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

I attended all of the hearings of this committee. The committee came about as a result of a Senate estimates hearing where I was questioning the Fair Work Ombudsman about its report on Tasmanian cleaners, where it was clear that there was systematic exploitation of cleaners employed by Woolworths in Tasmania. During that questioning, Senator Molan interjected to defend Woolworths' position. I thought that was appalling—when I was defending some of the lowest-paid workers, workers that had been exploited—that a coalition senator would intervene and try and defend Woolworths for their part in this exploitation. I then determined that I would try and get to the bottom of what happened. That resulted in the Senate approving the references committee to inquire into the exploitation of cleaners in the retail sector. We've named the report Wage theft—what wage theft? What we basically had was employers coming along and arguing that they had no responsibility for the wage theft being put on low-paid workers, because they had contracted their responsibilities out to a contractor and it was the responsibility of that contractor. Yet companies like Woolworths actually set the terms and conditions of the contract that can be entered into, then these contractors further subcontract across a number of subcontractors. It's what's described as pyramid subcontracting, where workers get less and less wages as it goes down that pyramid, to the extent that workers have their wages stolen and the companies don't meet their legal obligations. We see a position where workers are living in abject poverty.

What we've come up with is not only recommendations in relation to that, but during the course of the hearing it became clear that the contractor that Woolworths were using, their principal contractor, was the same contractor that the Department of Finance had used to contract out the work of the cleaners in Parliament House. You remember the issue there. The department contracted the cleaners' work out and the cleaners ended up with a six per cent wage cut because of the position. This is exactly what's happening with companies around the country and with the departments under the guidance of this government: contract the work out, then deny any responsibility for those workers' wages and conditions because the contract has been signed and the company or the department don't employ these workers. It's all care and no responsibility. It's an outrageous proposition.

What this reminds you of is exactly the same position that workers found themselves in at 7-Eleven and Shell. Remember all the exploitation that took place there? Mainly migrant workers, workers who had no great command of English, were subject to exploitation because Woolworths took the position that they would contract out to a company called Broadspectrum and then Broadspectrum contracted out to other companies such as a company named Pioneer, who had been found to have breached workplace laws over a period of time. This is how this government is allowing departments, under the auspices of the government, to treat workers. It is absolutely unacceptable.

So we've come up with 22 recommendations. I'll just go briefly to some of them. We've said, firstly, that the Migrant Workers Taskforce should immediately release the report, along with the progress report, within a month so that the work of the Migrant Workers Taskforce can be set beside the work that this committee has done to deal with the issues. We've said that the government should take into account the evidence and recommendations of this reference committee report in relation to wage theft and the exploitation of workers. We have recommended that the Fair Work Ombudsman stop negotiating compliance deeds that only go back a certain period of time, when the workers are being ripped off.

What we saw in this report was that the workers in Tasmania had been ripped off since 2010. Yet the Fair Work Ombudsman had only gone back a set period of time for those workers to recover their wages. It's an outrageous position that is being adopted by the Fair Work Ombudsman. The Fair Work Ombudsman should be ashamed for putting that position forward. They are allowing companies to rip workers off, with impunity. What are the sanctions if you're caught breaching the award? Even by the Fair Work Ombudsman's standards, they are very little. You can be sure that the Fair Work Ombudsman will only go back a certain period to recover the wages of those workers and will not go back the full period of time that the workers were ripped off. It was an outrageous position that the Fair Work Ombudsman took, only matched by the outrageous position of Woolworths.

Woolworths are now the only big retail company in the country that don't employ cleaners directly. And they couldn't give us an answer as to why they would not employ directly so that workers get decent wages and conditions and are employed directly by the company—other than that there was some specialised work to be done. You can make your own mind up about how 'specialised' it is to actually keep a place clean and work to proper instructions in Woolworths. Every other company in Australia can do it, but Woolworths claim they can't. They still try and push their responsibilities for workers out, back to contractors, and claim there is no problem.

They actually set up some recovery process for these workers and they advertised in the Financial Review and The Australian. What cleaner is going to read the Financial Review and The Australian? And they put out notices that were so complex it was difficult for the committee to comprehend what they meant in these notices. This is an absolute disgrace. Woolworths is one of the biggest companies in this country, yet their workers are being ripped off. Even as late as today, we got correspondence from an accountant in Western Australia, who has indicated that they have gone through some of the cases of exploitation in other states and that Woolworths are not calculating the wages of these workers properly. They're leaving it up to the contractors to calculate the wage theft, and they are not taking a strong position to deal with this issue. It is absolutely ridiculous.

I want to congratulate the company Adam Hunter Pty Ltd in Western Australia, who are looking after workers—doing what the Fair Work Ombudsman should have been doing but not doing properly. Adam Hunter Pty Ltd have outlined that, even after this report, even after we've seen this—and when Woolworths and the contractors are saying that the only problem is in Tasmania—this is a problem nationwide for Woolworths. Woolworths should get off their backside, look after workers, employ them directly and stop allowing wage theft under their watch. It is a ridiculous proposition.

I'll just go back to where I started: for any coalition senator to intervene on behalf of a company like Woolworths when I'm questioning them about stealing the wages of workers is an outrage, and Senator Molan should be absolutely ashamed of himself. It is outrageous, what he did. The only good thing about it is that it allowed this report, and I will speak to this report more in an ongoing position. I'm not sure whether I need to seek leave to continue my remarks.