Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset, Labor said that we would apply a very simple test to this legislation: will it deliver decent pay and more secure jobs for Australian workers? In fact, this legislation does the exact opposite. It fails our test, and that's why we will not be supporting the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2021. This bill is an attack on workers, especially the lowest paid and most insecure workers in the country. Labor have always stood up for and Labor will always stand up for the workers of Australia. We will stand up against pay cuts and job insecurity and we will stand up against this legislation.

The legislation before us has come to us at an absolutely unprecedented time in our history. We face remarkable challenges as a result of COVID-19. COVID has seen the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country. The recovery is patchy, and jobs in some sectors are still at risk. So the government's pay cuts and their attacks on job security could not come at a worse time. But one of our greatest problems—that is, low wage growth—cannot simply be blamed on the pandemic, because under this government wage growth has never been slower. The problem of low wage growth will only be made worse by this legislation.

Low wages growth is bad for workers—of course it's bad for workers, who are finding it hard to make ends meet and put food on the table—but it is also bad for the economy, because right now we need people with money in their pockets and with the confidence to spend it. It seems that everyone agrees with that basic proposition—everyone except the Morrison government. We know the Reserve Bank Governor, Philip Lowe, has said on multiple occasions, so many times, that we need to get wages moving in this country. He said wage growth is absolutely fundamental to repairing the economy and lifting spending, investment and growth. The Australian economy desperately needs wages to get moving right now, and so do Australian workers. But the wage-suppressing policies of this government are hurting workers and putting a brake on the economy.

The bill that is in front of us today, make no mistake, will only make this worse. The Prime Minister is asking us to believe that cutting wages will create jobs. Where have I heard that before? The government is a repeat offender on the lie that cutting wages creates jobs—it's a lie. Cutting penalty rates did not create a single additional job in this country. Even business groups admit that. So, for Australia to recover from the pandemic, we need people with money in their pockets and with the confidence to spend it. We do not need pay cuts and even more insecure jobs.

It's estimated that today up to five million Australians have insecure work arrangements. The government's legislation will make work even less secure through an expanded employer controlled definition of 'casual labour'. Under this provision, if an employer says that you're a casual, even if you work like a permanent staff member, you'll be treated like a casual—no leave, no entitlements, no rights, no security. That is what the government is offering you with this bill. And while you could ask your employer to be made permanent after 12 long months, if they say no, well that is just the end of it: full stop. If this legislation is passed, it will hurt wage growth and it will increase job insecurity and financial uncertainty for Australian workers. It will damage the economy more broadly by hurting consumer confidence and consumer spending. Too many Australians are already in insecure jobs; too many Australians are casuals, contractors, freelancers, labour hire workers, gig economy workers.

We saw the devastating consequences of this insecurity in the pandemic. We saw aged-care workers juggling two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Their insecurity, tragically, put them and the people in their care at extreme risk. Aged-care workers, like so many workers, often have jobs with no certainty of work for the next day, the next week, the next month ahead. Workers like Sherree, a veteran aged-care worker with more than 20 years' experience in the sector. Sherree is contracted to work just 16 hours a fortnight. While she consistently works above that, she is never sure exactly how many hours she's going to get from week to week. On top of her irregular hours, the pay is low in her job, so she can't convince a real estate agent to give her a lease, she can't convince a bank to give her a loan and sometimes she can't make enough money even to meet her own basic needs. Sherree wants us to vote this legislation down. She has spoken out against this legislation and, today, I stand with Sherree and I stand with all of the Australian workers who are stuck in casual jobs and in insecure jobs. We need to vote this legislation down.

This government's legislation would increase the casualisation of jobs and insecurity for all workers. The so-called part-time flexibility arrangements turn permanent part-time workers into casuals. These measures allow the government to extend the sorts of hours Sherree works to everyone on an award—16 hours one week, 20 hours the next, 30 hours the week after that, no overtime for going above your rostered hours, no certainty of when you will be offered more hours, no security whatsoever. This is happening right at the time when we need more job security, not less.

