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

There's one issue that should be above politics, and that's saving lives. That's what this bill does. It will save lives—the lives of people driving trucks on our roads and transporting goods, people riding bikes or mopeds delivering our meals, people driving cars from point to point, getting us home safely. This bill is about lives and the value we put on lives.

Road transport workers have the deadliest job in Australia. At least 54 truck drivers and four gig workers were killed at work in 2023 alone. If that's not enough for the people who oppose this bill, then consider the 177 other road users who were killed in truck crashes last year. That could be you. It could be your mate. It could be your family. You could be driving home from work or doing the school run and be in the wrong place at the wrong time: you come across a truck driver who hasn't slept in days because they cannot afford to have a proper rest.

At the Senate inquiry into this bill we heard from a lot of transport workers. One person, Rob Ireland, who has worked in the transport industry for 30 years, told me during the inquiry—and this has stuck in my mind—that breaching fatigue laws 'was literally the difference between having work or being let go'. He said:

For about 12 years … I would work without stopping, Sunday through to Saturday. To stay awake on the road, I turned to methamphetamines. … eight hours of sleep a week is what I lived on … Once I was awake for 13 days straight. … Another time I thought I had run off the highway because I had fallen asleep. I sat bolt upright and grabbed for the gearstick and the steering wheel. My wife grabbed my face and let me know I was in my bed. I dreamt I had fallen asleep at the wheel.

Rob's story is not unique. If you speak to just about any truckdriver in the country they'll have a similar story or they'll know others who have similar stories. In trucking you compete on what runs you can get down, done cheaply and in the shortest possible time. That means cutting out sleep, cutting out rest breaks, skimping on truck maintenance and sometimes taking stimulants and taking other risks, all to keep afloat.

Since the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was abolished in 2016 more than 1,100 people have died in truck crashes. That's more than double the number of Australians who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. When something isn't working as intended you don't throw the whole thing out and leave an unregulated race to the bottom. You fix it. Since 2016 there has been nothing propping up this industry. Without a floor, there's always someone more desperate who will promise to deliver goods more cheaply and more quickly.

What this bill does is very simple. The industry came together with the Fair Work Commission and set minimum standards. That's what this bill suggests. They can collectively say, 'Enough is enough, and none of us want to be pressured to the point where we have blood on our hands.' It holds the big businesses at the top of these supply chains fully accountable. We are prepared to do that. Are those on the opposite side, the Liberals and the Nationals, prepared to do that?

This bill is supported by every road transport employer, employer group in transport or owner-driver association, including groups that campaigned for the RSRT, the last tribunal to be abolished, eight years ago. They support this bill because they recognise that the massacre that's taken place on our roads since then cannot go on. They want to compete on a fair playing field on productivity and innovation, rather than on who can squeeze the most driving hours into a day.

Cameron Dunn, the managing director of the mid-size transport company FBT Transwest, told the inquiry:

This is the first time in my 37 years in the industry that I've seen the industry come together and actually be on the same page … the top of the supply chain … needs to be held accountable …We don't want it to be a race to the bottom …

Mr Dunn said:

… this bill … will hold the economic decision-maker to account …

As Mr Dunn and others in the industry recognised, this bill is about backing good businesses. It's about backing safe businesses. It's about backing good businesses that do the right thing. There were 347 insolvencies in the transport industry last year, because the commercial pressures from the top of the chain are so extreme. When all the employer, owner-driver and employee groups in the road transport sector are on board, why are the Liberals and Nationals opposed? Who are they actually representing? They're only representing multinationals like Aldi at the top the chain, who profit from the rivers of blood on our streets.

Then there's gig work. There have been at least 15 gig worker deaths in recent years. I say 'at least' because there has been a track record of these deaths going unreported. Inquiry after inquiry over the last five to six years has found that delivery drivers are earning as little as $6 an hour. Just as in trucking, when you're paid per trip and there are no minimum standards, there is a commercial incentive to take deadly risks. In the inquiry, we heard from Utsav, a Canberra based gig worker, who said:

… we're doing … 80 hours—across seven days a week … because we don't get the minimum wage. If the bill is passed, and we get a basic minimum wage, then we will not have to rush for orders … and … these injuries could be prevented …

It's so clear and obvious that Uber, Menulog and DoorDash support the need for minimum standards, but those opposite oppose it.

