But Mr Dutton just can't help himself. He continues to engage in the sort of dangerous and destructive rhetoric that is so characteristic of this Leader of the Opposition. He's becoming a marketing tool for people smugglers—a flashing neon light across the region, making Australia a false honeypot. Let's be clear: the Liberals and Nationals want more boats to arrive. Emboldening people smugglers for political gain is a horrific failure of leadership.
Those opposite should know better than to use Senate processes like this MPI to peddle fear in the community and undermine our border operations. Rear Admiral Brett Sonter, Commander of the Joint Agency Task Force Operation Sovereign Borders, has made it abundantly clear. He said:
The mission of Operation Sovereign Borders remains the same today as it was when it was established in 2013 …
He went on to say one of the reasons was to 'prevent people from risking their lives'. He said:
Any alternate narrative will be exploited by criminal people smugglers …
The safety of the Australian community has been at the heart of every single decision this government has made. Following the High Court's decision, we put in place four additional layers of protection: the standing up of Operation AEGIS, a joint Australian Federal Police/Australian Border Force operation; stringent visa conditions, including curfews, electronic monitoring and reporting requirements; the Community Protection Board, consisting of officials from the Australian Border Force and the Department of Home Affairs, as well as former law enforcement officers; and, of course, court-ordered preventive detention and supervision orders—the same laws the opposition supported, may I add.
Another piece of disinformation from the Leader of the Opposition is that we are cutting funding to the Australian Border Force, a claim that was rubbished in the Sydney Morning Herald in February this year by David Crowe. There has, in fact, been an increase of $470 million under this government, including more than $200 million this year. This is supported by the ABF—Australian Border Force—commissioner, Michael Outram, who said:
Border Force funding is currently the highest it's been since its establishment in 2015 …
Australia's law enforcement agencies are working around the clock to enforce this strict regime and keep the community safe. We have confidence in them. They are doing an extraordinary job—a hard job—and we thank them for their work. They deserve everybody's support, including those opposite.
This government will never give people smugglers a window to resume their exploitative, dangerous operations. We are acting to keep Australia safe. Those opposite choose the low road, egging on people smugglers and dog whistling through their right-wing advertising and media mouthpieces, but this has real-world consequences. More people smugglers mean more grandparents, parents and children being slaughtered at sea. The policy we have is the same policy that was right before, and those opposite voted for what we've got today. We're dealing with it despite the crass political point scoring that comes so naturally to the opposition leader.
]]>When we're looking at issues particularly with the undue pressure that occurs quite often on women, some of the strides ahead we've made include the gender pay gap—which has fallen by 2.1 per cent since this government came to office—and making sure that pay secrecy clauses, that really impact on women, are overridden. Multi-employer bargaining and low-paid bargaining is another area that the opposition say they don't support, and is no doubt one of those areas that they plan on taking out of the industrial relations system. It gives particularly low-paid, largely feminised industries not only a more fair and reasonable bargaining position but more fair and reasonable market opportunities for employees who want to do the right thing. Doing the right thing across the market is the right thing not just for employees but for those companies that want to make sure they have a sustainable workforce. Particularly in feminised industries that have been highly undervalued, that opportunity means we lift many, many women in those feminised industries along with other cohorts of people working in that sector. Gig work is another example where people are disempowered, going to the circumstances many women find in those particular roles in gig work. Much of our economic agenda is targeted to delivering better wages, better conditions and better opportunities for women, and it's good to see that this work is making a meaningful change.
Through the Jobs and Skills Summit and the employment white paper, the government heard loud and clear that supporting families to balance care is critical to ensuring women long-term economic equality. That is why we've introduced this bill to amend the Paid Parental Leave Act—to provide a more generous PPL scheme. The bill will support maternal health and wellbeing, encourage both parents to take leave and give families flexibility to choose how they share and care. The PPL scheme provides payments to eligible working parents and carers, and changes contained in this bill will benefit over 180,000 families each year; that's a lot of Australians that are going to be in a better position as a result of this bill.
The bill will expand the paid parental leave scheme in stages—to 22 weeks from 1 July 2024, to 24 weeks from 1 July 2025 and to the full 26 weeks from 1 July 2026. Reforms will mean that there is an easier claiming process that will allow either parent to be the primary claimant, that parents will be able to take weeks of leave at the same time so they can spend time at home together with their children, and that there will be better access to paid leave for parents whose partners do not meet residency requirements. Under the current measures, if a family wants to share parental leave the birth mother must claim PPL first and then transfer it to the other parent. This is administratively complex and burdensome for parents and can be complex for businesses as well. This degree of simplicity being brought to the system also goes to a point that those who are suggesting amendments for direct payments for small business should be mindful of—that the burdensome administrative complexity has been lessened as part of the frame of this bill.
Dads and partners who meet residency requirements would also be supported to receive PPL in circumstances where the birth mother does not meet the waiting period requirement for newly arrived residents. A total of 1,500 families are set to benefit from this change. It's funny: we talk about figures in this place, but 1,500: is it a great amount, or is it not? I can say to anyone here that if you're one of those 1,500 then it makes a difference to the opportunities it gives to you and your family and to the cherished child. This means that there are 1,500 more families that have been helped by a decision we make here. These are some life-changing, like-developing changes.
The bill also will increase the number of paid parental leave days that a family is able to take together, at the same time, to four weeks. This will increase flexibility for families and support parents to take time off together after a birth. These changes reflect the additional advice on PPL sought by government from the Women's Economic Equality Taskforce and represent the largest investment in PPL since the scheme was introduced in 2011. In preparing its advice, the task force was informed by broad consultation across member networks, briefings from relevant government departments and the commissioning of research from Professor Marian Baird and Associate Professor Elizabeth Hill.
At the committee inquiry into the bill we heard from organisations who were supportive of its objective to empower women and strengthen community wellbeing. The committee received 24 submissions and held a public hearing in Canberra on 23 January 2024. Women's Legal Services Australia, or WLSA, said the bill 'will make the scheme more flexible, accessible and supportive of gender equality, women's participation in the workforce and shared parenting'. The Northern Territory Working Women's Centre said the bill is a 'greatly welcome development in providing support and financial security for families'. The Parenthood, an advocacy organisation representing parents and carers, expressed support for this bill's overdue and welcome reform to the PPL scheme and described it as a 'commendable step towards supporting Australian families'. Ms Helen Dalley-Fisher, Convenor of the Equal Rights Alliance, testified at the hearing that 'the bill will promote women's economic security and women's participation in the workforce' and 'it will also promote redistribution of care work between the genders, which is critical for this bill'.
But all this support for the bill from stakeholders hasn't stopped some of the negativity from those opposite. We've heard from coalition senators this week that changes to the scheme create disputation in workplaces, and this is distinguished because the PPL scheme does not alter existing employer-provided paid or unpaid leave entitlements. This is a critical point. When looking at the exemption of small business in considerations for that amendment, evidence was given by a number of parental gurus about the importance of making sure that for all business, in particular small business, that has a competent employed person who goes on to parental leave, the contact remains between that worker and the employer.
