Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand today to speak to this motion and also to second it because I believe it is a very important issue that this parliament needs to deal with. It is very disappointing that nobody from the government benches is speaking in favour of this motion, because it not only highlights a problem that we have within our poultry industry but also highlights the work that an arm of government has done to try and clean up this behaviour.

The Fair Work Ombudsman has done an investigation into what is going on in Baiada and has exposed some pretty horrific things, such as workplace breaches, going on within Baiada and the enterprise. In summary, the Fair Work Ombudsman inquiry found that there was noncompliance with a range of Commonwealth workplace law. It found that there were very poor or no government arrangements relating to various labour hire supply chains. The inquiry found the exploitation of a labour pool that predominantly comprised overseas workers in Australia on 417 working holiday visas. It outlined this exploitation as being significant underpayments, extremely long hours of work, high rent for overcrowded, unsafe worker accommodation, discrimination and misclassification of employees as contractors. These are some pretty major breaches of our Fair Work Act and workplace relations in this country.

The investigation has been done by the independent umpire. Their report has been tabled, yet we have failed to see any action by Baiada. In fact, they are refusing to let Fair Work inspectors go into some of their facilities. We have also failed to see a response from this government calling on this company, now we have the independent report, to clean up their act.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. What I am learning as I meet more and more people in the poultry industry and in the food processing industry is that unfortunately this is happening too often. In my own electorate, the chicken and poultry processor Hazeldene’s is also under investigation by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Similar issues have been raised in this particular investigation. I have met with some of the workers that are working for subcontractors and the stories that they have told me are not only heartbreaking but disappointing. It is disappointing that it is occurring in this particular poultry factory when we already know, because of another report, that there are recommendations that this behaviour be cleaned up.

What I have heard from some of these workers who work for the Hazeldene's contractor—and this has just been a genuine, one on one conversation—is that they receive their payments in an envelope with a cash figure on it; they do not receive pay slips. They have told me that they get picked up in Melbourne and they are bussed to Bendigo. They get picked up at five o'clock in the morning and they do not know their end time. They work processing chicken until the work is done. Some of them are paid piece rates; they are paid by the kilo. There is no such thing as piece rates in the poultry processing industry. There are piece rates in the horticultural picking industry, but there are not piece rates currently in the poultry industry.

These are some of the stories that I am hearing about a local manufacturing facility in my electorate. I acknowledge that Hazeldene's employ about 700 local workers, and it is great that they provide local employment, but there is a problem with some of the contractors that they use within their facility. I would like to see Hazeldene's, before we have the Fair Work Ombudsman's report into what is going on, come out and commit to the people working for the contractors that they are going to work to resolve some of their grievances.

There is a problem in our poultry industry, and given that it is happening across the board and not just in Baiada, and given that we have a Fair Work Ombudsman's report into the functions of Baiada, I believe that it is time that the government step in. We want to be a country that has good quality food processing. That does not just mean in the quality of the food; it also means in the working conditions of the people in these facilities. We must ensure that every worker in Australia is treated with respect and paid their correct entitlements. We should not be condoning the exploitation of people here on temporary work visas, and the government needs to act.

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