. I'm pleased that is exactly what we're doing here now.