Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week, I attended rallies in Townsville and Cairns with workers who are against this Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2021. I told those workers that I would come in here and vote against this legislation because it does nothing to help our recovery, it does nothing to support jobs and it does nothing to fix insecurity in work, which we know this government talks a lot about but doesn't do anything about when it comes to the crunch.

Those rallies took place outside the member for Herbert's office and the member for Leichhardt's office, but we weren't able to get straight answers from either member of parliament about whether they would guarantee that no workers would be worse off under this legislation. The member for Leichhardt didn't even front the media after this rally was held. Workers had to go all the way to his office to be heard and they still had no answers from this government or the member for Leichhardt about why this legislation is being pushed through at a time when regional economies are facing an economic crisis, with JobKeeper being pulled out. It doesn't make any sense. Just because words are put in the title of legislation doesn't mean that it's what that legislation delivers.

The worst part about this legislation—and I will go through the provisions in a moment—is that we know the government are using COVID as an opportunity to attack workers' rights. It says a lot about the government and their priorities. The workers who got us through this crisis are now the workers the Morrison government want to attack—the cleaners, the retail workers, the transport and dock workers. The people who kept the country moving in the middle of a pandemic are the people now being attacked by this government. It says a lot about them. They were in here thanking those workers, posting things on Facebook, thanking people for going out there, doing their jobs and keeping the country moving, but now this is how they thank those workers.

This bill does a number of things to undermine the working conditions of Australian workers. It cuts workers' pay by changing the hours, and overtime power is given to employers instead of workers. It does this by introducing what they say is a modest change to have, by agreement, part-time workers work extra hours without getting overtime. They say that if the employer and employee come together and decide that this is a good thing to do then what's the harm in that? The Liberals will tell you that there is a level-playing field between employees and employers when it comes to making this agreement, but we know that is not true. Individual workplace agreements were the cornerstone of Work Choices. Maybe members of this government don't know what it is like to have an individual workplace agreement slid across the table and for you to have no other option but to sign that agreement. Well, I know what that feels like. When John Howard was here, when Work Choices was in, when this government was trashing workers' rights, that is what happened to me as a young worker: an individual workplace agreement. I didn't have another choice. I didn't have a choice to sign another agreement or to push back; I needed a job.

So many people are now in that situation. They are desperate for work, desperate for hours. This government is putting through a system that means that part-time workers will receive less take home pay, because they won't be able to get overtime. Their employer will slide an individual workplace agreement—that's what it is; they might want to call it a different name now, but that's what this is—across the table. And they can't say no to signing that agreement; otherwise, they probably won't have a job. They won't get the hours that they need. We know how this works. This government doesn't talk to workers. They don't understand what happens in workplaces, so they don't understand how this will play out when it comes to workplaces in this country.

The Liberals will tell you the other thing this legislation does is create a pathway to permanency. They like that term: a 'pathway to permanency'. What it doesn't do is actually give workers a right to permanency. We know that there are two Federal Court cases at the moment that say you can't keep a worker as a casual forever. If you do, you will have to pay them all of the entitlements that you didn't pay them when they were a casual. It's a pretty simple concept. That's why workers, supported by the CFMMEU mining division, took these cases to the Federal Court. This government joined the Federal Court case not on the side of workers but to support the company to stop these cases going forward. They lost that bid; they lost these cases. The Federal Court ruled in favour of the workers to stop them becoming permanent casuals. So what has this government done? It's bringing legislation forward to overturn those decisions. That's what this government is doing. The Liberal and National parties will tell you that all they're doing is just cleaning up the definition of 'casual', but what they've done is overturn those Federal Court cases.

Members of this government have been out in Central Queensland and North Queensland telling people that this legislation will provide a pathway to permanency, but where is the enforcement? If a case goes to arbitration then an employer can decide not to take part in that arbitration. There is no enforcement mechanism. It is all smoke and mirrors from this government. For all of the time that Senator Canavan, that the member for Dawson, George Christensen, and that members of this government have been telling people in Far North Queensland, regional Queensland and Central Queensland, 'We are going to do something about dodgy labour hire, about the problems with casualisation in the mining industry'—here is their chance, and what do they do? They put forward a haphazard overturn of Federal Court cases that will do nothing to help workers in Central Queensland.

