Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately we have seen too many big employers in Australia use these loopholes to undercut people's pay. The Albanese government made it clear before the election, and we're making it clear now, that we want workers to have more secure jobs and better pay. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're raising the bar on awards, on enterprise agreements and on bargaining and lifting the floor for workers.

It's a shame we are still seeing some employers using existing loopholes to circumvent the pay and conditions of their workers, including by exploiting the use of labour hire. We acknowledge that there is a role for labour hire in our economy, especially for short-term surge workforce needs, but the system is being abused by too many employers at the moment to undercut people's pay and conditions. Currently our system allows for an employer to have an enterprise agreement that they've fairly negotiated with their workers, where the enterprise agreement has a fair rate of pay that's been agreed upon and voted up by the workers, but unfortunately we are seeing employers rip people off by exploiting labour hire. Our same job, same pay policy is designed to bring that to end. (Time expired)