Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the report that was tabled in the parliament today, Current vacancies: workforce challenges facing the Australian tourism sector. I take heart from the comments made by the member for Batman, the shadow minister for tourism, that indeed there were a series of commonsense recommendations made unanimously by members of the committee. Tourism is a very important sector. It is growing quite rapidly. However, despite its growth and despite its increasing growth of GDP, it is an industry that has many challenges to overcome. Not least of all of the challenges that it needs to confront and overcome is the current skills shortages—indeed, just basic labour shortages.

We understand the difficulties that the tourism sector has to tackle on a day-to-day basis. We were able to meet with many businesses whose core business is tourism and hospitality, and they raised many concerns about the difficulty of attracting labour to their businesses. There were businesses, particularly in remote areas—very important tourist precincts, but quite often areas remote from capital cities—that were having difficulties attracting the necessary labour. It was not always about skilled labour; it was about just having the hands-on experience, the capacity to lend a hand in the peaks of the tourist period. So committee members in inquiring into this matter—an inquiry that we were asked to do by the minister for tourism—sought to look at some practical measures that could mitigate the adverse effects of labour and skills shortages in the industry and recommend them directly to the executive government for it to consider and hopefully incorporate into its policies.

A number of the recommendations looked at ways in which we could change current law in a way that would enable certain people to work for longer periods. For example, people on particular visas might be able to extend those visas if they work in remote areas, so that businesses in remote areas of the country would be able to attract sufficient staff to ensure their businesses were prosperous. As the member for Batman indicated, we were also concerned about increasing the participation of older workers in the sector. I guess there we are talking about domestic workers—that is, the Australian residents who should be able to supply the shortfalls in labour demand in these critical areas.

Of course, there were also concerns raised—and this is where the members differed somewhat—over whether Work Choices legislation was a benefit or not to the industry. We did have some alarming evidence in the transcript that pointed to behaviour which I do not think anyone would condone. Indeed, the representative from one of the employer bodies—the Hotel, Motel and Accommodation Association—indicated that there were many employers in the hospitality industry that were in breach of laws prior to Work Choices but who, because of Work Choices, were no longer in breach of the law. It was put to that witness, ‘What you are saying is that there were people who broke the law and, because of Work Choices, they still do the same thing but they do not break the law?’ and he answered yes. That was a concern, certainly to Labor members of the committee. We did not think the government should be assisting businesses to find ways to drive down wages and conditions by allowing something that was unlawful yesterday to be lawful today. I am not suggesting that all government members would think that was the best thing to do, but clearly this was a representative of an employer body who thought he could now do that. And it seemed he was advising members of that body to do exactly that.

Leaving Work Choices, and the industrial relations law generally, out of the equation, the members of the committee focused most of their energies on looking for ways to mitigate the shortages that exist. I think that the committee members participated very constructively and consensually, particularly in looking to find unanimous recommendations to put to the executive government. I appreciate the efforts of the former chair, the member for Deakin, who has an interest in the area but has an interest in training as well. Of course, the member for Moreton took over his role halfway through the inquiry, and we worked well there.

I would like to put on the record our appreciation for the secretariat. They did a magnificent job. The secretariat not only collated the information, the primary sources and the secondary sources, and brought together the evidence but also were heavily involved in drafting reports for us to look at, examine and then consider whether we would amend or accept. I think through their good efforts we have come up with a report that focuses on common-sense recommendations that will be useful for the tourism and hospitality sector in addressing the problems that it currently confronts.

I also add that the member for Werriwa, who took over as the deputy chair, along with the chair played a very proactive role in ensuring that the report was ready and is of sufficient quality for the executive government to consider. Now that the report has been tabled, it can be considered by all members including the executive government.

Debate (on motion by Dr Washer) adjourned.

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