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

They always get upset about this one. The reality is that, time and time again, they vote with Qantas, with Alan Joyce, Richard Goyder and the wonderful board. They probably even said to their mates on the board, 'Make sure that all those recalcitrants get re-elected,' because they backed this class war. You guys over there are part of the class war strategy, which most of the people in this country find absolutely ridiculous. They keep voting with their feet in every survey of what their view is. Eighty per cent of Australians agree that measures to protect workers from wage theft should be brought in. They oppose that. Sixty-five per cent agree that employees and labour hire workers should be paid the same if they are doing the same job. They oppose it. Sixty-five per cent want the government to change workplace laws to close labour hire loopholes. They oppose it because they're on one side. They're on the billionaires' side. They're on the side of the ones making all that money, who want to bankroll everybody else in the employer group, who hold the same philosophy that working people should have their wages suppressed.

I'm going to say there are exceptions to that, because there are good businesses out there. One of those good businesses is Whitehaven, who just recently bought three coalmines from BHP up in Queensland. Now, BHP is, of course, one of the recalcitrants about suppressing wages and on their side for this class war that they're so adamant about waging against the Australian public. When I say 'class war', I don't mean this class or that class; I mean they're for them at the top. They're against everyone else in the middle and further below. Even Whitehaven, to their great credit, when they bought three mines off BHP—a substantially larger operation than Whitehaven that had an operation that turned around and paid between 30 and 40 per cent less for labour hire doing the exact same work. Guess what. They're not labour hire engaged by another company. They're labour hire engaged by their own company. To their credit, when Whitehaven bought those three mines, they said, 'We'll pay the highest rate to every miner working on that site.' They decided that, unlike the class warriors on the other side, they would turn around and make sure they gave a fair day's pay for a fair day's work for every other worker. Good on you, Whitehaven. Let's fight the class war together.