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

This is not my first speech. I rise tonight to speak about the latest salvo in the coalition government's culture war on working Australians in the form of the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment (Ensuring Integrity) Bill. The attacks on working Australians through legislation designed to obstruct their industrial representatives from their core business of dealing with underpayment, stagnant wages and unsafe work practices is part of the culture war the government has set against working people generally in this country. Of course, it's in the make-up of their leadership that this occurs. Whilst the government claims to want to treat unions like corporations, knowing, of course, that unions are elected primarily and appropriately through proper governance procedures in the electoral commission, they've done little to curb the systematic theft of wages and entitlements, namely by criminalising wage theft. They've failed to deal with one of the most criminal, offensive operations that is running rampant across many industries in Australia.

Workers are finding their wages stolen. The latest example of this is our celebrity chefs. George Calombaris, whose hospitality empire, MAdE, was forced to pay close to $8 million in wages and entitlements that had been stolen from employees. Of course, the crime doesn't meet the penalty. What is particularly galling to see is that, after a call from many within the community—many tens of thousands of people signed a petition demanding his sacking from MasterChef Australiathe reason he was sacked wasn't because of the stolen wages, heaven forbid. That's just part of running an improper business. He got sacked because he asked for a 40 per cent pay increase that Channel 10 wasn't prepared to pay. Then, of course, you go to other celebrity chefs in this industry, such as Neil Perry. Recent media reports revealed that over $1.6 million worth of wage theft was carried out against his workers in just one year.

Let's look at this. Say you're a worker. You walk in, and someone says, 'I've got some money in the till.' You steal $10, $20, $30 or $50 from the till. If you get caught, of course you're terminated in most circumstances. I'm not suggesting that's inappropriate. If the employer is particularly vicious over such small amounts, they would also have a right to take that matter to the police, and you could find yourself facing charges—legal action, criminal action—and certainly, for large sums, the potential to be thrown into jail. But, under this government, you can be a celebrity chef and steal $8 million and receive a slap on the wrist from the regulator and a lack of action from this government on dealing with the fundamental issue of wage theft in this country. If you act like a criminal, you should be treated as a criminal.

What's particularly galling is that all the companies that are doing the right thing—the vast majority of companies that operate within this country—are competing with companies that are stealing from hardworking Australians—stealing their wages, often stealing their superannuation and, of course, often stealing taxes. I'll come back to that great individual Neil Perry. I put this to Qantas, which has Neil Perry as its pin-up person for its business: look at whether you should keep him operating and associate the Qantas name with Neil Perry. There's a need for that company to act. Just as importantly, there's a need for the government to act.

The question of wage theft was the subject of a 2017 survey by the University of Technology Sydney, the University of New South Wales and the Migrant Worker Justice Initiative. After interviewing 4,322 temporary migrants across 107 nationalities, working in all states and territories across this country, they found workers from Asian countries had the lowest wage rates, compared with those from English-speaking countries. Three-quarters of Asian-background workers earned $17 per hour or less, compared to roughly 35 per cent of American, Irish and British participants. Forty per cent indicated their lowest paid job was in the food services industry as waiters, kitchen hands or food servers. Two-thirds of migrant workers reported that their employer at one point or other failed to provide a pay slip, with 44 per cent reporting that they had never received a pay slip for their work. This is the particularly galling fact that they found in the survey: 28 per cent of workers in the hospitality industry had experienced their employer confiscating their passport.

A report by Industry Super found in May 2019 that $6 billion a year in superannuation is stolen from working people in Australia. People earning less than $30,000, aged under 35 or working in blue-collar occupations were the most likely to experience stolen super. More than 2.8 million people in Australia are regularly affected by superannuation theft, but there is no integrity bill. Where is the bill to ensure the integrity of those types of employers that are stealing millions upon millions of dollars from some of the most vulnerable people in our community? Stealing superannuation destroys the dignity of retirement that superannuation provides.

Perhaps we should have a 'celebrity chefs ensuring integrity bill' or maybe even, going to another area of politics, a 'Clive Palmer ensuring integrity bill'. Plenty of workers in Queensland would certainly like to be getting their money and seeing consequences for a person who is taking their money and can splash around tens of millions of dollars on an election campaign to get the conservatives elected but not pay his workers and small businesses, including businesses in his own community, the wages and payments that they deserve. Or an 'aged care ensuring integrity bill' after all of the horrific examples—so many examples, including the recent example on the Gold Coast—we have seen over a number of years of how our elderly are poorly treated by these corporations that have moved into these spaces. Again, it's the companies doing the right thing that are affected by the companies doing the wrong thing. It's the companies who provide proper superannuation and proper payments that are unfairly competing with the companies that are stealing from hardworking Australians.

In the case of Rockpool Bar and Grill, Mr Karki, who is a chef at Neil Perry's Rockpool Bar and Grill in Melbourne, is pursuing Neil Perry's business for stolen wages. He said:

I slept several nights at Rockpool on a pastry bench because there was no way I could go home and come back in time …

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I went into depression but I couldn't even figure out if it was a depression. I just wanted to get out but I didn't have any choice because of the 457 visa.

In the places I've previously worked, I've had the opportunity to represent workers in the transport industry. The money for this integrity bill will aim to attack working people and their representatives. The transport industry is one where 82 per cent of workers have made serious claims for injury. They account for the highest rate of fatalities—82 per cent across the entire workforce according to a Safe Work Australia report in June 2018—and 54 per cent have made serious claims.

I know when the trade unions royal commission took place more than $1.2 million was spent by my then employer, the Transport Workers Union—money that could have been better spent in pursuing those companies that do the wrong thing, in pursuing fair market arrangements that could have lifted everybody to a safer, fairer and more appropriate community. So, I say this again: this is a culture war, and it's one that has to come to an end. (Time expired)