I'm looking forward to further debate about the exemption for small business, because it's an exemption that breaks that connection that's so important in making sure that not only is the person who's on leave engaged but also there's encouragement, desire and a process of constant engagement by the employer. That includes in small business, where it's so essential for those skills to be brought back into the workplace and be celebrated when those workers return to the work environment. The government-funded parental leave pay is a minimum entitlement designed to complement employer-provided leave. That connection is already here, and disconnecting that connection is a dangerous thing, which was pointed out by many of those who gave evidence during the inquiry and a number of groups of small business workforces represented by women's organisations.
According to the Department of Social Services, 61.8 per cent of employers in Australia offer access to parental leave in addition to the government scheme. With this bill, the Albanese government is getting on with the job. The bill goes hand in hand with the government's other measures to improve women's economic security and workforce participation and support gender equality. The first tranche of changes was enacted under the Paid Parental Amendment (Improvements for Families and Gender Equality) Act 2023. Key changes included expanding the paid parental leave maximum entitlement from 18 weeks to 20 weeks by absorbing dad and partner pay; replacing the requirement for the birth parent to claim parental leave pay first; removing the requirement for 12 weeks of parental leave pay to be taken in one consecutive block; introducing a reserved 'use it or lose it' period of two weeks of parental leave pay for each parent; and expanding scheme eligibility by introducing a family income limit of $350,000, which can apply if the person does not meet the individual income limit. In her second reading speech, Minister Rishworth said:
Not only will our changes help families better balance work and care; they will also support participation and productivity over the longer term, providing a dividend for the Australian economy.
When men and women are encouraged to share their caring responsibilities in their child's early years, it means that women can come back into the workforce faster—and so can men, ultimately. The bill will have a noticeable impact on the gender pay gap and the gap in superannuation savings of women later in life. Research from the Australia Institute's Centre for Future of Work highlights that women have significantly less money saved for their retirement. Based on median income data, Australian women earn $136,000 less in super over their working lives than their male counterparts do. Of course, work still needs to be done on making sure that we get a fairer and more equitable system for women in the workforce.
Investing in paid parental leave is vital to the economy, as it helps maintain the participation of women within the workforce. More women getting back into the workforce will contribute to the filling of skills shortages across the economy in large, medium and small businesses—and I emphasise the importance of keeping the connection to small businesses, along with medium and large. We know that if we don't do that it will be a handbrake on productivity. The submission of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to the committee inquiry into the bill's provisions said:
With such a tight labour market prevailing in the current economic conditions, Australian businesses and communities cannot afford to have more employees leave the workforce.
We in the Albanese Labor government are delivering on our commitment to delivering more support for working families, improving outcomes for children, and advancing gender equality.
]]>But, predictably, we read in the Australian Financial Review this week that wage rises are the main driver of inflation in Australia—and, of course, that's been reiterated by the Liberals and Nationals over the last week. Innes Willox, chief executive of the Ai Group, was similarly alarmist, expressing:
… concerns over the direction of wages under the Government's new workplace relations arrangements.
But neither Treasury nor the RBA believe there is a serious risk of a wage price spiral. The Secretary of the Treasury, Dr Steven Kennedy, said, 'There has been no evidence of a wage price spiral emerging' as recently as February this year, at the Senate Economics Legislation Committee when he was answering questions. The Reserve Bank board said:
Wages growth has picked up but is not expected to increase much further and remains consistent with the inflation target …
This is more representation of the facts than we are seeing from the Liberals and Nationals.
The reason we're seeing this false dichotomy between improving wages and tackling inflation is: for the coalition, it's never the right time for real wages to rise. Former finance minister Mathias Cormann described low wage growth as a deliberate design feature of their economic architecture. More recently, the shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor, said our industrial relations agenda will start a wage price spiral and damage the productivity of small and family businesses. Well, the facts don't hold up. What is factual is we are seeing real wage growth. What isn't factual is that the Liberals and Nationals have been arguing all week about the wage problems. The wage problem isn't when you can start turning around and paying your bills when you're getting paid extra; the wage problems are those that stand in the way of the cost-of-living relief Labor has put forward.
We always know that the Liberals and Nationals are always for low pay. Rather than wages growth, experts point to price gouging and big business profiteering as the real cause behind domestic inflation. A recent report and inquiry into price gouging and unfair pricing practices, handed down by Professor Allan Fels, found that business pricing has added significantly to inflation in recent times. He identified:
Not only are many consumers overcharged continuously, but 'profit push' pricing has added significantly to inflation in recent times—
Particularly in supermarkets, banks and airlines, he went on to say.
We understand Australians are getting slugged at the checkout by Aldi as well, and other big retailers. The government has clearly put out the line of fight to hold those supermarkets accountable for their pricing, and to make sure pricing is transparent and fair. Just last year we reviewed the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct dispute resolution provisions, and this year we've asked Dr Craig Emerson to review the code itself. We've increased the penalty for anticompetitive conduct and banned unfair contract terms. The Prime Minister has made it clear that if the price of meat, fruit and vegetables is going down at the farm gate then we should be seeing cheaper prices on supermarket shelves. We've established the competition task force in the Commonwealth Treasury, and they're already working on many of the issues raised in Professor Fels's report—merger laws and non-compete clauses, for example. We've consulted on prohibition against unfair trading practices and are considering stakeholder feedback. These are all important parts of the government's broader efforts to boost competition and put downward pressure on the price of essentials for Australians.
The coalition, being opposed to real wage increases, think that it's right and fair to make hardworking Australians foot the bill for corporate profiteering, rather than positively contribute to our competition agenda. Senator Hume has used the cost-of-living committee to reiterate their opposition to our industrial relations agenda, which is seeing real wage growth. Our government sees strong and sustainable wage growth as part of the solution to the cost-of-living challenge—not part of the problem, as expressed by the Liberals and Nationals throughout this week. We've seen speaker after speaker, Liberal and National, in the Senate and in the House, say that the sky is going to fall in because workers are getting a real pay rise. Senator Cash said in August 2022 that our secure jobs, better pay legislation was going to return Australia to the Dark Ages and lead to more industrial disputes. So the story goes on. From 2022, we've seen it proved to be utterly untrue, because the ABS data instead points to 168,100 fewer working days lost to industrial action than the previous year.
The coalition have voted against every measure to get wages moving and have now confirmed their workplace relations policy is, as Angus Taylor said on Insiders just in February this year, to 'take a targeted package of repeals to the next election'. The opposition's workplace relations policy is a targeted package against wage rises, against job security, against safer workplaces and against closing the gender pay gap. And of course Peter Dutton, the opposition leader, wants to end the weekend by forcing all workers to be on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week without a right to reasonably disconnect.
Teachers at the Senate inquiry into closing the loopholes said that they were overworked and raised the alarm on digital apps that literally can create connections between parents and teachers 24/7. Police officers at the inquiry warned that the pressures placed on their members in their roles are so intense that the right to disconnect or disengage is absolutely essential. While these rights are already contained in some enterprise agreements, the Police Federation of Australia was clear that it would greatly welcome harmonisation across the country. An Essential poll found in February that the vast majority of voters believe that employers should be legally prevented from unreasonably contacting employees after hours.
