Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go again. Here is another chapter in our political history where the current government, a conservative Liberal government, has nothing else to offer the Australian public but to water down workers' rights. If you look at this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2020, it does nothing but reinforce what I and many others on this side have been saying for a very long time. The Liberal government, cannot help themselves. They cannot help themselves, because it's within their DNA to water down workers' rights, to diminish workers' ability to bargain, to diminish the ability to engage in workplace agreements. This is what they are pushing for. As I said, it's in their DNA to water down workers' rights that have been hard fought for and hard won over generations to make us one of the best places in the world. They can't help it.

When I say it's in their DNA, there is a long history of this. If you look at the history of our nation and industrial relations in this place, we know that the conservative Liberal Party or conservative LNP or whatever they decide to call themselves every few years—the Country Party, a whole range of things—were formed on that side of the political sphere to combat labour. When I say 'labour', I mean labour with an 'our'. That was their foundation. That's why they got together to combat the labour forces that were getting together, had created a political party, were winning workers' rights and were making sure that this nation was on the right projection of equality for workers—one of the best in the world. Of course, the Liberal government and the history of Liberal governments show that they did not like this. That is a vast comparison, a very different reason for being a government. You have one side that was formed, and it has always been in their DNA, to water down workers' rights and to combat labour. Not the Labor Party, which they also do, but labour with an 'our'. They're continuing it today, after 200 years in this nation. They just can't help themselves.

The question we must ask ourselves over and over during this industrial relations debate is: will this bill create secure jobs with decent pay for Australians? That is the one question. When you look into this bill, and you do the research and you understand it, the answer is a resounding, no, it will not create secure jobs with decent pay for Australian working families and working people. But even without this, the bill represents a fundamental attack on the rights of workers that we haven't seen since John Howard's Work Choices. This is no different. This looks at diminishing the rights, the ability to bargain and a whole range of other things. The government's proposed changes to Australia's industrial relations laws will leave working people in this nation worse off. It will leave people with lower pay, fewer hours and a whole range of things, in a casualised workforce. It's going to result in cuts to take-home pay and conditions, fewer rights and far less job security for workers in Australia. What's being proposed is going to make it much easier to casualise jobs that would have otherwise been permanent, and it makes bargaining for better pay and conditions—something that we've enjoyed for many years here—more difficult than it already is. Worst of all, it will allow for wage cuts. How can this leave Australian workers better off? It takes rights off tradies on big projects, for example, and it weakens wage theft punishments in jurisdictions where wage theft was already deemed a criminal act.

It's already self-defeating when you look at all the ins and outs of this particular bill. Without measures to create more secure jobs with the prospect of wage rises, workers will have less capacity and confidence to spend. This is typical of this government. They've always had this attitude of the trickle-down formula—in other words, 'We can cut, we can trickle down whatever's left over and that should help the economy.' Well, that's wrong. It's totally wrong. The increased wages mean people have more money in their pockets and are more likely to go out and spend, and they're more likely to spend it on essentials and things that they need immediately—and that's what this government should be looking at: putting money into the economy. This bill will do nothing but take money out of the economy, because many workers will have lower wages, will have less money to spend, will be spending less in their local businesses et cetera.

Let's have a look at the other issue: wage theft. We know it's a growing problem. We've seen multinational chains in the news on a regular basis. It's a growing problem that recently made the news again in my own electorate of Adelaide, with a shocking incident which was on social media. It showed a cafe worker being physically abused because she allegedly asked to be paid the wages that she was entitled to under our laws. This specific matter is still under investigation, but it highlights how widespread wage theft is in this nation. But, instead of making it easier for the victims of wage theft to get justice, we have a bill before this House that will make it harder for people who have been duped by wage theft to get justice, just like this woman in my electorate a couple of weeks ago. The bill inserts a definition of 'dishonest' which includes two tests to prove whether the employer's been dishonest:

(a) dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people; and

(b) known by the defendant to be dishonest according to the standards of ordinary people.

What does that mean? Does it mean that, if you conduct wage theft, you say: 'I was unaware of it. I didn't know it was illegal. I wasn't aware of my paperwork. I wasn't up to date with the laws'? You could use a million excuses to get away under that second definition. That second point sets the bar very high for someone to get justice, because trying to prove a level of intent is going to be extremely difficult for the victims of wage theft.

