Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendments to this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017, moved by the member for Gorton, the shadow minister. The government has finally stopped running away from this bill. If I remember, this was all part of an election campaign that ran for eight weeks. Finally, the government came to look at the situation, which is rampant. It is certainly rampant in my community. We had case after case come before us in the newspapers to highlight that there were many, many vulnerable workers being exploited and many being ripped off—there is no other way to say it. This is long overdue and it does not go far enough. It would do much better if the government took on board Labor's policies and implemented them around this piece of legislation. It is good to see that, at least here today, we are doing something about what has become a great shame in our country. A shame where workers are going to work and not being paid appropriately. It is wage theft that has been occurring and been highlighted for us by the media.

The bill goes some way towards dealing with the exploitation of workers, so, for that reason, we support its passage through the parliament. At least it is a start. It is something. Having said that, it is inadequate. It is inadequate for a few reasons. It falls significantly short of Labor's suite of policies and legislative reform that we first announced 12 months ago, well before this government even turned its mind to protecting workers and before Labor forced this government to start talking about and protecting vulnerable workers. This bill does nothing in relation to a range of policies which we took to the last election. It does nothing about combating sham contracting, licensing labour hire companies or shutting down the practice of companies phoenixing to avoid wage liabilities. It does nothing to reform the Fair Work Act to strengthen protection for workers, it does not criminalise employer conduct that involves the use of coercion and it does nothing about making it easier for workers to recover unpaid wages from employees and directors of irresponsible companies.

We should not be surprised that this legislation does not go far enough. We only need to look at this government's record. We only need to look at the fact that they are being driven by media coverage to bring this piece of legislation into the parliament and that they will resist amendments. It is a fig leaf in terms of the issues that have been highlighted through the media, and it is a fig leaf in terms of their track record about protecting vulnerable workers. Of course we have on record their support for the penalty rate cut to drive home the point that they really do not understand the fate of vulnerable workers.

The Turnbull government has no consideration for workers who rely on penalty rates, some of whom are the lowest paid workers in the country. In the electorate of Lalor, we are in the top 10 electorates where people are reliant upon those penalty rates. There are over 8,800 retail workers and over 4,600 hospitality workers who will see a reduction in their take-home pay under this government's watch. They sit with those other workers who have been exploited under this government's watch. It is no surprise that Malcolm Turnbull has again decided to do nothing to protect those workers who are going to face a real pay cut through changes to penalty rates. He has made it clear that he will not stand up for the lowest-paid workers in our community. He has unequivocally supported penalty rate cuts, ignoring how many Australian families will be worse off.

And these impacts are very real. In fact, if we look at some of the other things that this government has been doing, it seems to me that there is an absolute lack of understanding about the impact, of course, on women, who make up most of the workers who rely on penalty rates, and on young people. Young people again have been targeted in this budget through higher education changes, cuts to universities, lowering of the threshold for when their HELP repayments will begin and a rise in the cost of and their contributions on those loans. It is not a surprise that this government does not understand that a $77 pay cut will have enormous impacts on families in the electorate of Lalor, an enormous impact on their capacity to pay their bills and an enormous impact on our local economy when that money is no longer being circulated through our economy. Unlike the government, Labor understands the importance of penalty rates and we understand the importance of protections for vulnerable workers. That is why the bill that we have in front of the House would protect the 700,000 workers who will be worse off under the penalty rate cuts.

The bill in front of us does not go far enough to protect vulnerable workers even aside from the penalty rate cuts. It does not go far enough to protect those workers that we have seen on the front pages of our newspapers who have suffered from wage theft. The government cannot hide the fact that they support cuts to low-income earners and that they are presenting for us a fig leaf for vulnerable workers. It is a thin veil that this government is sitting behind today. We know that inequality in Australia is at a 75-year high with wage growth at historic lows and underemployment and unemployment at record highs, but this government decides to continue to pursue the cut to penalty rates while providing a $50 billion cut to big business.

Denying workers a fair day's pay for a fair day's work is one example of employers who make a mockery of workers' rights. Many employers undermine worker welfare through the deliberate and systemic denial of these rights, and we have seen that across our papers. I think it is worth stopping to really think about this for a moment. It is my belief that in this country, in this economy, our industrial relations system relies upon a healthy union environment to make sure that these things work. It is a sad indictment that there are people in our community who believe, quite wrongly, that the establishment of the Fair Work Commission protects workers. As those headlines have shown, the Fair Work Commission can only do the work if workers make a complaint and if those things are brought to light. It is an indictment that we had to rely on investigative journalists to find out and showcase what was happening to workers in this country. I would note that we only knew of this systemic exploitation that has been occurring because journalists uncovered it. In a robust system, with a more unionised workforce, these things would not occur.