Employees and voters wanted a right to disconnect, but Peter Dutton has vowed to repeal it. There's not really a right they don't want to take off you, and there's not a right they want to give you, because they are the party for low wages. If there's ever an opportunity to cut the legs from underneath the community on paying wages, they'll be at it. If there's any way to oppose it, they'll oppose it, because that's what the Liberal Party and the Nationals are about—low pay, low wages and the inability to deal with the cost of living.
The Albanese government is committed to making sure that more Australians are in jobs and that they're earning more, and with Labor's tax cuts they'll keep more of what they earn in their pockets. I'll say this quite clearly: throughout the debates on both the personal tax decreases and closing the loopholes, we've seen a consistent argument from the Liberal and National parties about middle class Australia getting it in the neck. That's because, when wages go up, they should be going down, as far as those opposite are concerned. When tax relief is given to middle- and low-income earners in this country, they constantly bemoan the fact that all Australians are receiving a tax benefit in this latest announcement. Quite clearly, this government has, at the forefront of its mind, making sure that middle Australians keep more of what they earn in their pockets from tax decreases and obtain fairer, real wage increases in the future to deal with the cost-of-living pressures that every Australian is facing.
]]>Australia has a responsibility to make sure that migrants who are working here are entitled to fair pay and safety standards. The 'closing the loopholes' act that we passed this month will mean gig workers finally have a pathway towards minimum standards. Now, many gig platforms supported the reforms, but cowboys like HungryPanda didn't see the writing on the wall and have slashed their base rate for deliveries from $7 to $4, a decrease of 42 per cent. They have increased a bonus scheme where riders must complete a set number of orders in an unrealistic and unsafe time
They've introduced a bonus scheme where riders must complete a set number of orders in an unrealistic and unsafe time frame.
On Friday, Zhuoying said: 'Today is my 40th birthday, but it's not a beautiful birthday. I hope to take action to protect my legitimate rights.' Peter Dutton and the coalition stood with HungryPanda and voted against legislation to give minimum standards to riders like Zhuoying. But, while Zhuoying and her colleagues are standing up for their rights on the street, the Albanese Labor government is standing up for their rights in this place.
]]>Zhuoying is a HungryPanda rider who has bravely spoken out about HungryPanda's treatment of its workers. HungryPanda recently cut the base rate for deliveries from $7 to $4, 57 per cent of the previous rate. They introduced a bonus scheme where riders must complete a set number of orders in an unrealistic, unsafe time frame. It's dangerous, and workers are getting injured. Together with the Transport Workers Union, she has organised peaceful protests, just as three years ago HungryPanda faced six weeks of protests from riders over slashed pay and for sacking two riders who spoke out about it. The protests were successful, and those workers were reinstated. This time, HungryPanda has taken a different strategy. Instead of sacking Zhuoying, they've just stopped giving her orders. In 100 hours logged in to work, she has earned just $84. That's 84c an hour. Eighty-four cents an hour is the system that the Liberals and Nationals are trying to maintain.
Zhuoying can't pay her rent. Her housemates are shouting her food. Despite all that, she's been here all week speaking to members and senators about the need for change. This afternoon, this chamber can do the right thing. Zhuoying told me:
I hope all the riders will be treated fairly. I look forward to the bill passing, not just for me, but for justice for all gig workers and the whole transport industry.
Good on you, Zhuoying.
]]>Of course money plays a role, and that's a critical piece that every government has played in making sure that we do get changes. The Gonski support that this government and previous iterations of Labor governments have taken up in support of improved funding is critical in terms of making sure that we have better outcomes in our schools. The government's taking critical steps towards fairer funding through the O'Brien review and the upcoming negotiation of the National School Reform Agreement for 2025. That's a fundamental process of making sure that we get it all right. Funding models, funding arrangements and navigating state and territory engagement are critical pieces of making sure that we get the whole cake made, that we get the ingredients right, and that, when it's baked and it rises, it rises for everybody.
Currently, no public school outside the ACT is at the full and fair funding level. As we know, the Albanese government remains committed to working with states and territories so that every school has 100 per cent of fair funding levels in the next National School Reform Agreement. We're committed to that. We've said that on numerous occasions. The bill that's proposed by the Greens would commit the government to unilaterally increasing its share of government school funding while ignoring the role of the state and territory governments in funding schools that they administer and the established process of the National School Reform Agreement. This is a process through which funding can be tied to agreed reforms. That's the critical piece. This is the way that you actually get agreed reforms. That's what a federation does. That's why we are in a federation. That's how the federation works.
The Commonwealth is currently negotiating with the states and territories on the next National School Reform Agreement. We are using this opportunity to ensure that the funding the Commonwealth provides to states and territories is tied to reforms which will make our education system better and fairer. The Productivity Commission found that the equity gap in schools widened under the coalition's schools agreement signed by the member for Cook. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds were found to be three times more likely to be behind. Eighty-six thousand students didn't meet either the basic literacy or the basic numeracy standard. It's clear that students, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, were being left behind under the coalition's schools agreement. It requires a sophisticated, thoughtful and appropriate approach to make sure that we rectify those mistakes that were made so glaringly by the coalition. The Albanese government is determined to make the Australian education system better and fairer for everybody.
Sitting suspended from 09:30 to 11:00
As I was saying before, the Productivity Commission found that the equity gap in schools widened under the coalition's school agreement signed by the member for Cook. It's clear that students, especially from disadvantaged backgrounds, were being left behind under the coalition's school agreement. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds were three times more likely to be left behind. Eighty-six thousand students didn't meet either the basic literacy standard or the numeracy standard.
The Albanese government is determined, as I said before, to make the Australian education system better and fairer. The Albanese government are making meaningful progress towards our commitment to work with states and territories to get every school to a hundred per cent of its fair funding level.
On 31 January 2024 Minister Clare signed a statement of intent with the Western Australian Minister for Education, committing to fund all Western Australian government schools to a hundred per cent of the SRS and implementing reforms as part of the next NSRA. These are significant changes. This is actually Labor delivering on what it committed to do. This is righting those wrongs that were done under the Morrison government. This is about disadvantaged students now getting a leg-up from the Labor Albanese government in cooperation with the states. And this is not the end of the project. This is an important part of the pathway of the project—our ambition and our desire and our determination to make sure that we deliver on those commitments that we've made for a hundred per cent of the SRS to be delivered.
The Australian government will invest, in the case of Western Australia, an additional $777.4 million over 2025 to 2029 in Western Australian public schools from 2025. Under that agreement, the most disadvantaged schools will reach full and fair funding first in 2025. We are delivering. Every child in Western Australia will attend a fully funded school in 2026. I'd like to commend the Western Australian government for taking up this historic agreement with the Albanese government. It's a momentous achievement for both governments which will help students from all backgrounds achieve their full potential.