What this government should be doing is making it easier for those victims to get justice. Victorian legislation, for example, only includes the first of those two points I made. But, because this bill overrides existing state and territory laws for the national system, it weakens employee protections in some states. It does so by removing a very important avenue to recover the costs involved in taking an employer to court. All of the items in this bill make it harder for workers.

In Australia, the casualisation of work is another growing issue. Casual jobs account for about 60 per cent of all wage jobs created since May, according to the Centre for Future Work. In fact, this research found that, between May and November 2020, casual employment grew by 400,000, by far the biggest expansion of casual employment in Australia. That's fine for people that want casual employment, but the majority of those people want full-time, secure jobs. By having a full-time, secure job, you can go to a bank and tell them your job is secure and it is full-time, and you can access a loan. If you're a casual employee, most banks are going to say 'No, we don't know what your future holds'. If you want to take out a personal loan when you're a casual employee, again, the banks and the financial institutions will give you the same answer. Even simple things like accessing a credit card become difficult when you're in the casualised workforce. This bill does nothing but diminish workers' abilities and workers' rights to have secure, well-paid jobs.

Part-time work also grew strongly during the past year. Given the COVID crisis and future uncertainty, this is understandable. For some people casual and part-time work fits their choice of lifestyle, but I'm really worried about the underemployment of Australian workers, about those people who want permanent work and can't find it. I speak to people regularly who are juggling two or three part-time jobs, have no job security and have no ability to take out a loan. The impact of the measures in this bill relating to part-time work and simplified additional hours, as they call it, will allow employers to reduce part-time work to a 16-hour weekly minimum with future hours on a casual basis, effectively making these jobs casual. In addition, the permanent addition of flexible work directions is proof that diluting workers' rights is in this government's DNA; it is actually proof. It sounds a bit like Work Choices, but it doesn't only sound like Work Choices; it is Work Choices mark 2. These changes to the Fair Work Act were originally introduced as temporary as part of the JobKeeper program and were limited to employers receiving the wage subsidy. However, since then, it's continued and expanded its application well beyond its original intent.

As with the rest of this bill, the danger is in the detail—for example, the changes to the enterprise agreements. Taken as a whole these changes mean less obligation on employers and less scrutiny. This will also deliver wage cuts. The government should be looking at productivity and increases in wages. We've seen one of the lowest wage growths in this nation under this government, productivity is down and a whole range of other things are down. Yet they find it in their time, with everything that's taking place in Australia at the moment—with the uncertainty of our future, with the downturn in the economy and with COVID—that the most important thing to do is to water down workers' rights. They think this will be the panacea for them. It's wrong. It's totally wrong. We should be strengthening these laws. We should be ensuring that we put laws in place that give us good productivity and good wage growth so there's more money in the economy for workers to spend in the economy and get us out of the economic crisis that we find ourselves in at the moment due to the unforeseen times.

I'd like to say that Labor is on the side of working families as we always were from the very foundations of the Labor party, which was formed by trade unions to protect workers' rights, to enhance workers' rights and to ensure they had justice and equality at the workplace, unlike the Liberal government and the conservative side of politics, which was formed to combat labour. And I say labour with the o-u-r. That's why I say it's still in their DNA, and proof of it is what we see continuously in the bills that they are producing. The history of the conservative side of politics in this country has had at its forefront and as its focus the diminishing of workers' rights, unlike Labor governments. Look at the Hawke-Keating era and the accord, where then Prime Minister Bob Hawke sat down with all the unions and industry and mapped out a vision for Australian industrial relations. That era saw one of the biggest periods of economic prosperity, through the laying of the foundations of the accord. This government looks at one thing only: the ideology of cutting wages. They think that some sort of trickle-down effect will take place and people will be better off. That's wrong, and they know that working people will be worse off under this bill.

As I said, Labor is on the side of working families. We're committed to coming out of this pandemic with a plan that's focused on good, secure jobs and decent pay for workers. Only this side of the House will fight for good, secure jobs with fair pay and conditions. Only we will ensure that we start to make things right again in this country and support local jobs. We will also ensure that no-one is held back and no-one is left behind—unlike what this bill proposes to do to workers in Australia and to our nation.

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