David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's difficult to understand why workers in WA don't want a right to disconnect. What's unique, in Senator Cash's view, about workers in WA? If you really sit down and talk with them—I know the people I talk to in my home state of New South Wales, particularly young workers, are often being chased home by work emails and calls from the boss. It could be 10 o'clock at night or 8 am on a Saturday. We should give those workers a right to disconnect from work. It's mystifying to me. What's so unique about WA, in Senator Cash's view, that young workers don't want a right to disconnect? Of course they do. Perhaps the reason for the angry opposition to a basic right like that for workers is that, if you only listen to a small group of large employers, you probably don't hear those concerns. You probably don't hear those concerns by everyday Australians who actually want their job to end at some point in the day. They want to be able to spend time focusing on their family and their friends without the constant intrusion of work. I'm pretty certain it's the same for young workers, especially, but also for workers across the field in Perth as it is in Sydney. To just ignore that and to pretend it's not an issue, I think, is pretty disrespectful or shows a real disconnect.

The Greens are on record as supporting this bill and wanting it to go further. We are supporting this bill and acknowledging that it goes some way to giving Australia a fairer and more equitable industrial relations system that really focuses on the rights of working people; to having a system that gets away from the idea that the market will determine everything and that workers are just little widgets that get put into the economy; and to actually ensuring that peoples' rights as workers, as employees, are respected and that they're treated as people—not as little economic widgets that can just be squeezed, manipulated, sacked, reengaged and contracted out but actually as people. I think that's what the Australian public want us to do. We support those provisions in this bill that will be delivering real benefits and protections for Australian workers.

I want to particularly focus on some of the standards that have been put in place for gig workers and the stronger pathway to permanency for casuals. You wouldn't realise it listening to the contributions from the coalition, but it's a fact that one-third of Australian workers are in some kind of insecure, unpredictable work. They're either on rolling, short-term contracts; they're gig workers; or they're casuals. One-third of Australian workers. That insecurity echoes through so much of their life. You don't have predictability about when you're working, so how do you organise the kids if you've got a family? You don't have predictability about the income you're going to get, so the bank won't give you a mortgage, so you can't even get a start on the crazy housing market in this country. You don't have predictability about the hours you're going to be working, so you can't plan with your friends or your partner what you're going to do on the weekend. And you don't have predictability about the income you're getting, so you don't even know if you're going to be able to put food on the table at the end of the month. Of course we have an obligation to do what we can to put that predictability in to improve those rights and to give people certainty in their life that they've got enough work, their conditions are sufficient, they're going to be protected, they're going to be able to put food on the table, they're going to be able to look after their kids and they're going to be able to afford housing. Of course we have that obligation.

Some of the work I did as a state MP, in particular on gig workers and the insecurity of gig workers, comes to my mind in this debate. One of the issues we looked at at a state level was statutory workers comp insurance for gig workers. The reason we looked at that was that gig workers were being excluded from workers compensation. They were told that they weren't employees. When we drilled down into what was actually happening, particularly for delivery workers—people delivering Uber Eats or delivering your parcels—they were getting paid, at best, barely minimum rates. They had totally unpredictable work hours and often incredibly dangerous time frames in which to get product from either a restaurant to a home or from a distribution centre to a home. They were putting themselves at risk, largely to provide convenience for consumers.

The workers compensation scheme at most state levels kind of ignores them. They're not actually workers. They're not actually covered. When they were in, tragically, fatal accidents or very serious accidents, they were just getting nothing. Some of them were gig workers here on temporary visas. They would literally get seriously injured and then just have their visa cancelled because they couldn't work. Tragically—and I saw this happen more than once—if they were killed doing this gig work, then no workers compensation rights at all and grieving families would have to come and collect their bodies. Do we have an obligation to protect those people? Absolutely, we do. Do we have an obligation to put protections in so that gig workers have rights and are treated like people, not just like some sort of disposable economic widget? Of course we do. This bill goes some way to doing that, and of course we would support it. A right to safe work; a right to a minimum wage; if you're casual, a right to seek permanency; and pushing back against that widespread job insecurity.

I want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues Senator Barbara Pocock and the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, to try and push this bill further: to put in improvements on things like intractable bargaining, which I will address in a second; strengthening those protections for casual workers; and giving workers that right to disconnect. I want to commend their work. They've been forensic, they've been consultative, and I think they have done a great job in ensuring that these issues have progressed as best we can during the bill.