Importantly, the National School Reform Agreement will tie funding to reforms to improve outcomes. That's critical. That's why you do negotiations with states, that's why you reach agreements—because it's a shared responsibility between the parties, between our very states and between the states and the government nationally. These are critical reforms that take place across our states and territories, and to have reform in this space you have to be able to reach agreement. Western Australia's been a trailblazer in that important step forward that we've committed to and that we've delivered in Western Australia and committed to delivering across the country.
Importantly, as I say, the National School Reform Agreement will tie funding to reforms to improve outcomes. That is the fundamental, critical thing. That's one of the reasons I'm opposed to this proposition put forward by the Greens—because we have to actually make sure that we have tied funding to reforms to improve outcomes. That's a shared discussion, that's a shared negotiation and that's a shared ambition to make sure that we deliver together with the states, in cooperation.
Specific reforms are subject to negotiations with each of the states and territories. By tying funding to reform, the next schools agreement is our opportunity to make our education system better and fairer. It's fundamental. You've got to get the parties into a room. You've got to have those negotiations. You've got to talk it through. You've got to reach those ambitions together. And you've got to have the form on how those reforms work. We're tying the funding to reforms, as per Minister Clare's announcement on 29 March 2023 about the review to inform a better and fairer education system. He said that the reforms will be focused on driving real and measurable improvements for students and will further support student outcomes and wellbeing.
The review was published on Monday 11 December 2023 and has advised on key reforms related to equity, wellbeing and teacher workforce. These are significant pieces of change that need to be, and are being, appropriately negotiated with the states and territories. I repeat: they are being delivered. In Western Australia, they are being delivered in the form and the format that has been clearly spelt out between the two governments. There is $777.4 million over 2025 to 2029 in additional investment and funding going to Western Australian schools.
The Australian government is committed to ensuring that every child has access to high-quality education. As part of this, the Australian government is working with state and territory governments to get every school to 100 per cent of its fair funding level. This will ensure that every school is appropriately resourced to provide a high-quality education to all students, to make sure that we pick up those failures from the previous coalition government, to make sure that we have the opportunities for all Australians, including disadvantaged Australians, so that we can rise all boats in the Australian education system and make sure the opportunities for our teachers are more and more robust and we are dealing with the challenges that many in the teacher workforce have.
The agreement reached with the Western Australian government is a landmark moment for public education. I'm sure that the senators representing Western Australia—and we heard comments earlier from beside me—are pleased to hear that the Albanese government, with that investment, will make those real changes. The bill being proposed by the Greens would see the Commonwealth increase its share of the SRS from 20 per cent to 25 per cent in one year for government schools, without transition. That does not make sense. If you want to get the reforms that many of us want—and there is lots of common ground that we have within this place—then you have to tie the transition funding proposed in the National School Reform Agreement together. You have to tie it together. You don't simply go off and say, 'Here's the amount in one year, 20 to 25 per cent.' That's where the parties come together and have those proper discussions. Let's make sure those discussions take place. Let's make sure that the Western Australian program is an example of what can occur elsewhere.
The next National School Reform Agreement will make sure the funding is tied to the sorts of things we need in our schools that will help our kids to learn and to realise their full potential. The reforms this agreement will implement will make a huge difference to the students, schools and families in Western Australia. These reforms will mean that students are more likely to catch up and stay caught up, closing the education gap. They are crucial to maximising Australia's potential and preparing for the country's future. These are fundamental, important steps.
As we said to some of the comments from the coalition, this government is absolutely committed to working collaboratively with each state and territory to achieve full and fair funding for schools. But, to reach the goal, the Commonwealth needs to chip in. States need to chip in. We need to work together to get the job done, and I'm confident that we can do that. Unlike the coalition, we are more interested in delivering outcomes than in picking fights and placing blame. The former coalition government was notorious for pushing the job onto someone else. That's not our approach. We're making sure that these reforms and these opportunities are done in cooperation with the states while we incentivise those sorts of arrangements, as we've seen in Western Australia. We've seen that people can have those hard conversations to come up with the right answers to deal with disadvantage, deal with opportunity and deal with the future.
The former coalition government was notorious for pushing jobs onto someone else. This government is determined to make the education system better and fairer across the board. For schools this means achieving full and fair funding and tying the funding to reforms that will close the education gap, improving student wellbeing and attracting and retaining a stronger teacher workforce.
The coalition claim that funding won't fix the issue. Funding alone won't make our education system better and fairer, but that is why we are tying funding to reforms in the next National School Reform Agreement. (Time expired)
]]>Road transport workers have the deadliest job in Australia. At least 54 truck drivers and four gig workers were killed at work in 2023 alone. If that's not enough for the people who oppose this bill, then consider the 177 other road users who were killed in truck crashes last year. That could be you. It could be your mate. It could be your family. You could be driving home from work or doing the school run and be in the wrong place at the wrong time: you come across a truck driver who hasn't slept in days because they cannot afford to have a proper rest.
At the Senate inquiry into this bill we heard from a lot of transport workers. One person, Rob Ireland, who has worked in the transport industry for 30 years, told me during the inquiry—and this has stuck in my mind—that breaching fatigue laws 'was literally the difference between having work or being let go'. He said:
For about 12 years … I would work without stopping, Sunday through to Saturday. To stay awake on the road, I turned to methamphetamines. … eight hours of sleep a week is what I lived on … Once I was awake for 13 days straight. … Another time I thought I had run off the highway because I had fallen asleep. I sat bolt upright and grabbed for the gearstick and the steering wheel. My wife grabbed my face and let me know I was in my bed. I dreamt I had fallen asleep at the wheel.
Rob's story is not unique. If you speak to just about any truckdriver in the country they'll have a similar story or they'll know others who have similar stories. In trucking you compete on what runs you can get down, done cheaply and in the shortest possible time. That means cutting out sleep, cutting out rest breaks, skimping on truck maintenance and sometimes taking stimulants and taking other risks, all to keep afloat.
Since the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal was abolished in 2016 more than 1,100 people have died in truck crashes. That's more than double the number of Australians who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. When something isn't working as intended you don't throw the whole thing out and leave an unregulated race to the bottom. You fix it. Since 2016 there has been nothing propping up this industry. Without a floor, there's always someone more desperate who will promise to deliver goods more cheaply and more quickly.
What this bill does is very simple. The industry came together with the Fair Work Commission and set minimum standards. That's what this bill suggests. They can collectively say, 'Enough is enough, and none of us want to be pressured to the point where we have blood on our hands.' It holds the big businesses at the top of these supply chains fully accountable. We are prepared to do that. Are those on the opposite side, the Liberals and the Nationals, prepared to do that?
This bill is supported by every road transport employer, employer group in transport or owner-driver association, including groups that campaigned for the RSRT, the last tribunal to be abolished, eight years ago. They support this bill because they recognise that the massacre that's taken place on our roads since then cannot go on. They want to compete on a fair playing field on productivity and innovation, rather than on who can squeeze the most driving hours into a day.
