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

Those barriers actually have a name. They're called Senator Cash, Senator O'Sullivan, Senator McKenzie, Senator Hughes, Senator Sharma—even the newest person to arrive here in the Senate voted today to deny workers their fair share and backed in the bosses who are doing the wrong thing rather than those who are doing the right thing.

The truth is that Senator Cash and the Liberal and National parties were caught flat-footed this morning. While Senator Cash was on Sunrise this morning stirring up more division, more focused on fighting than on fixing the problem, the Albanese government was working hard with the crossbench to close the loopholes that have kept workers' wages down. As I say, today the coalition had a choice to make. They could've voted to stop labour hire workers being underpaid and they could've voted to stop bosses deliberately stealing from their workers' wages, but, to quote Senator Cash, she said, 'I will always stand with the employers of Australia,' even when they're deliberately stealing their workers' wages, even when they're underpaying their workers. Shame on you! (Time expired)