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

I concur with the member for Franklin when she raises questions about the National Stronger Regions Fund. My area in Bendigo has also had a number of projects in the mix. And I do welcome the member for Murray, who is here today, because there is a project that the member for Murray moonlighted into Bendigo last week to announce. He announced that this government will fund the Bendigo tennis centre redevelopment and upgrade. We were very worried that this government did not understand the importance of this project. This government scrapped the funding for the project when they first came to office after the 2013 election, which was devastating to the community of Bendigo and devastating to the Bendigo tennis centre community. So I do acknowledge the member for Murray, who has been an advocate for this project, first in the state parliament and now in this parliament. He has delivered for Bendigo, more than the senator who is based in Bendigo has, in his short time here. But of course Bendigo was not the only electorate he popped up in last week. He was a very busy man last week. He also popped up in the member for Indi's electorate to make a few announcements around Stronger Regions. He popped up in Castlemaine as well. So it appears that the member for Murray is not only the member for Murray but also the acting senator for Victoria for the National Party, given the road miles that he is doing at the moment. Perhaps Senator Bridget McKenzie from the other place needs to get outside of the inner city of Melbourne, rediscover her roots and travel back to the regions and speak up for the regions and speak up for Elmore instead of Elwood.

This is the great challenge that we have: there are lots of projects that still have not been funded. It is great to see the tennis centre be funded. It was something that Labor committed to at both the federal election in 2013 and the one in 2016. It is great to see the government realise the importance of this project and now fund it.

I am concerned, however, about the number of projects in the region that have missed out on funding. I hope that their commitment to fund the RSL upgrade—the revitalisation of the Bendigo RSL project—will go ahead. We had thought that that would be announced in this round of Stronger Regions funding. I hope that the government will continue their commitment towards this bipartisan project.

I also have a number of questions for the government. They announced $10 million during the election for the Calder upgrade, but we still do not know specifically what they are talking about. There are some rumours that it is about going north of Marong and there was some talk that it was for the south. They have said that they will match it with the state government, but the state government are saying that they are waiting to see what they are proposing about this. I would urge the government to look at Marong, to look at Lockwood and to look at the very dangerous intersection after passing Ravenswood as areas of need for prioritising this funding. I know that VicRoads are in active discussion to see some of that funding come south. I appreciate that there are problems on the Calder going north of Bendigo, but Marong is a growth area and we do want to see some of that funding going towards the Marong part of the Calder.

Roads funding is always critical. It is also an area, when it comes to Roads to Recovery and Black Spot funding, that is largely bipartisan. In fact, it was this side of the House that came up with a solution for the previous government about what to do with all of the tax they had collected. You might remember that in the last parliament they asked petrol companies to start collecting an increase to the petrol tax—the tax excise—even though this parliament had not passed the legislation. So, with the clock ticking and with this money collected, the money would not go back to motorists if the parliament did not pass the legislation. This side provided a solution to the government by suggesting: 'Why don't we put it into roads? Since you have collected it, and since we do not want to see it go back to big petrol companies and it will not go back to motorists, let's at least put it into the roads that motorists use.' So it was this side that provided the solution about what to do with that money, even though it was a government mess caused by them getting ahead of themselves in asking for the increased tax to be collected.

It is the role of our local governments and state governments to suggest the roads projects that should be fixed. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to believe that I have a say, I do not. No federal member actually has much of a say about which roads should be prioritised. Like all constituents, we can put forward our projects and we can actively lobby but, ultimately, it is up to local governments and state governments to make recommendations to VicRoads, in partnership with the federal government. The federal government funds these works but ultimately the priority list comes from local governments and state governments. So it is really cheeky of ministers and of those opposite to say, 'I will upgrade this road'. Well, no; it is local and state governments that decide on the priorities. This place allocates the funding to projects, and we want to see that funding allocated. It is wrong to suggest out in the community that this government makes those decisions. The only decision this government makes and this place makes is how much money goes into the kitty. Unless this government is talking about cutting funding to Roads to Recovery or to the Black Spots funding program, it is not fair to communities to go out there and suggest otherwise.

To this day, we still hear the government ranting a lot about 'jobs and growth'—I think we have discovered that it is the Treasurer's pet phrase, because he seems to be the only one continuing to harbour the term 'jobs and growth' and to labour it over and over again—but what we have not seen from the government is a concrete jobs plan. How are they going to rebuild full-time secure jobs in our community? The government has had many opportunities in my electorate of Bendigo and in regional Australia. You cannot go past decisions that this government has made in relation to defence uniforms and uniform manufacturing. Bendigo is home to ADA. We have one of their manufacturing facilities in Bendigo, and they are currently manufacturing the combat uniforms—the men and women, predominantly women, who work there have done so. The contract they are working on for this government was signed when Labor was last in government. When the tender for the dress uniforms came around, the facility in Bendigo was not awarded the contract. Whilst ADA was successful in the tender, this government went for an entirely overseas manufacture subcontract and import even though they have the capability and the skills in Bendigo—as well as a number of other manufacturing sites in Victoria—to manufacture the dress uniforms. This was a missed opportunity to create good secure jobs in Bendigo by simply buying Australian made.