Cameron Dunn, the managing director of the mid-size transport company FBT Transwest, told the inquiry:
This is the first time in my 37 years in the industry that I've seen the industry come together and actually be on the same page … the top of the supply chain … needs to be held accountable …We don't want it to be a race to the bottom …
Mr Dunn said:
… this bill … will hold the economic decision-maker to account …
As Mr Dunn and others in the industry recognised, this bill is about backing good businesses. It's about backing safe businesses. It's about backing good businesses that do the right thing. There were 347 insolvencies in the transport industry last year, because the commercial pressures from the top of the chain are so extreme. When all the employer, owner-driver and employee groups in the road transport sector are on board, why are the Liberals and Nationals opposed? Who are they actually representing? They're only representing multinationals like Aldi at the top the chain, who profit from the rivers of blood on our streets.
Then there's gig work. There have been at least 15 gig worker deaths in recent years. I say 'at least' because there has been a track record of these deaths going unreported. Inquiry after inquiry over the last five to six years has found that delivery drivers are earning as little as $6 an hour. Just as in trucking, when you're paid per trip and there are no minimum standards, there is a commercial incentive to take deadly risks. In the inquiry, we heard from Utsav, a Canberra based gig worker, who said:
… we're doing … 80 hours—across seven days a week … because we don't get the minimum wage. If the bill is passed, and we get a basic minimum wage, then we will not have to rush for orders … and … these injuries could be prevented …
It's so clear and obvious that Uber, Menulog and DoorDash support the need for minimum standards, but those opposite oppose it.
It isn't just in the gig industry that this is hurting people. We have heard from platforms in other sectors, including Hireup, Humdrum and Sidekicker, who support minimum standards. But there is one platform, Mable, that opposes these reforms. There's always somebody, isn't there? There is always somebody who wants to go the low road. Mable is the richest care-sector gig platform. It is backed by global private equity funds and has deep links to the Liberal Party. Mable workers regularly earn below the minimum wage for NDIS and aged-care work. When Mable's chair was asked about carers who can't make a living on her platform, she said:
Maybe the answer is that small business isn't for them.
So Mable is saying that, if you're getting ripped off, it's your own fault for not being savvy enough. In Mable's world, there is no accountability for Mable. They just clip the ticket, and everything is the carer's own fault.
Never mind the evidence we received the very same day from Mable carers. One disability support worker on Mable said:
… I don't get what I would get as an employee …
The witness said:
I had to charge lower and lower because clients would negotiate my prices down … I had no money put aside for superannuation. Also … I had to do all the unpaid meet and greets. There's so much pressure to do unpaid work, and you can't claim for travel costs … The jobs aren't safe, too. One client recently was rather heavy. He had a hoist and needed a two-person transfer. But they were asking only for one support worker … There has to be some sort of safety net for us …
Another Mable carer told us:
… the Mable … rates don't … account for you having a qualification … Lots of people are jumping in and there is lots of competition to beat down wages.
… … …
Without minimum standards who is going to protect our rights?
Mable's answer to these highly trained and qualified women is that, if their prices are getting negotiated below the minimum wage, it's their own fault. But it's exactly the same situation we see in trucking, where there's always someone who will work for less. It's a race to the bottom, leaving care workers broken and destitute, and it poses massive safety risks for disabled and elderly Australians. The aged-care royal commission sounded the alarm about Mable, saying their model is not suitable for care work. The inquiry heard the same from disability advocates. Inclusion Australia CEO Catherine McAlpine told us:
What we see in the gig economy, particularly, is that workers either have no training or that the training responsibilities end up coming to participants and families … To have minimum qualifications, minimum standards and minimum rates of pay, would increase the quality of supports.
On the one side we have workers, unions, disability advocates, academics, the aged-care royal commission, other gig platforms and other care providers all saying we need minimum standards in care work, and on the other side we have one gig platform—Mable—backed by global private equity, arguing, 'Let's rip it up.' I know whose side I'm on. I am on the side of vulnerable Australians and the people who care for them.
This bill also undoes the damage the Morrison government did to casual workers on sham contracting. It used to be that, if you wanted to work out whether someone was a casual or a contractor, you would look at the reality of their work arrangements. The long-established legal principle was that, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. As Professor Sean Cooney told the inquiry, that's how the law works in New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and California. The Morrison government replaced that with a law that said, 'If your employer writes in your contract that you are a casual or that you are a contractor, then that's that. It puts all the power in the hands of the employer to strip away your leave entitlements, strip away your job security and dictate how you work. It was a ridiculous law when it was brought in. It contradicts common sense. It ignores the reality of the bargaining imbalance between employers and their employees.
This bill also gives the Fair Work Commission the power to waive the 24-hour notice period a union official has to give an employer to enter a work site in case of suspected wage theft. In December we made wage theft a crime. The Liberals are Nationals voted against it. They're in favour of wage theft because their paymasters down at the Minerals Council are in charge of their position on IR. But here's the thing about workplace rights: if you can't enforce it, it's meaningless. It can be hard for a worker to figure out what they've lost in stolen wages. It's hard to know the exact figure. That's particularly true for vulnerable workers who aren't familiar with their workplace rights, who have insecure jobs and who can be fired or lose shifts if they ask questions.
The Fair Work Ombudsman does its best, but they can't be everywhere. In fact, two-thirds of the money it recovered from wage theft in recent years came from self-reports. Only unions have the expertise and the breadth required in officials who are highly trained, highly experienced, have a permit granted by the commission, have passed character tests and are experts on workplace rights. This law means that, if a business is stealing your wages, you can turn to the union for help, and they can inspect your pay records and figure out what's going on.
Remember: we're only talking about cases where the Fair Work Commission is satisfied that wage theft may be taking place. The current system gives the wage thief a 24-hour heads up before the union can help. In what other part of the legal system do we give people strongly suspected of a crime a 24-hour head start on the authorities? It's completely ridiculous, and this law closes that loophole. The whole bill closes the loopholes that some businesses have used to drive down wages and make jobs less safe and less secure to compete unfairly with good businesses. This bill is a cost-of-living bill. This bill will save businesses. This bill will save lives, and it must be passed.
]]>… there are unscrupulous employers in some industries who blatantly breach the law …
It handed down 22 recommendations. That was five years ago. The previous Liberal-National government abandoned many of those recommendations, despite having years in charge to act on them.
Then, in 2021, there was the Senate Select Committee on Job Security, which I chaired. We heard from five courageous workers from Vanuatu and Samoa who had earned as little as $6 an hour picking fruit. As one of them, Sergio, told us:
I came here to work for money. I did not come here as a slave.
We have to extend that inquiry because concerns were raised that workers were punished by their labour hire employer for giving evidence to the Senate.
