Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to associate the government with the member for Casey's heartfelt tribute to his constituent.

I met some wonderful people at parliament today: Sam, Ben, Ella and Pip travelled here to talk to us about the importance of higher wages and better working conditions. Sam's a supermarket worker, Ben's a train driver, Ella's a dancer and Pip works at a chocolate factory. Their stories are the stories of workplaces in modern Australia after nine years of Liberal government. They are stories of exploitation, casualisation, low wages, bad-faith bargaining and job insecurity. Theirs are the stories we need to hear so we can close the loopholes. The Albanese Labor government acted swiftly, following our election 12 months ago, to reverse nine years of industrial relations vandalism under the Liberals, which included nine years of deliberate wage suppression. We raised the minimum wage, we implemented multi-employer bargaining and we abolished the antiworker bodies the Liberals had set up. The passage of the secure jobs, better pay bill was a huge step forward to lifting wages, improving job security and closing the gender pay gap, and just two weeks ago we followed it up with a 15 per cent increase in aged-care workers' pay.

The Albanese Labor government proudly supports higher wages and better conditions for Australian workers. That stands in stark contrast to the Liberals, who in both word and deed want workers to earn less and have less protection in their workplaces. But there's always more to do, and that's why the stories of Sam, Ben, Ella and Pip are so important. Sam has worked at a major supermarket chain for 16 years. She's also a mum who knows how to stretch a dollar. Sam discussed with me the issues that she and co-workers have with rosters and the cost of living. Casualisation is rampant in Sam's workplace, with effectively permanent workers constantly put on casual employment contracts. Her employer uses a loophole to evade putting workers on permanently, robbing them of the financial security they crave. How can employers on one hand cry out for more workers and on the other continue to treat those that they have so poorly? At a time when we are told there is a worker shortage, it makes no sense to keep chopping and changing reliable workers' hours. The constant uncertainty is a drain on workers' health. It feeds anxiety and it makes it harder to plan a weekly family budget.

Ben's been a train driver for 10 years, and this was the second time I'd met him. He reminded me that he'd come to see me in Canberra after the Albanese government was elected and he'd presented me with a dollar coin set in a plaque to commemorate the Prime Minister's absolute and proud support for raising the minimum wage. That plaque and coin have pride of place in my office foyer here in the parliament. Ben wants compulsory arbitration. He says it's too easy for employers to ignore recommendations from the industrial umpire, forcing unions to instead go down the expensive and time-consuming route of civil legal action. He says umpires' rulings should be respected just like they are on the footy field.

Ella works as a dancer and operates freelance, so she's effectively a contractor with an ABN. Her industry has no job security and no minimum standards that she can use as a floor to negotiate her contracts. Ella described freelancing as being 'the poster child for exploitation'.

Finally, Pip has been a machine operator at a famous chocolate manufacturer for 10 years. She says casualisation and financial insecurity lead to poor mental health outcomes for her co-workers and make it harder for workers to seek redress for claims of wage theft.

I thank Sam, Ella, Ben and Pip for meeting with me. I am proud to be in the Labor Party, because it's in our DNA to fight for higher wages and better conditions, and I'm proud to be a member of a government that is so evidently committed to these ideals and to putting them into practice. But we can never rest, and there are always loopholes to close.