It is laughable that a number of defence industry ministers—somebody with the job title 'defence'—have turned up in Bendigo and have talked to the workers—posing for photos—about the great work they do manufacturing combat uniforms, when they are the exact same government that refused to sign a contract to allow those workers to manufacture the dress uniforms. That would have created extra jobs in Bendigo and in Central Victoria. Instead, the government is saying: 'Well, we have run out of ideas on how we are going to get people into work. We are going to put up some funds and say to the not-for-profit sector that they should come up with some innovative programs about how we could get people into work.' We could invest that close to $100 million in Australian-made product. That creates jobs. We could invest that in supporting apprentices by restoring funding that has been cut from our apprenticeship schemes. The number of apprentices continues to decline in this country, and this government's plan is not to reinvest in apprentices and not to reinvest in TAFE but to invest in the program, an exploitative program which is basically going to offer employers—rather than employing the next young person—the chance to hire someone at below-award wages that is then topped up by the government. There is no accountability and no safeguards in place for this program—none whatsoever—to ensure that, when somebody leaves a job, an employer, rather than advertising and hiring the next young person and paying them award rates or paying them on the collective agreement rate, does not go straight to the government's subsidised PaTH program. There are no safeguards whatsoever to ensure that they are not giving a chop-out to their mates in business so that they can hire people on this program. This is essentially what will happen. It has been nicknamed the 'supermarket internships program', and that is essentially what will happen. It is not a genuine program that will attract young people into new jobs; it is another subsidised program which will see the government potentially displace into exploitative arrangements thousands of young Australians who otherwise would have got the job.

We have not seen this government prioritise a crackdown on worker exploitation. To this date the government has failed to implement any of the recommendations coming from any of the reviews or inquiries about the exploitation of workers. And we are not just talking about the exploitation of temporary workers that we have in our country; we are talking about the tens of thousands of Australian workers who are also being exploited. We are not investigating enough or resourcing the Fair Work Ombudsman enough to investigate cases where people have been made to get their own ABN when they actually should be directly employed by their company. We are talking about cleaners at Myer. There are cleaners in Ballarat—people who, rather than working directly for the cleaning company, were made to get an ABN and are paid well below award wages.

It is not their choice if that is the only option that is on the table. This is where the government likes to get quite tricky with their language and say, 'It's their choice.' It is not a choice if the only job available requires you to go out and get your ABN. Essentially, you are making the employee responsible for their own work cover, you are making the employee responsible for their own superannuation and you are making them responsible for all of their entitlements. Yet, as we know, as defined by the Fair Work Ombudsman, if these people do 100 per cent of their work for this one contractor, wear the uniform of this contractor and use the chemicals and equipment supplied by this contractor, they are not a subcontractor or someone who should be employed on an ABN; they are in fact an employee.

This is happening throughout our economy and throughout our communities, particularly in relation to temporary workers. There are currently 200,000 backpackers in this country, and some of them are employed in some quite precarious situations. Weekly we see reports of their exploitation appear in our media, but, rather than tackle that issue head-on, the government seeks to ignore it. They have appointed another task force, which again will make recommendations that this government will probably choose to ignore.

I talked about the 200,000 backpackers that we have in our country and I have to say that, despite all the rhetoric of those opposite, those 200,000 backpackers are not working on our farms. We do have labour shortages on our farms, I completely agree, and we do need to sit down and look at that issue. But backpackers in the current format and the way in which the visa is structured are not the solution. We need to look at that visa and work out how best to help our farms and our ag industry when it comes to work shortages.

Predominantly these 200,000 backpackers that we have working in this country work in the cities or big regional centres. That is the reality. A small proportion of them do work on farms, but the majority of them work in cities—and why? Farm work is hard. It is hard work, it is low paid, it is hard to get to and it is hard to find living arrangements. So it is wrong for us to stand here and think that whatever happens with the backpacker tax will be the solution for the bush and for our farmers in terms of workforce shortages.

We need to do more in this space to ensure that people coming into our country are not taking the jobs of young Australians. We need to do more in this country to ensure that we genuinely know the impact of temporary work visas. There are 1.2 million people here in this country as ISB: backpackers, 457 visas, 462 visas and international students working here in this country. We need to review and properly understand what impact that is having on the labour market.

Whilst the government talked a big game about jobs, they have delivered nothing in the way of genuine jobs—full-time secure employment—to Australians. They are tricky with their figures and will talk about stats and statistics that suit them. They are not genuine about creating job opportunities. They are not genuine about funding our regions properly. (Time expired)

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