We on this side have not forgotten the horrific stories that have come out about the treatment of temporary migrants. Under those opposite, our migration system effectively became a caste system, where temporary migrants would come to this country and be freely ripped off, paid below the minimum wage and denied basic rights and protections—and if they complained, they were duly deported. We saw the 7-Eleven scandal, going all the way back to 2016. Pranay Alawala, an international student, was owed more than $30,000 in unpaid wages. When he confronted his boss about the money, the franchisee's lawyer sent him a letter threatening to report him to Immigration for working more than 20 hours per week—a breach of his student visa conditions. Mohammed, a student from India, was paid just $5 an hour at 7-Eleven. When he complained and attempted to resign, he, too, was threatened with deportation. These are just a few of the stories of how shonky employers have exploited vulnerable people in the workplace.
This bill makes it a criminal offence to use a person's migration status to exploit them at work. That means employers threatening temporary migrants with deportation will now be treated as the criminals they really are. This bill enacts recommendation 19 of the Migrant Workers Taskforce, which the Liberal and Nationals were handed five years ago and never acted on. This bill also enacts recommendation 20 of the Migrant Workers Taskforce, which will prohibit employers who exploit workers from engaging more workers on temporary visas. This is absolutely essential to breaking the cycle of exploitation. Again, this was given to the previous government five years ago, and it was never acted on. How many thousands of migrant workers have suffered as a result of their indifference?
Many of these horrific stories have only come to light because of the tireless work of the trade union movement and the services they support, including the Migrant Workers Centre in Victoria and the Visa Assist service in Unions NSW. When people come into this chamber and denigrate unions, this is what they're denigrating: services which have provided a voice to the voiceless; vulnerable people who have come to this country to get an education and to build a better life for their families, and who have been subject to some of the most horrific abuse; migrant workers who have been sexually assaulted by their employers and suffered horrific injuries at work or been jammed into unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.
Last year, Unions NSW brought a delegation of migrant workers into parliament to discuss these issues. I met with two of those workers. One was a woman on a 457 temporary skilled visa who worked as a massage therapist. She was forced to pay her wages to her employer, who also restricted her movement. When she complained, she was threatened with deportation, and threats were made against her family's safety. When she finally escaped her employer, she was in breach of her visa conditions. She came to the union for help.
Likewise, the other person I met here was on a PALM scheme temporary visa, working in fruit picking. He wasn't provided with suitable safety equipment, and one day he sustained an injury that resulted in him partially losing vision in one eye. Then his employer forced him to come back sooner than advised by the doctor, which exacerbated the injury and forced him to get surgery, resulting in the loss of vision becoming worse. As a final insult, his employer then stopped sponsoring his visa, which made it difficult for him to remain in Australia and to get medical treatment which was unavailable in his home country.
These stories are just horrific, but they are out there and they happen far more than you think and to many, many people. As Unions NSW secretary Mark Morey has said:
The current system that was established by the former coalition government … is set up to facilitate ongoing exploitation.
I want to thank the minister for immigration for stepping in and assisting those two workers. As Minister Giles has said:
When migrant workers are being underpaid—it hurts all of us, driving wages and conditions down for everyone …
If not for unions, many of these stories would never have come out. I want to acknowledge the Retail Supply Chain Alliance, the Transport Workers Union and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, who have shone a spotlight on these issues in recent years.
The laws introduced in this bill are important, but the fact is that legal protections do not help people if they cannot be enforced. They need to be able to be enforced. A set of laws are just that—something that's proclaimed. It's in a written document. You might even read it on the internet. But what gives it life and breath is the opportunity to turn around and speak out—the opportunity to actually have people who support you when you speak out. That's the critical role that's played by unions. We know that the Fair Work Ombudsman will never and could never have the breadth and resources required to deal with the scale of exploitation of migrant workers. That's why ensuring highly trained and officially registered union officials have the powers needed to inspect compliance with workplace laws is so important.
Right now, in another piece of legislation to come before this chamber, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill, there are measures to remove the red tape around unions' right of entry where there is a reasonable suspicion of wage theft. Wage theft impacts migrant workers on an astronomical scale. The final report of the Migrant Workers' Taskforce cited a 2016 survey, which found the following:
of migrant workers—
said they earned $12 per hour or less and 46 per cent said they earned $15 per hour or less …
When wage theft is endemic, we need to cut red tape in order to allow unions to help uncover it—because, when good employers are doing the right thing, they're competing with mongrel employers doing the wrong thing. You have to make sure the playing field is not only justified for business and justified for the workers; it's about fairness within our economy.
There's a reason that the only groups opposing those laws are groups like the National Farmers Federation. It's because some of their members—some of their members—have profited from exploiting and ripping off vulnerable people. But what about the farmers who are doing the right thing? Why should they be undercut by a minority who are mistreating their employees?
I commend these laws and other protections for migrant workers introduced in the protecting worker entitlements bill last year. But, again, these laws will need to be enforced, and unions must play a pivotal role in doing so.
It's not surprising that big business groups like the National Farmers Federation and their lackeys in the Liberal Party and the National Party oppose that concept, because the Liberals and Nationals are always for low pay. At every step, they're always opposed to fair pay, fair conditions and a fair playing field between businesses. They are opposed to horticultural workers being entitled to minimum wage. They refused to implement the recommendations of the Migrant Workers Taskforce for years.
I know a number of the senators on the opposite side and I know they hold very similar values to many Australians on these issues I've raised. So I put to all of those who are in the majority of the Liberal Party and National Party: start holding the values of all Australians. It's so critical. What this bill goes to the heart of and what we were seeing through the job security inquiry that I chaired was that, under the old system, if your employer abused you, if your employer ripped you off, if you left that employer, it was called absconding. In actual fact, some in this chamber will remember two really wonderful missionaries that live and operate in Vanuatu and are Australian citizens operating in Bundaberg. One of those wonderful people is an ex-blackbirded granddaughter of a blackbirded family who turned around and was one of those missionaries. They had people coming to their place after they had been abused and had money stolen from them to get sustenance, to be able to eat and to work out, 'What in the heck do I do?' because they had broken the law by breaking the chain.
Slavery under the old laws, under those existing laws, was identified by the migrant taskforce and also by the job security inquiry. They found a critical need for these laws to be changed. There is a critical need for these new laws to make sure that those fighting for what's right and those who have the strength to turn around and say, 'I'm going to fight for what's right,' have the capacity to turn around and stand up for what's right without having the repercussions of the state, the national government, abusing what should be a human right within this country. Be under no illusion. This is a human rights rectification in the Australian economy. It means that good businesses will have a chance to compete with businesses that have been doing this sort of atrocious exploitation in so many parts of the labour market across the economy.
Too many of those opposite have consistently opposed every measure we've introduced to improve pay, improve job security and close the loopholes some businesses use to undermine our laws and unfairly compete with businesses doing the right thing. Here's a chance not only to do the right thing by passing law into paper, emails and technology. This is an opportunity to empower people in other legislation that complements this to make sure that it's actually a living, breathing document so that next time you abscond you are not absconding; you have a right.
]]>The widespread exploitation of migrant workers in this country has been widely understood for many years. In 2015 the Senate Education and Employment Committee conducted an inquiry into the treatment of temporary work visa holders, and the final report was titled A national disgrace: the exploitation of temporary work visa holders. In 2016 the Migrant Workers Taskforce was established to look into these issues. In 2018 the Fair Work Ombudsman's harvest trail inquiry reported a culture of noncompliance in the horticulture sector when it comes to—
Debate interrupted.