Last year, the Prime Minister took every opportunity he could find to thank an essential worker—every photo opportunity, every doorstop. But what a difference a new year makes, because this legislation is how he is thanking the workers of Australia—the hardworking, essential people who kept our country going through the pandemic. This nasty IR bill is how Prime Minister Morrison is thanking the essential workers that this year he once called heroes. This nasty IR bill contains pay cuts, it casualises work and it makes work less secure. It gives more power to employers over workers and it gives fewer rights to unions.

Well, I have a different message for Australia's essential workers, and Labor has a different message for Australia's essential workers, because we know that you turned up every day last year to do your job. We know that you turned up to deliver the parcels. We know that you turned up to put food on the shelves. We know that you turned up to take care of our elderly in aged-care facilities. We know that you turned up every day to our childcare centres. And we know that you continue to turn up every day to do your job. The Morrison government needs to do its job and turn up for you. The Morrison government needs to do its job and turn up for you and scrap this nasty IR bill. The Morrison government needs to do its job and turn up for you and tell the people of Australia, tell the workers of Australia, exactly what their plan is to get wages moving and exactly what their plan is to make their jobs more secure, because this bill is not that plan. This is a bill that will keep wages low, this is a bill that will keep jobs casual and make more jobs casual, this is a bill that will hurt people's job security, this is a bill that will hurt Australians workers and this is a bill that will hurt our economy and hurt our recovery. We fundamentally and absolutely reject this bill.

This government has had nine years to answer the questions that I've asked today: How are they going to get wages moving? How are they going to make jobs more secure? Nine long years—in that time, I have to say that I cannot think of a single thing this government has done, a single initiative this government has taken, to get wages moving. I can't think of a single thing this government has done, a single initiative this government has taken, to make our jobs in this country more secure. In nine years, I cannot think of a single thing this government has contributed to getting wages moving and making jobs more secure.

One thing is clear today: this bill is not the answer the people of Australia are looking for. This nasty IR bill is not the answer to getting wages moving. This bill is not the answer to building more secure jobs. It's not the answer for workers struggling to put food on the table. It's not the answer for local businesses, who actually want to see people in their communities opening their wallets and having the confidence to spend; that's what local businesses want to see. This bill is not the answer for our economic recovery. It is just one more tired and nasty iteration of this government's same old ideologically-driven policies that hurt workers and unions: cutting wages; going after union bargaining rights; and calling insecurity 'flexibility', the better-sounding and more acceptable word. This is the Liberals' go-to plan. Well, enough is enough. People need good jobs. They need secure jobs they can count on, they need rights at work and they need a government that is going to look out for them and back them up. This Morrison government will never deliver what the people of Australia need.

This bill also misses the opportunity to deal with wage theft, which is a national epidemic. Wage theft robs workers of wages and entitlements, and it also robs us of tax income. It's estimated that national revenue loss due to foregone income is over $9 billion annually. Wage theft is bad for workers, bad for the economy and bad for government, but this government doesn't seem to care. If this bill passes, it will wipe out Victoria's and Queensland's stronger wage theft laws—laws that workers themselves stood up for and fought for.

The government's bill will set an impossibly high bar for successful prosecution of wage theft offences; employers will face little prospect of prosecution and will face trivial criminal penalties if, indeed, they are caught. That's why workers like Jules fought so hard for those Victorian wage theft laws. She's a veteran hospitality worker. In her time she's seen every type of wage theft in that industry. These are her words about the stronger wage theft laws she fought for in Victoria being overturned by this bill: 'When Victoria introduced legislation criminalising wage theft, I cried. Finally, workers were going to have something solid and strong. The federal government's legislation is a kick in the guts to workers like me.'

The Victorian government has said that the Commonwealth should amend its legislation to bring wage theft provisions in line with stronger Victorian offences. But instead the Morrison government will give unscrupulous employers in Victoria a free pass, and workers will find it much harder to prosecute their employers for wage theft. So the next George Calombaris, the next Rockpool, the next MasterChef who comes under scrutiny could very well get off the hook if this bill becomes law. The government is pursuing a deeply entrenched ideology in this legislation. There is clear evidence that better agreements are struck where unions are engaged in effective bargaining.