Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the second interim report of the Senate Select Committee on Job Security, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I'd like to thank the committee members, Senators Walsh, Faruqi, Canavan and Small, for their involvement and the committee secretariat for their tireless efforts. This is the second interim report of the Senate Select Committee on Job Security. The first interim report focused on the gig economy. It revealed that companies like Uber, Deliveroo and Amazon are having a corrosive impact on the standards and conditions of work in Australia. But the findings of the second interim report are more concerning still, because what it reveals is that it isn't just Uber and Amazon driving insecure work in Australia. In fact, no employer in Australia is doing more to drive insecure work than the federal government. The federal government engages hundreds of thousands of workers in the Australian Public Service and is the economic employer of millions of workers around Australia in jobs that it funds—jobs in sectors like aged care, higher education, the NDIS and the NBN.

It is deeply troubling that insecure work has become the norm in these sectors. If publicly funded jobs aren't safe from the pandemic of insecure work, then what job is safe? In aged care, we have received deeply unsettling evidence about the conditions of the workforce. The government's 2020 Aged Care Workforce Census revealed 94 per cent of aged-care workers are engaged as casuals, subcontractors, labour hire or part-time. For those lucky enough to be engaged as part-time, the norm in the industry is for contracts with low minimum hours or even zero minimum hours, which widely fluctuate from one week to the next. Aged-care workers have told us firsthand how these contracts are weaponised to create a permanent state of uncertainty and fear. One care worker, and a Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union member, Sherree Clarke, said: 'You can't plan anything because you don't know what your roster is going to be from one fortnight to the next. When my mother went through cancer, I couldn't tell her that I would support her for her cancer appointments, because if you're not available to pick up a shift, they don't offer you that shift the next time'.

We already know, thanks to the royal commission, that our aged-care workforce is understaffed and underpaid, and this is the principal cause of substandard care. Unfortunately, the situation is only getting worse. While the government ignores key recommendations from the royal commission, the committee also heard that gig platforms like Mable are creeping into the sector. As the Health Services Union's Lauren Hutchins said, 'Platforms like Mable are a combination of Tinder and Uber, where you swipe left or right on a worker who is being engaged by Mable as a contractor to avoid paying the minimum wage, avoid paying superannuation and avoid paying workers' compensation.'

Unfortunately, these platforms have already swarmed into another publicly funded sector, the NDIS. It is a national disgrace that an opportunity like the NDIS, where the government could have created hundreds of thousands of secure jobs with a living wage, is instead home to worker exploitation. Both workers and participants are suffering as a result.

It is the same story in higher education, as NTEU national president, Dr Alison Barnes, said: 'Only one in three jobs in our universities is permanent or ongoing. That means that the vast majority of our teaching research and professional support services are undertaken by workers who are not permanently employed.' Paul Morris, a casual academic and NTEU member, told us about the impact that repeated short-term contracts have on his life: 'It creates anxiety which persists as a matter of course in my everyday life and intensifies each Christmas when I again become unemployed, leaving me wondering whether I will pick up again in another three months.' If the perpetual insecurity wasn't enough, academics are paid inadequate piece rates which leave them with pay well below the award. Our universities are built on insecure work and wage theft, two issues which so often go hand in hand. This is an unacceptable way to treat the people who are driving innovation and research in Australia and who we entrust with educating our next generation.

The story is the same at the National Broadband Network, where one government agency, Nbn Co, has exclusive power over everyone working within their supply chain. Like the NDIS, the NBN was a massive Labor achievement that was intended to create hundreds of thousands of secure and well-paid jobs, but this government has turned it into a hive of insecurity and exploitation. There is not a single NBN Co employee installing or maintaining NBN infrastructure. There's not even a single NBN Co subcontractor installing or maintaining NBN infrastructure. Instead, NBN Co has outsourced the entire project to a small number of contracting companies. Many are in turn subcontracting the work down the pyramid. At the very bottom of the Ponzi scheme, you have NBN technicians who some days cannot even earn enough to cover their costs. As the CEPU's Shane Murphy told us:

A project that was to be a source of pride has developed the highly sinister underbelly of mistreatment and malfeasance that should be a source [of] shame.

The federal government has the power to say, 'No, any job we pay for must be a secure job.' But all the evidence provided to this committee shows that this government, over eight years, has opted for an insecure, unpaid workforce which often falls victim to wage theft. If you ask neglected aged-care residents or university students or NBN customers, I think you'll find they aren't too thrilled either.

Even the Australian Public Service, once the standard-bearer of good, secure jobs, isn't safe from attacks on workers' rights. The proportion of casuals in the APS is at a record high. Expenditure on outsourcing APS jobs is at a record high. Expenditure on labour hire in the APS is at a record high. Nick Thackray, a CPSU delegate and long-time labour hire worker at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, told us:

… there's the difference in pay, but then we don't get sick leave, … we don't get carers leave and we don't get things like domestic violence leave. Or if somebody close to you dies, there's no leave like that. So … every day, depending on what's happening in your life, you make the choice, 'Am I going to get paid today?'

I'm very happy to say that, shortly after appearing at our hearing, Nick was offered direct employment at AMSA. It's a great outcome for Nick, but it's also a great outcome for AMSA, who told us it costs them 23 per cent more to hire someone through labour hire, although the workers are getting paid less.

Unfortunately, we can't invite every labour hire worker in the APS to our hearings to help them obtain direct APS jobs; that responsibility does lie with the government. The government could give all these long-term labour hire workers a direct APS job today, just as the government could provide security to every worker in aged care, the NDIS, higher education and the NBN—today. Insecure work in these industries is a choice by the Morrison government. The eight years of rising job insecurity and record-low wage growth is a choice by the Morrison government. Minister Cormann himself said in 2019 that it's a 'deliberate' policy of this government, and there's no escaping the truth, that the Australian middle class no longer has the secure jobs and living wage that once defined it.