Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move the amendment as circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 1, item 660, page 229 (after line 18), after Division 1, insert:

Division 1A — Application generally

55A Amending Act does not apply to farming employment

The amendments of this Act made by Schedule 1 to the amending Act do not apply in relation to farming employment. Farming employment will be under general uniform base wage and conditions.

55B Amending Act does not apply to certain businesses

The amendments of this Act made by Schedule 1 to the amending Act do not apply to businesses that employ under 50 full time equivalent employees in regional, rural and remote Australia.

The last speaker spoke about interference on construction sites. I represent Mount Mulligan where 72 human beings ceased to exist in the space of five seconds. I represent Mount Leyshon. My own son worked at Mount Leyshon where 23 human beings ceased to exist in the space of five seconds. One in 30 of the people who worked in the cane fields died in the cane fields. One in 30 people who worked in the mines died in the mines. So don't take lightly the importance of trade unionism. My family—I make no apologies—is a very rich and powerful family, but they could see clearly, as I think all decent people saw clearly, the necessity for some protection and power for the employee class.

I'm moving for the exclusion of farming here. I'm supporting the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 2022, but, in the area of farming, it's just not like it is everywhere else. To give you some idea, the banana industry employs about 6,000 people. I'm in the pub drinking and I say, 'What do you do, Mick?' He said, 'I work in bananas. ' I said, 'Well, you're not working today.' He said, 'I don't work on Tuesdays.' I said, 'Do you work later in the week?' He said: 'Sometimes I work on Thursdays. If you turn up at 6.30 in the morning at the corner of Eden Street, a bus picks you up and takes you out there. If you're not there, well, you're not there.' This is not the ordinary sort of arrangements—and I think everyone here are from cities—that you consider in a city. I just think it's so enormously different.

If someone gets sick, the harvester can't harvest, so he drives around to an old mate of his who's long since retired and he comes out of retirement for a few days. If we're short in a muster, you just go into the pub and drag someone out. I really don't think the sorts of things we're talking about here apply in the farming situation. In some areas it does apply, but I use the word 'farming' not 'agriculture', because agriculture would include the sugar mills and industrial undertakings in farming, and I don't think they should be excluded from the ambit of this legislation. But farming itself, as opposed to agriculture, has to be excluded. Like so many of my colleagues, once again, I move that it be under 50. I think there's a good argument that it should be under 100, but I think really, Minister, 15 is too low. In the Senate, I think you've got to consider raising that a bit.

I want to give some insight into small business. There was a cafe in Hughenden—I think the owner would be happy for me to use his name. It was Jimmy Marendy's cafe. The union bloke came around and said, 'What hours are you working?' The lady told him her hours. He asked: 'How much are you getting paid?' He said, 'Because your hours don't overlap, you should have got another 50 bucks a week off your employer.' So the owner had to pay them backpay. The owner of the cafe was earning less than the employee, which is pretty common in small business. There are some tax benefits, but really I think a lot of small-business owners are earning less than employees. So he shut the cafe and we had no cafe in Hughenden, and six people had lost their jobs. So this is not a shoe that fits all feet. It's just simply not. I think you've got to exclude to a certain level— (Time expired)

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