Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There are 7-Elevens everywhere, and many people around this country would have gone into them probably more than once or twice. You would expect, with such a large corporation that is owned by billionaires and making an enormous amount of money—and everyone who walks into a 7-Eleven knows what the mark-up is on basic goods that you could get for a much cheaper rate everywhere else—when you are walking in there to buy whatever you need buy that the person working behind the counter is getting paid at least the legal minimum wage in Australia. That is what people thought for a long period of time.

It was certainly the case that the regulators had not lifted the lid and seen what was going on behind the scenes at 7-Eleven. Indeed, many other people who should have known better, who should have had an interest in representing the workers who work in 7-Eleven, had done nothing for them either. What we found out, because of the bravery of a few people who spoke up—and also the tenacity of a number of other people, who I will mention in a moment, who went in there and did the work that really the government and others should have done in the first place—was that in these corner stores, where they were making enormous amounts of money at the top of the chain, people were getting exploited in a way that no-one in this country really thought was possible. We found that some people who were getting paid were then being forced to give part of their wages back in so-called cashbacks scams. We found that rostering was being done such that the hours the people were being rostered for did not actually represent the hours they were working so that proper payment and proper taxes did not have to be paid.

What is worse is that many of these people were too afraid to speak up not only because they would lose their job, which is a reason many people in this country are afraid to speak up—and a reason why we have unions and a reason why we should have government agencies that go in and investigate and regulate—but many of the people working in 7-Elevens were here on visas with work rights. They were incredibly vulnerable because they were being told, 'If you speak up, we will kick you out of the country,' and that is a terrifying position. When someone is lawfully here with the lawful right to work, they should not then be put under the threat of being kicked out if they ask for the right rate of pay. That is bad not only for those people because it exploits them but it is bad for everyone else here in Australia as well because it drives down wages. If someone is an underpaid worker on a visa being threatened with deportation if they get paid the legal minimum, an employer can say, 'I will get someone like that to do the work for half the pay; why should I pay local wages?' It just pushes wages down for everyone. It exploits people from overseas and it exploits people here.

Because of the incredible tenacity of people like Michael Fraser, who went from 7-Eleven store to 7-Eleven store finding out what was going on behind the scenes and helping people document it, because of very good journalists like Adele Ferguson, Sarah Danckert and all their colleagues at Fairfax who spent a lot of time investigating what was happening and reminding the country why we need well funded and well resourced journalism here, they collectively, with a number of brave souls who were prepared to step forward, blew the whistle. When they blew the whistle and it became apparent publicly and in the media what was happening, what happened? Did the government act? No.

The Greens referred it to a Senate inquiry because we knew a law needed to change to address this exploitation. During the course of that Senate inquiry, as the lid was pulled back even further, some horrific things became apparent. Most of the payroll services for these small corner 7-Eleven stores were being done through head office. What became apparent from some people who were brave enough to step up was that people in 7-Eleven head office would boast about these arrangements that they had struck with franchisees. They knew there would be no consequence other than people being underpaid so they then turned a blind eye to it, saying, 'We are not responsible; it is the franchisees who own the 7-Eleven stores who are the ones who are underpaying, not us in head office; our hands are clean.' That was what they said.

The more we dug into this, the more that people like Allan Fels came and looked at it. Allan Fels, former head of the ACCC, made a very strong statement when he said the only way that the 7-Eleven franchisees could make a profit was by ripping off the workers. That is how the contract between that head office and the small business franchisee was structured. It was not just the workers who were getting done over; the people who bought into these franchise operations were also in many instances getting done over because head office was saying to them, 'You have got to funnel money back to us every week. You have got to this and you have got do that and you have got do it in such a way that it leaves you with no option other than to underpay people.' The lid was well and truly lifted, the whistle was blown, and it become crystal clear that this was something that was orchestrated and known about at the highest levels within 7-Eleven. It was no surprise that there was a big change over. Before the election, they came out and said, 'Sorry, we have done the wrong thing. Let's employ a panel to look at it.' And then because as the election was out-of-the-way, because they knew this was an issue the Australian public cared about, that has all been chucked in the bin and a number of people are now left with no option other than to pursue legal action.

What is more worrying is that investigative journalists like Adele Ferguson, Sarah Danckert and others from Fairfax made it clear that 7-Eleven is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg. It is happening at Caltex they are telling us. It is happening at Domino's. What we are seeing time and time again in these household names that we all walk past every time we go to the shops or to work is head offices making the money, and not only the workers but often the franchisees are getting done over.

It is that that we need to fix because what is apparent in every franchise operation is they all look the same. They all look the same for a reason. That is because their head office says: 'We're going to control down to the most minute detail. The sign that you put at the front is going to be a good looking sign consistent with our branding. We're going to control the stock that you have on display. We're going to come in for regular audits to make sure that you are representing our brand well.' They control almost everything that many of these franchisees do, but the one thing they pretend to turn a blind eye to is wages. They say: 'We're not going to exercise any control over you from head office about what you do for wages. If you happen to be underpaying people, we're going to hang you out to dry.' That is what needs to stop. We know now many large franchises are operated with the head office taking all the money and profit, making the small business who runs it carry the legal risk if there is underpayment and, at the end of the chain, doing over the worker who sits at the bottom.

