Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations, Senator Payne. The year 2020 saw the largest expansion of casual employment ever in the history of Australia. Between May and November, 62 per cent of all jobs created were casual. Isn't it true the government's so-called comeback is built on the backs of casual workers?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Farrell for his question. I don't have in front of me the specific figures that Senator Farrell has quoted, but I will take those at face value as Senator Farrell has articulated them. I would observe, as I understood his question, that they relate to the jobs profile in Australia in 2020, which is characterised by being completely uncharacteristic of any previous year in living memory—that is, a work, jobs and economic environment completely struck by a global pandemic in which Australians and, in fact, the international community found their lives disrupted, workplaces disrupted and whole economies disrupted. What this government did, and continues to do, was to seek, through a number of initiatives—including additional payments, additional JobSeeker payments, JobKeeper itself and, ultimately, the development of the JobMaker Plan—to ensure that as many workers as possible were supported in the workplace and that as many workers as possible who unavoidably lost their jobs due to the pandemic were also supported as best as possible. That was an extraordinary undertaking by this government in 2020, one of the most significant investments of funds in Australia in anyone's living memory or lifetime. So a number of jobs to which Senator Farrell has referred obviously returned in a different manifestation than they previously had. That's correct. But what the JobKeeper statistics now show is that the economy is improving and, indeed, that Australia has gone ahead of many other major advanced nations, with a larger proportion of Australians who were in work before this crisis still in work today. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell, a supplementary question?

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister confirm that, instead of doing something to fix the scourge of insecure work, Mr Morrison's proposed industrial relations changes will, in fact, make that situation worse?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I absolutely disagree with Senator Farrell. The government's reforms will provide the strongest ever casual conversion rights to employees who want to become permanent and spread those rights to all those employees who don't have conversion rights now—for example, those in the coal industry. For whatever reason, those opposite don't want this. They apparently think that casuals workers should stick with the rights they were given by those opposite over a decade ago. They see casuals who want permanent work as 'collateral damage'. Our reforms will introduce stronger penalties for wage underpayment and wage theft to ensure employees' entitlements are secure, as well as a more efficient path to recover underpayments where they do occur. Again, those opposite don't want that. In fact, so committed are they to do nothing about wage theft that the opposition's industrial relations spokesman thought it'd be a good idea to do a press conference outside a 7-Eleven. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Farrell, a final supplementary question?

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twenty-three employment law academics have warned that Mr Morrison's industrial relations changes will, 'not just fail to address pressing labour market issues such as wage stagnation, insecurity of work and entrenched inequalities; it will exacerbate them.' Are these experts wrong?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(—) (): I don't have the benefit of the material that Senator Farrell has referred to. In the absence of that, I will continue to refer the senator to the facts that exist within the government's legislation. Our reforms will incentivise permanent work, complete with paid leave entitlements in our vital retail and hospitality sectors, as well as help give more hours of work for the more than 100,000 part-time employees in those sectors which are underemployed under the system that those opposite actually set up. Again, they don't seem to want to fix that; they don't seem to see the underemployed as important. Our reforms are focused on boosting pay by reinvigorating an enterprise bargaining system that, on average, pays 69 per cent, or $500 more a week than award wages, but that has seen the total number of agreements more than halve, from 25,000 down to 10,000, under the broken system that was put in place by those opposite. Even former Prime Minister Keating thinks the current system, as put in place by those opposite— (Time expired)