Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

That means that there is a pathway open to potential criminal penalties many months down the track, but I haven't found anyone who actually supports the possibility of that. And those opposite—you hear the Manager of Opposition Business, 'Come in spinner', you sort of know he's going to do it. There's one reason that that issue hasn't already been fixed. It is because the government went into the Senate and said, 'This issue can be corrected and we should correct it immediately so there's no doubt for business.' Guess why it wasn't corrected? Did the Greens party block its being introduced? No. Did Senator Lambie block its being introduced? No. Did any of the crossbench, even One Nation, say, 'No, no, no, you shouldn't be allowed to fix that'? No. It was Senator Cash. Senator Cash, on behalf of the Liberal and National parties, said, 'How dare you try to make sure that employers are not exposed to criminal penalties?' Now, I know they're addicted to saying no to everything, but when they get to the point where they are so determined to say no that, when no other member of parliament thinks there should be criminal penalties for employers in this area, they will block that just for the hell of it—just to say no, just to feel good about themselves—that is one of the most pathetic examples of self-indulgence you will ever see in this place.

The employers of Australia deserve better than for that to have ever been a fear campaign, and it was only the Liberal and National parties that stood in the way of it. It will be fixed in legislation that I'll introduced later this week. The provisions themselves don't start for six months, so it'll all be fixed in time. But the obsession of those opposite is in saying no to fixing a simple issue for employers, in the same way that they say no to job security for casuals, to minimum standards for gig workers, to minimum standards for the road transport industry and, simply, to a standard where workers can say, 'If it gets completely out of hand, I've got the right to not monitor my phone 24/7.' If you ask most Australians about the concept of whether there should be minimum standards, whether some casuals should be able to convert if they want to or whether you should not have to be on call 24/7, they will say they are all reasonable things. But reasonable doesn't cut it for the Liberal and National parties. They are determined to undermine job security. They are determined to undermine minimum rates of pay.

I say to the House: before we get to 1.30 today, let's get this done. Let's close the loopholes.

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