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

Thank you Senator Green. Unfortunately, these loopholes that we have inherited from 10 years of coalition government disproportionately affect vulnerable workers like women, young people and migrants. We need a strong new deterrent to ensure workers get the pay they are entitled to. That's why we're acting on wage theft—something the former coalition government didn't do in the 10 years that they were in office.

Some casuals work just like permanent employees, but they don't get any of the benefits of job security under the laws we inherited from the coalition government. Closing this loophole will give more than 850,000 casual workers who are working in an ongoing way the option to request permanency if they want it. No-one will be forced to convert from casual to permanent if they don't want to. Labour hire loopholes undermine the integrity of the enterprise bargaining system. Closing this loophole—something the coalition didn't do in the 10 years they were in office—will affect only a small number of workers. But, for the workers this affects, closing this loophole will be life changing. There will be more that we do because we're serious about getting wages moving again.