Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely, that's on sheet 1086.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: You have indicated that you are moving amendment (1) on sheet 1066. Do you wish to speak to that amendment?

I do. I will speak to the safeguards. This amendment is also co-sponsored by the Labor Party. This amendment is about introducing safeguards in the bill. We have deep concerns that, as the bill currently stands, there is a real possibility that workers will lose their jobs or might lose hours as a result of the scheme. We are very concerned that a business will be able to fiddle with its staffing structures or its numbers to increase its headcount and it will also be able to fiddle with its payroll in order to receive this hiring credit, for instance. We want to make sure that that can't happen, and this amendment introduces those safeguards for workers.

The amendment prevents the firing and hiring of workers in order to receive the credit and it protects ordinary working hours of workers who already work for those companies, to make sure that their hours aren't reduced to make way for the minimum 20 hours of credit for eligible workers. It's a pretty straightforward amendment. It provides safeguards for the workers who are currently working within those companies. I hope that my colleagues can support this amendment, so we can at least improve this pretty terrible bill a little bit. I commend the amendment to the Senate.