We have to make sure that we change the law to stop head office where the money ultimately goes up to. We have to stop head office from being able to wash their hands of responsibility when they have franchises that are trading under their name and for all intents and purposes appearing as if they are part of the same entity. Domino's, Caltex and 7-Eleven all appear as if they are part of the same entity. They all profit from having been part of the same brand. So there should be some shared responsibility.

Unfortunately, this bill does not do that. This bill has picked up on the public outrage and the knowledge that there is something wrong in this country when a worker working at 7-Eleven over the weekend gets paid less than the legal minimum wage but the owners are billionaires. People know that is wrong. But this bill does not shift any responsibility back home to that billionaire. It says that if someone gets underpaid by the franchisee—and we know that in many instances that would be because the head office has leant on them—in some instances, you might be able to hold the head office responsible. But, if the head office has good enough lawyers, they are going to be able to use provisions of this bill to get out of it. Instead of this bill making the head office responsible, it says, 'You are only responsible if you knew or could reasonably have been expected to have known that the franchisee was underpaying the worker.' 7-Eleven could have used bits of this bill to say: 'We didn't know. We couldn't have been expected to reasonably know. We asked the small business operator to say and do the right things and promise us everything was going to be okay.' This gives them a potential way out.

It is an appearance of action. Some bits of this bill are good and will make a difference for exploited workers. But, at the guts of it, it does not shift home responsibility to the head office where it ought to. The government should have had a look at the Greens bill that we put out well before they came to the party and said that they wanted to do something. We have a simple solution that would give effect to what the government says is the intent of this bill, but the government has to put its money where its mouth is. We are going to move to amend this bill to close that loophole and make sure that the head office is responsible. And we will move an amendment so that, if you are an underpaid 7-Eleven, Domino's or Caltex worker, you can go straight to head office and claim your underpayment. If you win a court case, you can claim it against the head office. It will then be up to the head office later on to go and have a battle with their small business franchisee about who is responsible. It should not be the worker who is left in limbo trying to chase a small business who might have no money at all, trying to prove what happened inside the internal boardroom meetings at 7-Eleven, Caltex or Domino's. It should not be left up to them. It should not be the case that large companies can use legal sophistry to get out of underpayment claims. Our amendment will say, 'Worker, go to the head office, get your money back and let them fight internally within 7-Eleven, Caltex or Domino's about who is responsible.' That is the only way to do it that is fair to the worker.

If that amendment is accepted—and I urge the government to consider it and accept it—it will also drive culture change. So long as the person in head office thinks, 'Oh well, I've got a legal loophole to push things back onto the franchisee,' they think: 'I'll just say I took all reasonable steps. It's not my problem; I'll wash my hands.' If we pass this amendment, it will drive a culture change because the head offices of 7-Eleven, Caltex and Domino's will now have an interest in making sure that the people under them are properly paid.

What it will mean is that, when the people from head office go to the store and do the audits that they do all the time to make sure that the chewing gum is standing in the right place and you have the right ads on display and the sign looks right, they will also go and check the wages books, and they will also ask the employees, 'Are you being paid correctly?' They will start to take some responsibility because they will know they might have to, in the first instance, cough up the difference themselves. Yes, they can go and chase it back from the small business at the end, but they will know that they will have some responsibility themselves. So we will stamp out this exploitation.

So it is a very, very sensible amendment that we will move. It is one that the government has to support because, if it does not support it, it is sending a green light to the 7-Elevens and the Caltexes and the Domino's: 'It's okay for you to continue what you're doing, because we'll pretend in parliament to take some action, but we'll give you a couple of tricky legal ways out if you're sensible enough to find them.'

There are some other problems with the bill as well that will allow clever lawyers to work their way around it. Those have been identified in the various Senate committee reports, and those amendments should be supported by the government as well if they are actually serious about this rather than simply giving the appearance of being serious.

There are a couple of other areas that we need to fix up as well with amendments. We are finding many times that records have not been properly kept. When your wages and hours records have not been properly kept by the employer, it can be pretty difficult to prove how much you have been underpaid. In those instances, the evidentiary onus should be reversed. If the employer has not complied with the law and kept proper records, then it should be presumed, when the employee makes the claim, that their version of events is right unless the employer proves otherwise, because that will put the incentive on the employer to keep proper records.

We also should take this opportunity to step outside the franchise system and say: well, we know that these long contracting chains operate everywhere else; perhaps it is time to make head offices more broadly responsible for what happens in their names.

But we have to fix this so that the problem is addressed. I salute everyone who has campaigned so long to make this change happen, and I ask the government now to make it a real change, not the appearance of a change. (Time expired)

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