Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Take out the visa, because the visa is covered by other laws, and just have a claim of: 'We'll give you the job if you give us 150 grand'—or $50 or $500. If the minister thinks the language we are using is so bad, I draw your attention to the fact that that is the language used in the bill—'unreasonable in the circumstances'. All we are saying is that if the principle of 'unreasonable in the circumstances' applies to an employee then it should also apply to a prospective employee. I want to make the point that wage theft is rife in this country.

Through you, Chair: you've been on the inquiry, Senator Xenophon. You've seen some of the rip-offs that take place around this country. And we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. We believe, strongly, that the principle that applies in the body of the bill to an employee, using the same words that are in the body of the bill to define it—that is, 'unreasonable in the circumstances'—should be applied to a prospective employee because, and I say it again: when someone is at their most vulnerable is when they are actually applying for the job. That's when they're at their most vulnerable.

We think your concerns should be covered by the position where the government's bill talks about 'unreasonable in the circumstances'—that's the language in the bill. We think you simply apply that to prospective employees. Put your mind back to WorkChoices, where workers were fronting up for a job and being told, 'Sign or go away'—sign away penalty rates, sign away annual leave loading, sign away minimum rates. That's what this government justified under WorkChoices. And this is another example of how we should be protecting prospective workers when they are at their most vulnerable: that is, when they are in a very powerless situation—trying to get a job—and when some of the most ruthless employers in this country would try to rip them off and steal from them. They should be protected.