Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022. For the last decade Australian workers have been let down and left behind by our workplace relations system. We have an aged-care system in crisis, with our loved ones not being able to get the care that they deserve because workers can't earn enough to stay in the industry. We've got nurses literally run out of the system because they are run off their feet. Teachers are teaching in subjects that they haven't been trained in because we can't get enough teachers to teach in the subjects that they specialise in—most of them are fed up and they've left the industry. We have major airlines sacking their workforce and contracting out the work that those workers were doing to foreign corporations on lower wages and conditions—and the previous government let them get away with it, with no opposition at all! Gig economy workers are working all day on several platforms just to pay the rent. Miners are working side by side with their colleagues doing the exact same job, but their colleagues are being paid different wages and conditions.

Australian workers have had enough. The system that allowed employers to suppress wages while cost of living went up and up and up has frustrated workers—mortgage payments going up, the cost of running cars going up, energy costs going up, childcare costs going up, insurance going through the roof. Everything was going up except their wages, under the last government. And finally, after the last election, Australian workers woke up to what the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments were all about.

Remember the cuts to penalty rates? This opposition, when they were in government, actively encouraged a policy that saw low-paid workers take home less pay to their families at the end of the week because they encouraged cuts to penalty rates. Labour hire and contracting out of work exploded under the previous government, reducing security of employment for workers. Public sector wage caps—remember those? They actively discouraged wage increases in the public sector, refused to support wage increases for low-paid workers in the Fair Work Commission, refused to support work value cases for some of the lowest-paid workers in our economy who were doing some of the most important work.

Well, the Australian people worked out at the last election that the Liberal and National parties do not support workers; they never have and they never will. And they do not support a system that delivers fair wages. Everything that they did in government was deliberately aimed at suppressing workers' incomes so that they fell further and further behind. And at the election the Australian people said, 'Enough is enough.' They voted for change. They voted for a party committed to supporting workers. They voted for a government with a policy to improve the rights of workers in workplaces, particularly women, and to lift wages and make it easier to bargain in their workplaces. They voted for this bill, and the Albanese Labor government is delivering the commitment that we made to the Australian people by delivering this bill to the parliament. It is a bill that will promote enterprise bargaining through a fairer system that ensures that workers can fairly bargain with their employers and get better outcomes in their workplaces. It is a bill that promotes pay equity in Australian workplaces and closes the gender pay gap over time. It is a bill that will promote job security and real wages growth so that workers aren't falling further and further behind.

The secure jobs, better pay bill will update the objects of the act to include promotion of job security and gender equity to ensure that Australian workers know what this government is about when it comes to workplaces. It will prohibit fixed-term contracts of more than two years, ending the job insecurity that many workers are faced with on a daily basis. It will expand the circumstances under which employees can request flexible work arrangements to meet their family commitments. Importantly, it will make enterprise bargaining easier by prohibiting employers from unilaterally terminating agreements after their expiry date and trying to force workers back onto award wages and reducing their pay and conditions. It will simplify the requirement for approval of enterprise agreements, making the better off overall test easier for unions, workers and employers to work through. And it will ensure that the Fair Work Commission can amend or remove a clause that does not meet the better off overall test.

Importantly, it will support bargaining across multiple employers, particularly in industries where there's a prevalence of low-paid workers and those who are working in precarious employment, who haven't had the bargaining capacity in the past to fairly bargain with their employers. In that respect, it will lift the pay of some of the lowest paid workers in the country. It will also introduce an equal remuneration principle to ensure, particularly for the care and community sector, that secrecy clauses are prohibited in those sectors so that all employees are aware of what their fellow workers are earning, introducing more transparency into the system. Importantly—and I can't believe that this isn't already in legislation—it will prohibit sexual harassment in connection with work. It's unbelievable that it's taken so long for the parliament to realise that this is an issue and to deliver on that.

I want to make some comments about the attacks that those opposite have made on this bill. They've attacked this bill by attacking unions. I want to say to those opposite: who do you think the teachers union is made up of? It's made up of teachers. The nurses union—have a guess! It's made up of nurses. The aged-care union, believe it or not, is made up of aged-care workers. And the miners union—have a guess who runs the miners union? Miners do! So, when you come into this place and you attack unions, you are attacking workers. You are attacking the workers that make up that union. I say shame on you. Shame on you!

Australian workers deserve better than your patronising, belittling contempt for their hard work, particularly when it was these workers that got us through the pandemic and ensured that our economy was one of the few that continued to be on a better trajectory into the future. How dare you attack those workers, who risked their health and safety? Many Australians could stay at home, but many others, like nurses and aged-care workers, had to continue to go to work to ensure that industries continued to run and that loved ones were looked after. You come into this place and you attack them as a means of trying to undermine this bill. Shame on you for doing that. We will not allow that contempt for and that attack on Australian workers. They deserve better, and that is what this bill is about. It is about delivering a better set of conditions under which Australian workers can bargain for their wages into the future.

This bill is not only good for workers; it's good for our economy. We all know that real wages have been falling in Australia. In the last quarter, the September quarter, CPI rose by 7.3 per cent. Guess by how much wages grew in the June quarter, under the wage price index? It was 2.6 per cent on an annual basis. If you can't see from those figures how far workers are falling behind in current circumstances, then you need your head read. The latest GDP figures, in September, showed that inflation isn't being driven by wage rises and that workers are getting less and less of the national income than ever before. In the June quarter, just 44.1 per cent of GDP went to workers' wages. That is a record low in this country. Yet, at the same time, profits as a share of GDP are at almost 30 per cent, the highest level they've ever been except for the 2020 period, with the outlier associated with JobKeeper. Real wages have lagged behind and have lagged behind on productivity growth as well. It shows that wage rises in reality are linked to the ability of workers to negotiate better pay, and that is what this bill is all about and that is what is frustrating about those opposite—that they don't understand that.

Workers need the ability to bargain fairly in their workplaces that they haven't had in the past because of the restrictions that have existed in the act. This bill will deliver those changes to ensure better bargaining conditions and better pay for Australian workers.

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