Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak today on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill 2023. Last year the government did close some loopholes that undercut pay and conditions for Australian workers. We did so by criminalising wage theft and stopping the underpayment of workers through the use of labour hire. This bill continues with that work, closing other loopholes that undermine the pay and conditions of Australian workers. This bill is designed to protect, defend and support Australian workers by properly defining 'casual work' so casuals aren't being exploited and by making sure that gig workers in our economy aren't being ripped off.

We know that the gig economy has been both shaping and responding to our changing world, and in many respects, in its reshaping of our economy, it has led to benefits for consumers. But there is a price for this convenience. As I have reiterated over and over again in this chamber, the price we have paid for it has been far too high, and far too much of that burden has been paid by the workers in this industry. I cannot fathom how consumer convenience has been allowed in our country to come before worker safety, to come before everything that has been fought for in our industrial system for decades and decades—the sorts of things that my grandfather, as a unionist, fought for in our country, that my mother, as a unionist, fought for in our country: the industrial rights and principles that we believe in. It has led to a race to the bottom. Workers have felt that. Good employers have seen that. The Transport Workers Union and other unions have rallied against it. I have been fighting it, as have so many of my Labor colleagues. Now we have an opportunity to address it.

What has been happening in our gig economy is not okay. What we've seen in the gig economy hasn't just been a revolution of convenience; it has been a race to the bottom. It has been a systematic overwrite of the hard-fought-for industrial rights of Australian workers in a way that is bad for workers, bad for good employers and bad for Australia. That's why this bill is so important. The bill will allow the Fair Work Commission to make orders for minimum standards for new forms of work such as gig work. I cannot believe it has to be said, but in the nature of this debate it does. Just because someone is working in the gig economy, it shouldn't mean they're not entitled to a minimum wage. It shouldn't mean they're not entitled to minimum standards. That is crazy.

But we should also be clear about what this bill is not. We're not trying to turn people into employees when they don't want to be employees. Some gig workers want flexibility, and we get that. That's still possible. But minimum standards matter too. In my view, these aren't radical changes, but they're necessary changes. They are the right changes. We're also taking action in the trucking industry. We want it to be safe, sustainable and viable. As part of this legislation, the Fair Work Commission has the power to set fair and minimum standards for road transport. These sorts of measures in the legislation we're talking about will save lives, not just of those in the industry but of everyone on our roads.

The Without trucks Australia stops Senate report starkly illustrated the deadly impact of cost-cutting and unrealistic deadlines, and just yesterday the Transport Workers Union held a vigil in Parliament House for the 235 people killed in transport related crashes in 2023. That is unacceptable. How can we not take action when that information is before us? I want to acknowledge everyone who has fought for this change, including those in South Australia. I notice him in the gallery, so it's handy that you're here, Frank. I want to acknowledge Frank Black, who's been on the front line of this fight. I've seen him at rally after rally. I also want to acknowledge Ian Smith and Sam McIntosh, and I have to make mention of our dear friend the late senator Alex Gallacher.

When it comes to casual work, the new definition of casual employment will clarify what was always intended with casual work—that, if you are working regular and predictable hours and you want to be permanent, you get a pathway to that. Our employee-like reforms simply require workers to have some minimum standards benchmarked against existing award rates when they are working in a way which is similar to employees. We know there's a direct link between low rates of pay and safety. We know that. We've seen it in the gig economy, where workers take risks to get more work—workers who are often struggling to make ends meet. We have seen that on our roads, and we have seen it with tragic effect.

I have sat in committee rooms in this building and heard time after time stories from families who have lost loved ones on the road or lost loved ones in the gig economy. They are families who have come to this building to share their pain with us and who have opened their hearts and spilled out their trauma to senators from across the aisle in the hope that the death of their loved ones wouldn't be vain, in the hope that the traumas and pains that they experienced would not be in vain and in the hope that they could change the law and change the country. Well, that's what we're doing with this bill. Their stories, their efforts, their bravery and their courage in coming here won't be in vain. There are loopholes here we must close, and I am proudly, proudly supporting the bill before us.

A 2023 McKell survey of over 1,000 gig workers showed that workers are being pressured to work long hours, work during peak times and rush. On top of that, they're being threatened with low pay and manipulated with the fear of deactivation instead of seeing the flexibility that they were promised. These aren't just statistics in a survey; these are real people. This is their reality as they go to work each day across our country. These are people like Simerdeep, a gig worker from Adelaide who worked in the gig economy for over a year. He wanted the flexibility it offered him. He took up a role with Amazon Flex, and he was failed on his very first shift. He was failed by being given an impossible task and failed by not being given the support and training he needed to do his job safely. In thanks he was underpaid in every sense of the word for the work he did. That's not okay.

Neither is Mugdha's experience. I met Mugdha today. She bravely came to the parliament to talk about her experience as a food delivery rider. On her very first shift, Mugdha was hit by a car, thrown off her scooter and ended up unconscious on the road. She was injured on the entire left side of her body and her lower back. She didn't have access to workers compensation. With no access to support, she had to go back to work. She had to go back and get on that bike when she wasn't ready. Worse still, she had to work longer hours trying to make up the time she had taken off. She came here to tell us her story because she doesn't want to see another worker experience that. She was brave in coming here, as so many people have been brave in coming here and telling their stories to us, and I know they've invited every senator in this chamber to listen to them.

Davis, as well, is a gig worker in Melbourne. He told me he gets paid as little as $6.50 an hour. That is happening in our country at the moment. That is not acceptable. That needs to change. These are stories of real people working in an industry which has been allowed to flourish at the expense of their rights and at the expense of the things we have fought for in this country. We have let consumer convenience matter more than them. That's not okay. These stories are not okay. They are not consistent with what our national story should be in Australia, and that's why we need to close these loopholes.

I am proud of this bill because the gig economy has created a race to the bottom. It has sent us backwards on the hard-fought-for industrial rights that are the foundation of modern Australia, and the Australian workers across our country deserve better than this. Our country is better than this. This is the land of the fair go. It is what we as Australians define ourselves as being. But there are workers out there who have not had a fair go. They've had less-than-fair conditions and less-than-fair compensation for their efforts, and they haven't been safe.

In my very first speech to the Senate, I stood here and called this out. I said that the gig economy, for all its conveniences, is threatening the basic rights of workers, including to fair pay. I get that consumer convenience matters. I understand it's important. But we always have had to ask ourselves how much we are willing to pay for it, because that sacrifice has not been made by us; it's been made by people out there working in this gig economy who have paid far too high a price.

I know the coalition have opposed these reforms every step of the way, and I know that at the end of this debate it will be no different. But, with everything you know about what is happening in this economy and what is happening with employees on our roads, how can that be the case? I commend this bill to the Senate.