Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, it was my great pleasure to again travel through Central Queensland, an area I have spent a lot of time in over the past couple of years as the Labor duty senator, particularly in the electorate of Capricornia. I have mentioned on a number of occasions in the Senate that Central Queensland is a part of Australia that has gone through very tough times in the last couple of years, especially with the downturn in the mining industry, and it's really pleasing that pretty much across the region, over the last few months, you can definitely feel that the region is on its way back. There's more confidence among both businesspeople and local residents; you can see more economic activity happening, which is creating more jobs; and, in general, there is a renewed sense of hope across much, if not all, of Central Queensland.

I have been travelling with Labor's candidate for the seat of Capricornia, Russell Robertson, a fantastic candidate who comes out of the coalmining industry himself. For all of the lectures that we receive from the LNP about coal, there's nothing more coal than a coalminer, and that is who we're running as the Labor candidate in the electorate of Capricornia. So I was very pleased to join Russell, to begin with, in the town of Moranbah, a couple of hours inland in a very famous coalmining district. There we met with members and officials from the Isaac Regional Council to talk about what their council needs in terms of further support from the federal government.

We also travelled to Sarina, which incidentally is the town in which my parents met, just south of Mackay. It is a great town, therefore. I'm sure Senator McKenzie will agree. It is a sugar town. It's produced a lot of great things. Some might say that I'm the exception to that rule! In Sarina, again we met with council representatives and tourism industry leaders to inspect a lot of the things that are being done to really revive that local economy, offer different types of jobs and bring different visitors through the town. We also inspected Sarina Hospital, which, as you would expect in a regional town, is a smaller hospital but is in great need of further investment to meet the growing population in that area. So it was very useful to get an idea of what the Sarina area's health needs are going forward.

In both locations, Moranbah and Sarina, I was very pleased to join with Russell at a couple of Politics in the Pub sessions with local residents. We also did some mobile offices where we took all comers talking about all sorts of issues, from what's happening in their kids' schools to fishing restrictions to the future of the sugar industry and many other issues as well.

Later in the week, I backed that up with a visit out to Biloela, also in Central Queensland but this time in the electorate of Flynn, where again we've got a great candidate running who I know Senator Ketter knows well. Our candidate there is Zac Beers, a terrific young man who's working very hard to give Flynn residents the representation they deserve. So I was pleased to join with Zac to help launch a brand-new branch of the Australian Labor Party in Biloela, a town that is not known as Labor heartland. It's fantastic to see that Labor is getting back up from the canvas, reinventing itself and getting new members in to help campaign in places like Biloela.

On Saturday, I was very pleased to join hundreds of local residents in the mining town of Moura, a famous town—unfortunately, famous more than anything else for the series of mine disasters and mine accidents that have occurred there over the years. I remember the reports of some of them from when I was a kid, hearing about mine explosions taking lots of lives unnecessarily. In fact, over the decades, 50 mineworkers have died on the job in the town of Moura due to mine explosions and other mining accidents. It was terrific to be with the local community as we all recognised the opening of a new miners memorial in Moura so that those 50 mineworkers who have died will never be forgotten. That memorial will act as a permanent reminder to all of us that every worker, no matter what job they do, deserves to come home safely from work. I really pay tribute to the local community, who have helped to build that memorial and raise the funds for that permanent reminder, going forward.

One of the things that really struck me on that visit—and it repeated themes that I have heard a lot when I have spent time in Central Queensland over the last couple of years—was that it really didn't matter where we went in Central Queensland over those four days, whether it was Moranbah, Serena, Biloela, Moura or any of the other towns in between, because at our politics in the pub sessions, at the mobile offices or when we were talking to local shop owners about what was impacting on the local economy, the two issues that kept coming up as the scourge that Central Queensland continues to face were casualisation and labour hire.

I have talked a lot about these issues in this chamber in the time I have been here and I have said before that, when I was first elected, I was really struck by how widely entrenched labour hire had become as a form of work in Central Queensland, particularly in the mining industry. When you put that to mining companies, as I have, the excuse that you are always given is: 'The industry has been through tough times. We don't have the certainty to engage people on a permanent basis.' I have even had mining companies say to me recently that they expect the use of labour hire to decrease now that the industry is picking up.

I don't accept for a moment that the mining companies are right in saying that they have no choice but to employ people through labour hire. I think they do have a choice and I think in many cases they are abusing loopholes in our current workplace laws which make it easy for companies to put people on short-term contracts, casual work arrangements and labour hire arrangements for no other reason than to cut their wages bill. The impact of that is being felt by workers who cannot get permanent work and also by their local communities and their local shops and businesses, because these workers don't have the kind of job security that people need in order to go and put money through the local pubs, the local shops and the local businesses. So it is actually impacting on everyone across these communities. As I say, it is really remarkable to me that, in all of the time that I have spent in Central Queensland, the issues of casualisation and labour hire keep on coming up, no matter where I travel to.

We have a government, led by the LNP, which talks a lot about its support for the mining industry. But what you will never hear them talk about is their support for mining workers and their right to have permanent, decent, secure, well-paid jobs. You will never hear that. In all of the lecturing that we get from the LNP about the coal industry and the mining industry in general, not once will you hear an LNP senator stand up for the rights of mining workers to have permanent, full-time, secure, well-paid employment. We know that the reason for that is that, when the LNP say that they like mining, what they mean is that they like mining companies and mining owners; they don't actually care about mineworkers. If they did care about mining workers, they would actually legislate to crack down on the abuse of casualisation and labour hire that we see by so many mining companies across Central Queensland.

It was good to have the opportunity last week to talk to mining workers in Central Queensland about the policies that Labor are putting forward as we come up to the next election. We have already committed to review and redraft the laws around casual employment. It is a nonsense that people can be kept on as casual employees year after year after year. This notion of permanent casuals is something that has really only been around for the last few years, while this government has been in place. That is not what casual work was intended for. People weren't expected to stay as casuals year after year. Labor are determined to crack down on that. Similarly, we are going to crack down on the abuse of labour hire, by making sure that, if you work in the same job as the person next to you who is employed permanently, you get the same pay—none of this rubbish about being paid a lower rate of pay or having worse terms and conditions just because you are a labour hire. You deserve the same pay and working conditions as the permanent worker who is standing next to you.

I'll be honest: in talking to locals in Central Queensland, we met people who intended to vote for Labor and have always voted for Labor. I came across people who intended to vote for the LNP and—God forbid!—I even came across many people who were intending to vote for Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. What was really interesting was that when you got talking to people about One Nation and what they actually do down here in Canberra, as opposed to what they talk about back in Central Queensland, you could actually see the light bulbs go on with people. They don't necessarily know that every time she comes down to Canberra Pauline Hanson votes with the government. She has voted with the government 90 per cent of the time on legislation. Every time they've wanted to cut penalty rates, Pauline Hanson has been there to back them in. Every time they've wanted to cut apprenticeships, Pauline Hanson has been there to back them in. Every time they've failed to do anything about casual work and labour hire, despite Labor's pleading with the government to do something, who could the government rely on? Pauline Hanson. Every single time, she comes to their rescue and sells out workers in Central Queensland, no matter what she says when she is back up there. The reality is that the LNP's Michelle Landry in Capricornia and Pauline Hanson are two sides of the same coin—whichever way that coin spins, workers are being sold out. The only way to get real change is to vote Labor.