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

I'm interested in this issue of cleaners and couriers and the gig economy and the issues that this leads to. Working people in this country are now subjected to probably the worst industrial laws that there have been for some time. Getting paid properly is absolutely essential. Getting to a position where workers have got some rights is absolutely essential. This bill is about ensuring that people are paid properly and people are meeting the requirements of the law. We have indicated earlier that we support an amendment. That amendment has been picked up. The issue that we're facing now is that this government has got so little legislation on hand, so little idea about where they're going that a bill that should now be totally uncontroversial is being debated out, on and on and on, for no other reason than that this government—the government that their own Prime Minister calls the muppets—the muppets are on their feet trying to delay this bill, trying to keep talking on things that don't need to be talked about because both the government and the opposition have agreed that this bill should be passed.

All we have at the moment is what's described as a filibuster. They are not prepared to go on further in legislation. The government would have had amendments here, even to their own bill, if there were still some issues or problems that they wanted to deal with. That is not the case that we have at the moment. What we need to do is try and move things along in this chamber to make sure that when we have got an uncontroversial bill like this bill, we don't have Senator Paterson on his feet trying to just keep this bill running and Senator Seselja bringing back answers that have all been worked out just to try and keep this chamber debating this bill. I use the word 'debating' very loosely, because there is no debate about the bill. The opposition supports the bill. The opposition have an amendment that the government have indicated they support. This bill should be passed. That is the bottom line here.

What we're seeing now is a chaotic government, a government that is now into its third Prime Minister. They didn't learn the lessons from Labor, when we were last in government, that there are huge transactional costs in making a Prime Minister. They have now done it on at least two occasions. Who knows how long this current Prime Minister will last, even if he can get to May next year, when they say they're going to have an election. We really should get to an election in this country. I think what we're witnessing here is exactly the problem you have with a government that's got no direction and no capacity to bring forward policies that are in the interests of working people in this country; a government that is ideologically driven, where the extremists have got control of the government. It doesn't matter who the Prime Minister is; there are groups within the coalition that want to disrupt the government and want to ensure that the government cannot deliver on any issue, especially on issues such as climate change that are so important to our kids and grandkids and the future of this country.

We have a government that are so solely focused internally that they do not have any idea about how they look from outside or what they should be doing to actually deal with the real issues. Every time there's a crisis now, they're in there trying to pre-empt one crisis after another. It was clear yesterday. Even though it was clear that there are huge problems in aged care, they were out yesterday trying to pre-empt a Four Corners program tonight. This is just how lax this government is. This government is hopeless. This government cannot actually deal with the issues effectively. I am of the view that what we need now is for this matter to be dealt with. There is no need to continue any further discussions on this. Everyone's agreed.