Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in this House to oppose the Independent Contractors Bill 2006 and the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Independent Contractors) Bill 2006 simply because they constitute an attack on my constituents. There are many owner-drivers in the Geelong region and they work very hard to make a living in a very difficult economic environment. They are crucial to the operation of the Geelong economy and they are critical players in the movements of goods and services in and out of one of Australia’s largest provincial cities—and, of course, the hinterland that supports it. These owner-drivers are critical to that rural hinterland and they play a very important part in the transportation of grains, horticultural products and dairy products around the region.

Above all, these owner-drivers are family people. They work extremely hard, long hours. Increasingly their livelihoods are under pressure from a variety of sources. We know the transport industry is an extremely competitive one. We have seen massive rises in input costs, which have put a lot of pressure on transport companies in Geelong and elsewhere, and those pressures have come onto the drivers, be they owner-drivers or others. These are family people who contribute much to the Geelong and national economies. The question I ask on the floor of this House today is: why is this government choosing to deceive them through this legislation and why is it seeking to attack their livelihoods in a most unprincipled way?

This Independent Contractors Bill 2006 makes amendments to the Workplace Relations Act and further develops the adversarial industrial relations system that has been instituted by this government. Purely and simply, this is divide-and-conquer legislation aimed directly at the most productive unit in our economic system: the Australian worker. This bill follows on from the government’s extreme industrial relations changes, which have launched massive attacks on the living standards and conditions of Geelong workers by removing their rights, entitlements and conditions of work.

We have seen in the Geelong community some quite significant demonstrations against the government’s Work Choices legislation—and rightly so—because what is at stake in this legislation, as it was in previous draconian and extreme legislation introduced and passed by this parliament, is the living standards of all employees, including owner-drivers and others who are affected by this legislation. This bill removes the rights, entitlements, conditions and protections afforded to Australians in the workplace, whether they are employees or independent contractors. It simply does this by allowing employees to be treated as independent contractors, removing employee protections and entitlements and, as we have heard from previous speakers in this debate, placing superannuation, tax and workers compensation burdens directly upon them. It does this by removing protections from independent contractors, who are in a dependent contract position and, as a consequence, in an unequal bargaining position.

As we go through this legislation and its technical provisions, we see that the abovementioned changes are put into effect by continuing to use the common-law definition of independent contractor as a basis of law, without the guidance of statutory criteria necessary to give the clarification and avoid the confusion that is inherent in this legislation. It puts into effect these adverse changes by allowing employees to be treated as independent contractors in a sham way by ineffective anti-sham provisions. It overrides state laws with employee-deeming provisions. It overrides state unfair contract provisions which provide those essential protections to small businesses, contractors and employees.

It does not just stop there. It seeks to override any future state and territory owner-driver transport laws while at the same time putting the existing ones at risk. It is not only the transport industry that suffers under this piece of legislation; it is also the textile, clothing and footwear industry. Workers in that industry are likewise penalised by the provisions of this obnoxious piece of legislation.

Geelong has a very strong TCF industry and very strong textile, clothing and footwear working traditions. And the union movement in the Geelong region has played its part in ensuring that the workplaces in which Geelong TCF workers earn their living do abide by the standards that we would expect in a civilised community and that the remuneration in the form of wages and conditions paid to workers who create the wealth in those enterprises—along with the owners and the entrepreneurs and the management—get a fair return for their labour in this industry. But here we have in this legislation a failure to provide any genuine protection for outworkers through the ineffective outworker provisions which significantly weaken outworker entitlements.

The simple fact of the matter is that this is a piece of legislation that introduces even more confusion and complexities into our workplace laws. I say to members opposite: how can that be efficient? How can that be in the interests of businesses or employees or communities or the economy? But it is not the first time that we have had legislation proposed by this government that adversely affects the economic relationships between employers and employees. This particular matter is under examination by the parliament and the processes of the parliament. We have the Senate Employment, Workplace Relations and Education Legislation Committee currently investigating and reporting on this matter. Yet here we have this arrogant government treating the processes of this parliament and that committee with contempt by bringing this legislation into the House prior to any consideration of that committee’s report.

