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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to speak on the 2024 progress report: implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, dated June 2024, which is listed as document 8 on the Senate Order of Business. This document is the first statutory report on the Australian government's process in implementing recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. I would like to specifically talk to the update provided on page 125 of the report, which assesses the progress made against recommendation 87 of the royal commission. Recommendation 87 was titled 'Employment status and related labour standards as enforceable standards'. The recommendation called for:

1. By 1 January 2022, the Australian Government should require as an ongoing condition of holding an approval to provide aged care services that

a. approved providers: have policies and procedures that preference the direct employment of workers engaged to provide personal care and nursing services on their behalf

b. where personal care or nursing work is contracted to another entity, that entity has policies and procedures that preference direct employment of workers for work performed under that contract.

2. From 1 January 2022, quality reviews conducted by the Quality Regulator must include assessing compliance with those policies and procedures and record the extent of use of independent contractors.

If I come back to the statutory review released last week, the document noted:

The government has committed to implementing a direct employment preference, but the mechanism of how this will be implemented and enforced is still being considered.

There is also a comment from the inspector-general, who says:

Fundamental aspects of recommendation 87 around preferencing direct employment of workers as a requirement for ongoing approval are still being considered.

I note that the work is taking place to implement this recommendation, but it is absolutely essential that this work is put at the core of how we reform the industry.

There are vultures operating in our aged-care system—gig platforms like Mable—who are owned by multinational venture capital companies who are making a motza by underpaying the workers that they have classified as contractors. Their work is underpaid against what they would have received under the appropriate award classifications. Those workers don't receive superannuation, which often puts the burden back on every taxpayer. Those workers do not receive workers compensation, which again puts pressure back on every taxpayer. They do not receive minimum shift entitlements, penalty rates or paid leave entitlements, which puts pressure on their cost-of-living pressures. This is all despite Mable being paid by the then federal government a quantum of funding that should have enabled them to pay all these entitlements. On top of all of that, Mable does not pay payroll tax for any of the carers it engages.

I'll just go back to this point: at the moment, Mable has actually received, from successive governments, including now, a quantum of funding that should enable them to pay all these entitlements I've just mentioned, but they don't pay them. We have a gig platform owned by multinational venture capital that is both ripping off their workers and ripping off the rest of us through taxes. It's not just workers in government that are getting ripped off. When you rip off taxes, that means the Australian capacity to turn around and put in new initiatives to help all Australians, whether it be in the area of defence, police, fairer wages, gender pay equity and all the appropriate arrangements on education and universities—all those pressures on the many things that we debate in this chamber—is under further pressure because of companies like Mable who don't pay the appropriate wages or have the conditions that many employees would receive. At the end of the day, every taxpayer pays for it and not Mable.

It's not just workers in government that are getting ripped off, as I say. Any older Australian or any Australian in the NDIS who engaged Mable probably doesn't realise that Mable does not hold itself accountable for the quality of care that is provided. The platform you are engaging—

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sheldon, the time for the debate has expired.

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

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.