]]>The road transport reforms are supported by every major road transport employer association in this country. I don't have the time to list them all, but I do want to call out the National Road Freighters Association, who supported the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal but support these reforms. Mark Reynolds, an owner-driver and a board member of the NRFA, said:
Our industry is in a desperate race to the bottom. … This legislation will play a vital role in establishing minimum standards for all and allowing the industry to become safe, viable and sustainable.
There it is in black and white. Owner-drivers, road transport employers, transport workers and unions are all on the same page, calling for life-saving reform.
It's the same in the gig economy, where Uber, Menulog and DoorDash have joined the TWU and gig workers in calling for life-saving reform. Utsav, a gig worker here in Canberra told us:
I work 40 to 60 hours every week, and sometimes even 80 hours, to make the basic survival payments to pay my bills.
… … …
I haven't slept more than four hours in two years.
That isn't safe. At least 14 gig workers are dead. At least 209 people have been killed in truck crashes in this year alone.
Everyone says there is a need for reform, except the greedy racketeers at the Minerals Council, who make a buck by squeezing the transport industry literally to death. In the new year, we'll see which businesses those opposite really represent.
]]>We have heard from Emma Foreman, who has worked as a midwife for six years and has been elected by her peers to be the representative for the last three years. Emma said: 'I might be one of the four midwives who are put on a 32-bed patient ward. They are impossible ratios. I pushed forward, and I moved that we deal with those ratio issues. It was about improving our women's care and our professional standards of care and about our patients' safety. As soon as I began to raise those issues, I was public enemy No. 1.'
It's not just protections. We heard through the inquiry that delegates improve communications between employers and employees, which can deliver productivity benefits for everyone. That's how it works—cooperatively, together. That's what the bill is about. They don't want it, because they know who's in charge. When we're talking about nurses and teachers and aged-care workers having a voice in their workplace, are those opposite seriously going to vote against that? Of course, those opposite have already voted for the rest of the bill—the better support for the first responders with PTSD, the better protections for workers subject to domestic violence, expanding the functions of the asbestos agency to include silica dust and closing the small business redundancy payments loophole. We'll see if those opposite are going to backflip on their support for those as well.
The fact is that, as you through this bill, item by item, every single provision is about making work safer or about making work fairer, and about decent employers having decent competition, not just supporting the racketeers at the top as that mob opposite is doing. We know the opposition leader, Mr Dutton, always stands for low wages and insecure work. We know that Mr Dutton stands with billionaires like his best mate, Gina Rinehart, over working people. But I also know there are senators opposite who say they feel very uncomfortable about this. We'll see if they do the right thing today, won't we?
I also want to touch very briefly on some of the reforms that have been delayed until next year. It's absolutely essential that, when we return in February, we pass the rest of the bill. The bill will make a life-changing difference to labour hire workers at Qantas, BHP and across the country. It will make a massive difference to the families of those killed at work. Workers who have had their wages stolen will now have a recourse to obtain justice. But we also need gig workers and others on our roads to be protected. The Liberals and Nationals go to this Christmas without the life-saving protections that those workers would get. I say this to those opposite: don't stand in the way of the industry, the workers, the owner-drivers and all those that say that that bill has to be put through. When it comes up next year, vote for it.
]]>We're about to find out whether all the grandstanding from those opposite about Qantas in recent months was worth anything. In my three decades representing Qantas workers, I never once saw those opposite lift a single finger to help those workers. Even as workers were being smashed by the labour hire loophole created by Alan Joyce himself, they did nothing. Even as Alan Joyce split the workforce across 38 different companies, they did nothing. There are Qantas planes right now in the air where there are four flight attendants employed by four different companies on four different rates of pay, all set up by Qantas. The cabin supervisor may be earning less than the people they're supervising because of this rort they want to protect. Those opposite knew about it. We've been telling them for years, and they never did a single thing about it. Even as Qantas workers were being illegally sacked in their thousands to be replaced by cheap, disposable labour hire, they did nothing.
When I pointed this out at a Canberra hearing on the closing loopholes bill last month, Senator McKenzie said something that actually shocked me. She said:
… I ask you to withdraw those accusations because I am not on a unity ticket with Qantas and Alan Joyce when it comes to ripping off Qantas workers through labour hire. I am not. I never have been.
So there you have it. We're about to find out whether Senator McKenzie will be true to those words that she uttered that day. Senator McKenzie has an opportunity right now today to make her position on Qantas ripping off workers through their labour hire very clear, as does everyone in this chamber. Either you are voting for closing the loophole or you're voting for keeping it open. It's that simple. What's it going to be? Are you on the side of thousands of Qantas workers who've had their livelihoods destroyed, or are you on the side of Alan Joyce and Richard Goyder? We'll see whether Senator McKenzie has any credibility when it comes to Qantas or whether she's more worried about her cozy seat in the Chairman's Lounge than closing Alan Joyce's loopholes. It's actually very simple.
The other parts of the bill that the Liberals and Nationals hate aren't even in here. They're being delayed until next year, like helping casuals get secure jobs—they hate that. Helping truck drivers earn enough money so that they don't work themselves to death—they hate that. Ensuring gig workers aren't getting butchered on our roads for $6 an hour—they hate that. Making it easier for unions to investigate wage theft—they hate that. All those things that we desperately want to get done and the Liberals and Nationals hate are successfully delayed until next year. So the part we're voting on today is the part that closes Alan Joyce's labour hire loopholes. So good news! Everyone gets to have their verdict on Alan Joyce's legacy put on the record for all eternity here today. I look forward to Senator McKenzie joining me over on this side of the chamber and voting with us, as she said she would.
For those who aren't familiar with how Qantas has seriously hurt thousands of people through this loophole, let me tell you through the words of their victims. Sarah de Wilt is a flight attendant employed by one of the internal labour hire firms, subsidies, created by Alan Joyce. Qantas has not directly employed a flight attendant since 2008. Instead, they are employed through a web of 17 subsidiaries. Some earn less than half of what directly employed flight attendants earn for the exact same work. Ms de Wilt didn't even learn that she wasn't a Qantas employee until five months on the job. She told the inquiry:
It's quite disheartening, quite confusing, a little bit demoralising, knowing that you're there on the cart doing the same thing. When the fire alarm went off in the bathroom, you were there bringing the emergency equipment and so were they. You are cleaning up the vomit on the floor alongside somebody else. You were doing 19-hour duty and keeping your eyes open and keeping each other awake the same as everyone else, wearing the exact same uniform … I was a little bit blindsided … on my payslip there's a kangaroo and it says 'Qantas' … You can imagine what it would do for unity and morale in the workplace.
You just can't imagine the result. And it isn't just the flight attendants; it's the ground handlers, including the 1,700 that the High Court ruled were illegally sacked. So how can the Liberals and Nationals defend this? What side are you on? Alan Joyce's side or that of Qantas workers and hardworking Australians?
