Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Morrison government's industrial relations omnibus bill will make job security worse. That's not all the government are going after. They are using the pandemic as a disguise to launch a full-scale attack on the pay, conditions and working security of the very people who have helped us get through this pandemic. Make no mistake, this bill will hurt not only workers but also the economy. The pandemic has showed us that insecure work has an impact on the way we are able to manage this pandemic.

The bill that the government hasn't brought forward yet—it is still working on changes and making a deal with crossbenchers to slip it through in this sitting—will make bargaining for better pay and conditions harder for workers. It will give more power for employers to casualise jobs, instead of making them permanent. It will weaken wage theft punishments—and we have some in place in Queensland thanks to a good Labor government. Up until this morning they had planned to scrap the better off overall test.

This is what the Morrison government are choosing to do after the pandemic. Labor will not support them in these changes, because Labor is on the side of workers. We know that insecure work has increased under this government's watch. The gig economy is exploiting workers so they're being paid less than the minimum wage and working in unsafe conditions. We know that dodgy labour hire firms are still getting away with employing workers who do the same job as someone employed directly through the company but for less pay and fewer entitlements and with weaker conditions. Australians are prepared to work hard. They worked hard through the pandemic, but this government is turning its back on them. They need a government that is on their side.

Labor understands that being in a good, secure job allows families to plan for the future with certainty. Every Australian deserves a good, secure job, and workers deserve to feel safe in a job that they can count on. It is true that the number of insecure jobs has increased under this government. Right now, one in every four employees is a casual. Insecurity in work impacts on people's livelihoods and then their wellbeing. Eighty per cent of the 800,000 hospitality workers across Australia are currently casuals. The Morrison government turned its back on casual workers during the pandemic by excluding them from JobKeeper, and now it's trying to change their workplace conditions to make it even harder for them to have security of work. The pandemic has shown us that we cannot continue to treat workers in this way. We must have a system that respects workers. That is why a Labor government will ensure that the Fair Work Commission has the ability to inquire into all forms of work and determine what rights and obligations should apply.

The Morrison government will argue that being employed as a casual has the benefits of flexibility, but we know that when the mob opposite talk about flexibility what they're really talking about is insecurity. No workers know this better than the workers in Central Queensland who are working in the mines and in manufacturing in our region, because labour hire has continued to minimise the working conditions of people in those industries beyond a same-job same-pay ratio. We know that there are workers working alongside each other where one is on an EBA and one is employed by a labour hire firm but the labour hire worker is being paid less money. Not only does it mean that the person who is working for the labour hire firm is unable to plan for the future, have a secure financial future, get a mortgage and plan holidays with their family; it also undercuts the EBA worker. It undercuts the worker who is already directly employed by that mine, by that business. This is something that the mob opposite have talked about fixing for years, but it's not in their IR bill, and it never will be, because they don't care about making sure that workers don't have insecurity in work. What their bill will do is entrench casualisation, and that's why Labor won't be supporting it.