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

I'm very pleased to follow the good senator and her call for workplace reform. I rise today to talk about a recent incident with workers in my home town of Cairns. Last Friday I joined a rally of workers in Cairns, Far North Queensland. These workers were up against a multinational, multibillion dollar corporation, one they had been bargaining with for three years.

Svitzer operates tugboats to every major mainland port here in Australia. Workers at the company play an often unseen but critical role in our economy. In Cairns, Svitzer tugboat workers facilitate the safe passage of fuel, cruise ships and, critically, resources for residents of the cape and outer islands of the Torres Strait, in Far North Queensland. They ensure that Australians who live in remote Far North Queensland can continue to keep the lights on and put food on the table. They played a vital role for Australians throughout the pandemic and made record levels of profit for their employer while they were at it.

Svitzer, the company I'm talking about here, made a record $21 billion in profit last year alone. It is owned by a global overseas company, and its CEO receives millions of dollars each year. But on Friday 18 November this year Svitzer notified its local workforce, who are among 582 workers across the country, of its intention to take industrial action against them. Yes, this is the industrial action that those opposite don't want to talk about: companies in this country that seek to lock out their own workforce. Svitzer planned to lock the gates on workers who were willing to work, simply because they had yet to reach an agreement on the workers' future terms and conditions.

I showed up at the local rally in solidarity because these workers were willing and able to do their important job, because they play a critical role in maintaining the health and safety of my region and so many others in Australia, and because it's fundamentally bad for our economy and supply chains if this critical part of our transport infrastructure is halted, particularly just before Christmas. I showed up because I'm sick and tired of the way essential workers continue to be treated by those opposite and the interests they represent.

Our government didn't just show up for these workers. We expressed grave concerns to the Fair Work Commission that this corporate industrial action would impart significant economic impact on our economy. The Fair Work Commission listened and ordered the action to be suspended. Last week these workers were looking down the barrel of locked gates. They were willing and able to return to work, and so they did. But Svitzer went as far as docking the pay of workers in preparation for the lockout, which didn't even go ahead.

Now, because of their own solidarity and the support of the government, these workers are back at work, but this is evidence of a broken bargaining system. We have workers in our economy who are delivering essential services to people in our communities but are having to bargain with a global, multinational company for years and years to get a pay rise. This is what we are talking about when we talk about the bargaining system being broken. When a company seeks to lock out its own workforce, instead of sitting down at the bargaining table, we are talking about industrial action from a company against its own workers. This is a system we need to change. Workers have been trying to bargain for a pay rise, but they're not getting it. That is why we are delivering reform in this sector.