It isn't just in the gig industry that this is hurting people. We have heard from platforms in other sectors, including Hireup, Humdrum and Sidekicker, who support minimum standards. But there is one platform, Mable, that opposes these reforms. There's always somebody, isn't there? There is always somebody who wants to go the low road. Mable is the richest care-sector gig platform. It is backed by global private equity funds and has deep links to the Liberal Party. Mable workers regularly earn below the minimum wage for NDIS and aged-care work. When Mable's chair was asked about carers who can't make a living on her platform, she said:

Maybe the answer is that small business isn't for them.

So Mable is saying that, if you're getting ripped off, it's your own fault for not being savvy enough. In Mable's world, there is no accountability for Mable. They just clip the ticket, and everything is the carer's own fault.

Never mind the evidence we received the very same day from Mable carers. One disability support worker on Mable said:

… I don't get what I would get as an employee …

The witness said:

I had to charge lower and lower because clients would negotiate my prices down … I had no money put aside for superannuation. Also … I had to do all the unpaid meet and greets. There's so much pressure to do unpaid work, and you can't claim for travel costs … The jobs aren't safe, too. One client recently was rather heavy. He had a hoist and needed a two-person transfer. But they were asking only for one support worker … There has to be some sort of safety net for us …

Another Mable carer told us:

… the Mable … rates don't … account for you having a qualification … Lots of people are jumping in and there is lots of competition to beat down wages.

…   …   …

Without minimum standards who is going to protect our rights?

Mable's answer to these highly trained and qualified women is that, if their prices are getting negotiated below the minimum wage, it's their own fault. But it's exactly the same situation we see in trucking, where there's always someone who will work for less. It's a race to the bottom, leaving care workers broken and destitute, and it poses massive safety risks for disabled and elderly Australians. The aged-care royal commission sounded the alarm about Mable, saying their model is not suitable for care work. The inquiry heard the same from disability advocates. Inclusion Australia CEO Catherine McAlpine told us:

What we see in the gig economy, particularly, is that workers either have no training or that the training responsibilities end up coming to participants and families … To have minimum qualifications, minimum standards and minimum rates of pay, would increase the quality of supports.

On the one side we have workers, unions, disability advocates, academics, the aged-care royal commission, other gig platforms and other care providers all saying we need minimum standards in care work, and on the other side we have one gig platform—Mable—backed by global private equity, arguing, 'Let's rip it up.' I know whose side I'm on. I am on the side of vulnerable Australians and the people who care for them.

This bill also undoes the damage the Morrison government did to casual workers on sham contracting. It used to be that, if you wanted to work out whether someone was a casual or a contractor, you would look at the reality of their work arrangements. The long-established legal principle was that, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. As Professor Sean Cooney told the inquiry, that's how the law works in New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and California. The Morrison government replaced that with a law that said, 'If your employer writes in your contract that you are a casual or that you are a contractor, then that's that. It puts all the power in the hands of the employer to strip away your leave entitlements, strip away your job security and dictate how you work. It was a ridiculous law when it was brought in. It contradicts common sense. It ignores the reality of the bargaining imbalance between employers and their employees.

This bill also gives the Fair Work Commission the power to waive the 24-hour notice period a union official has to give an employer to enter a work site in case of suspected wage theft. In December we made wage theft a crime. The Liberals are Nationals voted against it. They're in favour of wage theft because their paymasters down at the Minerals Council are in charge of their position on IR. But here's the thing about workplace rights: if you can't enforce it, it's meaningless. It can be hard for a worker to figure out what they've lost in stolen wages. It's hard to know the exact figure. That's particularly true for vulnerable workers who aren't familiar with their workplace rights, who have insecure jobs and who can be fired or lose shifts if they ask questions.

The Fair Work Ombudsman does its best, but they can't be everywhere. In fact, two-thirds of the money it recovered from wage theft in recent years came from self-reports. Only unions have the expertise and the breadth required in officials who are highly trained, highly experienced, have a permit granted by the commission, have passed character tests and are experts on workplace rights. This law means that, if a business is stealing your wages, you can turn to the union for help, and they can inspect your pay records and figure out what's going on.

Remember: we're only talking about cases where the Fair Work Commission is satisfied that wage theft may be taking place. The current system gives the wage thief a 24-hour heads up before the union can help. In what other part of the legal system do we give people strongly suspected of a crime a 24-hour head start on the authorities? It's completely ridiculous, and this law closes that loophole. The whole bill closes the loopholes that some businesses have used to drive down wages and make jobs less safe and less secure to compete unfairly with good businesses. This bill is a cost-of-living bill. This bill will save businesses. This bill will save lives, and it must be passed.