This bill also contains eight-year greenfields agreements, so no negotiation can take place between workers and employers for eight years. We heard evidence at Senate inquiries that greenfields agreements have locked in what workers call suicide rosters. They haven't been able to negotiate that. After four years, right now they can go and negotiate those rosters. They can go and negotiate the terms and agreements. Things change in a workplace when there is no project. For years, as a project progresses, those workers invest their hard work and time in getting that project off the ground, and this government will remove the opportunity for them to negotiate for eight years. There are not many projects that take eight years to complete, so this means workers on these greenfields agreements will never get to negotiate their workplace conditions.

This government is bringing forward legislation that it says will improve wage theft laws, that will make wage theft laws better in this country. But we know that the Labor state government in Queensland has already brought in workplace wage theft laws. Those wage theft laws make sure that the penalty for stealing from a worker is the same as the penalty for someone stealing from their boss. There is an equivalency. That's an important part of those laws. But this legislation from this Liberal-National government is watering down Queensland's wage theft laws by not delivering the same level of penalties for employers. That's not good enough for Queensland workers. That is why they rallied outside the offices of LNP members.

What is not in this bill says a lot about this government. There is no policy in this bill that if you work the same job you get the same pay. If you work the same job, you should get the same pay. If we had laws that delivered that, then dodgy labour hire would not be able to undermine the working conditions of people in our country—people working in regional Queensland on dodgy labour hire agreements that undercut their hard-fought working conditions. Labour hire companies have been able to undercut these working conditions so that people are now not able to plan for their future. They don't know when they're going to be able to take a holiday with their family. They are being paid less than the person standing next to them doing the exact same job. This is an opportunity for the government to fix this problem, but they're not doing that through this bill. It says a lot about them that they're pushing through this legislation but not doing anything to make sure that if you do the same job you get the same pay.

This legislation doesn't do anything to stop permanent casuals or continuing short-term contracts. It doesn't provide a way for wages to increase by bargaining better. It doesn't fix that problem. When it comes to IR legislation and making changes, it doesn't provide things like 10 days domestic violence leave. The government is making industrial relation legislation changes, but it left that one out.

In the short time that I have left, the other thing that is deeply concerning about this bill is it makes work more insecure. It means workers won't be able to plan for their future. It means they will be paid less. It means work in this country will be, as they refer to it, more flexible, but we know that when they say 'flexible' they really mean 'insecure'. And this is at a time when the government is also cutting JobKeeper, taking off the table support for communities, jobs and workers around this country. The problem with that is that the government's plan to rebuild the economy is to let workers do it themselves.

The Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment said of the recovery plan the government is delivering that Australians had to 'dig deep' and resist the urge to be 'stingy' when booking a holiday at home. Mr Tehan said that he encouraged Australians not to 'be tight', to spend the same way they do overseas. He said there should be 'no penny pinching in Australia this year'. At the same time as the Morrison government is asking Australians to spend their own money to save jobs in tourism, it's pushing through legislation that makes work less secure. At the same time as the Morrison government is cutting JobKeeper, it's pushing through laws to make jobs less secure. At the same time as thousands of workers risk losing their jobs, the Morrison government is pushing through dodgy IR legislation. At the same time as thousands of workers in Cairns and around the country are concerned that they will lose their job because the government's only plan to support workers is to ask other Australians not to penny pinch, this is the legislation that the government is pushing through. This is their plan for recovery: to cut workers' rights; to make it harder for workers to get a secure, well-paid job; to make sure that the rights and conditions hard-won through Federal Court cases in this country are overturned. That is their plan. Do you think it's going to work? The Morrison government's Liberal National Party member for Leichhardt, Warren Entsch, said that cutting penalty rates would create jobs. Do you remember that one, Madam Deputy President? They said, 'If we cut penalty rates we'll create more jobs.' It didn't create a single one. Cutting penalty rates didn't create a single job, and this legislation will not save or create a single job.