Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How accurate have reports been about the potential consequences of the government's workplace relations reforms? How will the government's policy to close labour hire loopholes affect workers?

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

I thank the member for Moreton for the question. He may be surprised to learn that the fear campaigns last time were completely wrong and that the fear campaigns this time happen to be wrong again. What we saw today with the employment figures really says it all. I remember when the secure jobs, better pay bill was being debated last year, and we were being told by those opposite that it would be a bad outcome for jobs. They also claimed that it wouldn't deliver what we were saying it would deliver for gender equality. What we see now, when you change the laws in ways such as Minister Rishworth is doing with paid parental leave; such as what Senator Gallagher is doing with implementing the Respect@Work recommendations; and such as what this House did with the secure jobs, better pay changes, improving flexibility and improving pay equity laws, is changes in the workforce.

We have not got what they predicted. We have, today, record employment. We have, today, record employment for women. We have, today, record women's participation. When you look at what has happened over that last period, where has the employment growth come from? Forty-nine per cent of the total employment growth is women moving into full-time jobs. That's what happens when you change the law.

But, not to be deterred, we now see a new fear campaign about closing the labour hire loophole. First of all, we heard of one company claiming it would cost them billions of dollars, even though the policies they were assuming had not yet been determined. We then had an ad campaign based on a policy that was not the government's, not being contemplated by the government and not being contemplated by any government in the world—possibly North Korea, but no one else.

Yesterday we saw a headline claiming that the IR reforms will 'blast a hole', with a multibillion-dollar figure attached, based on new modelling that had been done. We asked the modelling company whether we could see it. They said no. We asked the Minerals Council whether we could see it, and I got yesterday, but not in time for question time. We went through which of our policies they'd modelled. Had they modelled the labour hire loophole? No. Had they modelled our changes to the gig economy? No. Had they modelled criminalising wage theft or multi-employer bargaining? No. They actually hadn't modelled a single Labor policy. They had simply invented what it would look like if you took one per cent out of the economy, out of productivity—and, yes, it would look bad. But for the people's pay packets who are suffering from this loophole, it means they will be paid properly. (Time expired)