Twelve months ago, Labor introduced legislation in the Senate to address the wholesale undermining of workers' rights that has become pervasive under the Abbott-Turnbull government. It is Labor that acted while the Abbott-Turnbull government did nothing to address the serious allegations and shameful treatment of workers by well-known companies. They are here today in this debate with speaker after speaker saying that they are outraged by the treatment of these workers and condemning those companies that have been doing the wrong thing, but they have been dragged, kicking and screaming, to put in place protection for workers. We know—and we have heard speaker after speaker today go through some of the wage theft situations that were occurring—that they were vulnerable workers, many of them on visas, who were being targeted, quite systemically, to provide a low-wage situation for businesses that should have known better and, in fact, did know better.

Many stakeholders have raised concerns that the provisions of the bill that give the Fair Work Ombudsman the power to compel people to answer questions do not contain procedural protections that might have been expected to have been included in such a regime. Many speakers have addressed that today. In particular, the bill fails to meet the procedural protections that apply to the ABCC compulsory questioning power, and that seems to be an anomaly. Giving a government agency the power to compel citizens to answer questions and remove the right to silence is a significant responsibility. It is imperative that we are vigilant to ensure that these powers are proportionate and appropriate safeguards to their exercise are in place. Stakeholders have made strong arguments. We are here because, although there has been consultation and stakeholders have readily been involved in those processes, they think this legislation does not go far enough. The government has chosen to follow Labor's reforms to some extent and to do what has been asked by the stakeholders, but has not gone far enough.

Where a worker makes a claim for unpaid wages from an employer who has failed to keep proper employment records, it should be that employer that is held to account and has to prove that they paid the worker what was owed. This seems such a simple concept. If you sit with constituents who have been part of these processes, it does not take long to realise that there is something wrong with the law when it is up to a worker to prove what they should have been paid and provide pay slips to prove what they have been paid when we know that, in our communities, there are many workers that are not being provided with pay slips. And they are not all foreign workers. They are not all students on visitor visas. They are young people in my community who can come and tell me that they have been working for three years and have not received a pay slip.

Last week, I was in the electorate talking to a person. We were chatting about her new job and how much she was enjoying it and, over the course of the conversation, she then started to talk to me about the superannuation that had not been paid to her in her previous job—three years worth of superannuation. We all understand the way the superannuation system works. We understand that the early money in that process is what is important. We understand the low-income superannuation contribution. Labor introduced that for that very reason—to encourage young people and to have young people understand how important it is to get those superannuation contributions happening early. Yet, despite that, we have employers out there who see that as part of their cash rather than as part of the pay to their workers. This is rampant in communities like mine, and this legislation does not go far enough to stamp it out. The early money is critical to ensure that people have the retirement funds they need. This government saw the light and reintroduced the low income superannuation contribution. They put it back, so they understand the importance of early money. You would think, therefore, in looking at this legislation that they would take the advice and go further than they have done, Mr Deputy Speaker.

As I have said, the bill does not go far enough in that area, nor does it go far enough to address the casualisation of the workforce that is happening under this government's nose and on this government's watch. In fact, one could argue that all of these things together are driving down wages and conditions of Australian workers and that that is why this government does not want to act. I and many of the residents in the community I live in and represent actually believe that it is part of the overall plan. The government did not address the issues of sham contracting and did not address the issues raised around labour hire companies when there was clearly an opportunity to do so and public goodwill to do something about this exploitation. This government should have taken further action but they have chosen not to. They have chosen not to listen to stakeholders. They have chosen not to look into registering labour hire companies or addressing workers' rights under those contracts. For that they should stand condemned.

Labor agrees with what this legislation is doing, but we would argue strongly that it needs to go much further than that. Workers—not just vulnerable workers—need protection. The number of workers we can now put into that vulnerable category is growing every day. I have real concerns about the levels of anxiety people are living with in the community I represent. A number of people are working through third-party labour hire companies are sitting up until midnight to get a text to know whether they have work tomorrow. They are having dinner with their families and not sure how many days of work they are going to get this week. This number of workers we would call vulnerable is growing every day, and the legislation which this government brought into the parliament is not going far enough to protect them. I would encourage the government to look again at the amendments Labor is proposing to go further with this legislation and to get serious about protecting vulnerable workers by reducing the number of vulnerable workers by taking real action about industrial relations in this country.

I will make a final comment: I believe that the market cannot do this work on its own and institutions cannot do this work on their own. What we need in this country is a healthy union sector that can do this work for us. Workers do not get exploited when they have representation. It really is that simple.

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