The reality is that it is not only in my electorate that owner-drivers and workers in the transport and other industries are going to be affected by this legislation. The bill, it is estimated, affects 800,000 to 1.9 million independent contractors across Australia. And the reason why this bill adds confusion and complexity is simply that it is highly prescriptive, it is technical and it makes little sense. Some types of contracts entered into after the commencement of the bill will be subject to relevant state laws and others will not. Time after time we have members opposite getting up in this House lambasting and blaming state governments for everything—well, for most things that occur in our society that adversely affect people. Yet here we have a piece of legislation that is inconsistent, highly technical, highly prescriptive, confusing and complex. I think that tells us why it is in the House today: because it is ideologically driven. It is the result of the coalition’s hatred of trade unionists and employees and its desire to strip away from independent contractors some of the benefits that they already have.

The bill creates a federal jurisdiction, but under this federal system there is no ability for employer organisations or unions to apply for unfair contract review on behalf of a party, which is inherent in and provided for by state law. I think this is indicative of how this government operates—that it seeks to bring legislation before this parliament that does not give anyone the ability to contest what they might consider to be an unfair contractual arrangement. We see this, of course, in the unfair dismissal laws that this government has put in place. Now we see it in this particular piece of legislation.

Let us strip it all away and look at this legislation. It is part of the extreme workplace relations legislation that is the ideological obsession of the Prime Minister. Once again we have legislation that is an attack on workers’ rights, their entitlements, their conditions, their living standards and those of their families. There is a clear underlying message in this legislation to either a vulnerable employee or a dependent contractor, and it is simply this: ‘This government is hanging you out to dry. You are now on your own, with no access to state based protections, no access to unfair dismissal provisions and no access to employee deeming provisions.’ This is in tune with the Prime Minister’s mean-spirited behaviour in the whole industrial relations area. On the issue of a minimum wage, the Prime Minister has opposed every national wage increase that the commission has agreed to since the government came to office. And the latest example of his indifference to working people and the maintenance of their living standards is the legislation that we have before us.

This legislation simply fails the fairness test, and it violates some very important principles and matters that are central to a decent working arrangement between employer and employee. Once again we have legislation that tips the industrial relations balance fairly and squarely in favour of employers and against employees and others. It violates any right to bargain collectively. That is one principle that we in the labour movement, with our union brothers and sisters, will eternally fight for in this place and outside of it. I deliver this particular message to the coalition: do your worst because when we come to power, as the wheels of democracy turn, we will undo it. We will undo it on behalf of the members of the AMWU, the TWU and the TCFUA in Geelong and around Australia.

We will undo your great edifice. Piece by piece we will strip it away and reconstruct the workplace relations of this country to provide fair protection for working families—those in this industry and in others—because this legislation not only violates the right to bargain collectively; it violates the right to appropriate occupational health and safety standards. The transport industry is one where the TWU, among other unions, have had to fight very, very hard to get some decent operating standards and conditions and to maintain them. This legislation violates the right to proper training and it violates the various other rights that are currently enjoyed by employees.

This legislation is opposed by the ACTU. Their submission is supported by individual unions as well as the state Labor governments, who represent millions of ordinary Australians. If members of the coalition want any guidance as to the electoral consequences of this legislation, we had it last Saturday in Queensland. You thought you had the Beattie government on the ropes, then you failed to make any headway at all. Members opposite in the coalition and members on this side of the House know very well that one of the key issues in that campaign at the state level was the workplace relations legislation of the Prime Minister. His magnificent obsession will lead you all like lemmings over the cliff.

As many of you ponder your political retirement courtesy of the working people of this country, the Prime Minister will not be affected because he will be the beneficiary of those very generous superannuation provisions that a lifetime in this place gives you. But now the Prime Minister is involved in wrecking the lives of working families. Do not think there is not a political cost for members of the coalition, because the union movement in Geelong stands firm against this legislation. I remind members opposite of the catchcry that we have at all of our rallies, and we will have them in the future: you touch one of us, you touch us all.

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