Of course, one of the other key issues we should be looking at in this legislation is getting rid of superannuation wage theft. You won't hear a thing about this from the coalition. It's almost as though that's just a cost of doing business from the coalition's perspective. The ATO estimates that workers missed out on almost $3½ billion in unpaid superannuation in 2019-20, and it's probably grown since then. That's $3½ billion stolen from working people—stolen from their retirement funds. It's a further attack on their job security and their economic security. Of course, the coalition did nothing about it. The Australian Greens strongly believe that superannuation theft should be in the same category as wage theft, and we'll be pushing for amendments that criminalise superannuation theft. Why does a young 14-year-old kid who steals a Mars Bar from a service station face the prospect of going to jail under the current rules, but a corporation that steals 20 to 30 million bucks or an employer that steals $10,000 of superannuation from a worker face no criminal penalty? Why is it illegal to steal a Mars Bar but not illegal to steal $3½ billion worth of superannuation? We can't understand and we think it should be criminalised.

When it comes to casual workers, for over a decade the Australian Greens have been pressing for greater protections for casual workers. We know they're often in precarious employment situations. I want to focus on one set of workers that are sometimes forgotten. Sometimes it's ignored because you wouldn't believe it unless you looked at the data, but teachers, including in public schools all across the country, and university lecturers and academics often face this kind of double-barrelled disadvantage. Teachers and lecturers are often on these fixed-term contracts and often get excluded from the definition of casual worker, so of course we need a broader definition of casual worker. No one indicia, whether it's a pattern of work or otherwise, should be taken to determine whether or not someone is casual or part time.

The reforms do go some way to say that. They say it's not just one indicia that can be determinative. But we are still concerned that those academics—some of whom have been working at the same university in the same job for 20 years on a contract that starts on 1 February and ends on 15 December—have had that same contract for 20 years. The contract is designed to avoid paying them annual leave or giving them job security. They've had that same contract for 20 years. Of course they need greater protections for those fixed-term contracts. I don't think we're there yet with this bill. Workers in schools and universities like that who aren't ongoing employees are often classified as fixed-term employees or casuals, and we need to ensure that this bill protects them. I want to commend the work of the National Tertiary Education Union and I want to commend the work of the New South Wales Teachers Federation in my state in drawing these concerns to the government's attention and to the parliament's attention. We need a solution to it.

When it comes to intractable bargaining, yes, there were the fair work legislation amendments in 2022 in the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs Better Pay) Act. The rationale behind those provisions that allow the Fair Work Commission to intervene in bargaining that's reached an impasse is to prevent protracted bargaining disputes by giving the Fair Work Commission some kind of compulsory arbitration. We understand the rationale behind that, but the practice has been that employers are willing to just hold out and offer nothing or push for even lesser standards than in the existing agreement. They basically stare down employees with the aim of driving down conditions at work instead of driving up conditions.

This bill proposes reforms that put an additional requirement for the Fair Work Commission, before it makes an intractable bargaining order, particularly when it's replacing an existing bargaining agreement, to say that that will only be allowed when it includes terms that are not less favourable to each employee and union than a term of an existing enterprise agreement that deals with the matter. So you can't have the employer just stonewalling and saying nothing and then applying to the commission and saying: 'Okay. Nothing has happened in the last 12 months. I want an intractable bargaining order and I am now going to push down wages and conditions.' It effectively is an intention to force some kind of good-faith negotiation.

I know there is criticism of the inquiry, but, from my memory, it was kicked off sometime in September and went through until January. It was a substantial inquiry. It got a lot of submissions. At one of the inquiry's hearings—I think it was on 10 November—the ACTU president affirmed support for this kind of reform. I think her evidence was that the change will make a big difference to make the system work. What is difficult to know, apart from some sort of ideological basis, is why the opposition continues to oppose that. Senator Barbara Pocock and Greens leader Adam Bandt have pushed to improve those intractable bargaining provisions, fixing that loophole in the arbitration system, protecting workers and putting some integrity back into the bargaining process, and I commend them for their work.

I will finish on the right to disconnect. There may not have been some kind of election promise on this from the government, but one of the key things you should do in parliament is respond to concerns that are coming from the community and listen to the community. This issue about the right to disconnect is really alive out there if you talk to, particularly, young workers. They want to know when work ends. They want to have a right not to open up their email. They want a right to a weekend and a right to spend time with their friends and family and not constantly have work in their head. I look forward to this parliament granting a solution on that—a solution that doesn't just listen to the coalition and a handful of corporate interests but actually listens to the millions of workers who want us to get this right and want that right to disconnect. I look forward to this parliament landing on a solution that gives it.