Since Alan Joyce has created this loophole, it has been picked up by others, like BHP. If there is one company in Australia that can afford to pay its people fairly, you would think it's BHP, wouldn't you? It's the biggest, richest company in Australia. Just like Qantas, BHP thinks it's above the law. Just like Qantas, BHP has set up internal labour hire companies that it uses to avoid paying fairly negotiated rates in its workplace agreements. The workers of the company that BHP set up, BHP Operations Services, earn 40 per cent less for doing the exact same work at the exact same mine sites. We took the inquiry to Rockhampton, and we heard directly from BHP and BHP Operations Services workers. Brodie Allen, a mine worker at BHP Blackwater coal mine told us:
I've been coalmining and in the industry for seven years. I've been labour hire the entire time, so I go in and do the same job as everybody else, but I'm paid $40,000 less a year to do the exact same thing.
Brodie has been ripped off $40,000 a year for seven years. BHP is the richest company in Australia. They don't need to rob their workers of their pay. But they keep running a protection racket for those racketeers on the opposite side. They do it because they can and because the Liberals and Nationals let them get away with it.
I know Senator Roberts has been talking about this issue for a long time, and I will give him a great deal of credit for that. But now we get to put our cards on the table. Now we see who really is going to vote for 'same job, same pay' in the mining industry. Senator Canavan is another advocate for the coal industry. I'm very interested in his vote on this as well. This is 'put up or shut up' time when it comes to standing up for mine workers, especially coalmine workers in Central Queensland and the Hunter. Surely, Senator Roberts and Senator Canavan can't stomach hardworking people in their communities being treated like this. Isaac council mayor, Anne Baker, couldn't have said it better. She has 28 coal mines in her region, and she said in the inquiry:
We are actually living a casualisation pandemic …
… … …
labour hire, or a form of casualisation, … should never have been allowed … to be a model of full replacement. We are actually living and breathing this, to the detriment of the viability and the resilience of our community.
To the Nationals opposite, who are supposed to be representatives of regional Australia: here is a regional council with regional workers crying out for this bill. The ball is in your court. Every other employer in the country must be looking at how BHP and Qantas have used this loophole and be asking, 'Why are we playing by the rules?' when the richest employer in the country isn't and the protection racquet of those opposite, in the Liberals and National Party, has been exposed. It's just the big corporate guerillas that are doing this. That's why BHP, through the Minerals Council, have funded the whole campaign against the bill. It's not about small business; it's about the richest and most powerful people in our society doing over working families. So voting against this bill is actually a vote to let the big corporate guerillas and the billionaires play by different rules than the rest of us.
I also want to touch on the other important things that this bill does, which, again, are completely uncontroversial, unlike your one on the ideological extremist at the Minerals Council. It makes an employer intentionally stealing wages from their employee a criminal offence. Just this morning we've seen the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association launch another class action against McDonald's over wage theft. It is endemic. Are the Liberals and Nationals going to vote against that too? We'll soon be finding out, won't we? Because this bill also introduces a new criminal offence of industrial manslaughter, and I want to commend the families of those killed at work who have campaigned tirelessly for this reform. I want to commend Kay Catanzariti, Pam Gurner-Hall and Linda Ralls and many others who have fought so hard for this. Are the Liberals and Nationals going to vote against them as well? Really?
Those opposite say they're tough on crime, but are they going to be tough on intentional industrial manslaughter? This bill makes it easier for democratically elected workplace delegates to do their jobs and to ensure they have the training they need to actually do their jobs properly. Are you going to vote against that too? Make it work better, where people can work together, be tripartite and actually work out how to make a better workplace—are you going to vote against that?
]]>Labor introduced an emergency energy bill relief plan to reduce power bills by $230 per year. The Liberals and Nationals voted against it. Labor invested $10 billion in new affordable housing. The Liberals and Nationals voted against it. Labor introduced laws for 60-day prescriptions, saving people millions of dollars on prescription costs. The Liberals and Nationals voted against it. Labor increased the rate of JobSeeker by $40 a fortnight. The Liberals and Nationals voted against it. Labor set up 300,000 people to go to TAFE for free. We sent them there for free, and the Liberals and Nationals said it was a waste of money. Labor made the biggest investment in bulk-billing in Australian history. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, led the biggest ever attack on bulk-billing when he was the health minister. He had a plan to introduce a GP tax for people to pay every time they saw the doctor.
Now, you've seen the pattern here. Every single week we come here to get more cost-of-living support out to working families, and every single week the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation come here to obstruct. Nowhere is that more obvious than when we talk about wages and conditions at work. We understand there are two parts to the cost of living: how much things cost and how much you earn. When it comes to making energy, medicine, GP visits, child care, TAFE and housing affordable, they oppose all of that. And when it comes to helping Australians get better paying and more secure jobs, they oppose that too.
We had a bill in this place last year that was literally called the secure jobs, better pay bill and the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation opposed it. What was so terrible about it? Why did they vote against it? The bill made it easier for employers and employees to make agreements that would increase wages. It ended the use of old agreements that expired years ago that trapped workers below the minimum wage. It put limits on the use of rolling fixed-term contracts for years at a time. It introduced a right to request flexible work. It made it illegal for employers to ban their workers from talking about their wages. It made it illegal to put up job ads for less than the minimum wage. These are all things the Liberals, Nationals and One Nation voted against.
The shadow workplace minister said:
We can now expect jobs will be lost … and large and small businesses will fold …
What actually happened? We have unemployment at record lows. Female employment and participation are at record highs. New job creation is at a record high. Wage growth is at a record high. So we know for a fact that the steps this government is taking are keeping more Australians in secure work and are delivering higher wages.
We want to go further. We want to close the loopholes that some employers like Qantas and BHP use to keep wages low. One Nation and the Nationals claim to represent coalminers in Queensland and the Hunter. But, at the same time, they are voting to keep the labour hire loophole open.
We saw in the House the member for Flynn, Colin Boyce, vote against same job, same pay for mine workers in his own area. We saw the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, vote against same job, same pay in her own area, abandoning her community. They are all spitting in the face of mine workers who are being ripped off by the richest companies in Australia. Will One Nation and the National senators for Queensland do the same thing when the bill comes here?
Dwayne Arnold, who works through labour hire at the Grosvenor mine and is a fourth-generation mine worker, told the closing loopholes inquiry:
… I'm still paid quite substantially less than the permanent employees. It makes you feel worthless and undervalued when you're doing the same job and getting paid that much less for it …
(Time expired)
]]>The Leader of the Nationals recently said, 'We don't expect nuclear energy in the next decade or so, but we've got till 2050.' This is the essence. They actually don't want to do anything. This whole argument about nuclear power is so they can sit on their hands and pretend they're doing something, rather than supporting investment in renewables, which is what we need to be doing, in line with the commitments this government has made. They don't actually want the effects of a more viable, more efficient and cheaper electricity system. If they did, they would have voted for electricity bill relief. The average family would be $230 worse off this year without Labor's energy price relief plan, which the coalition voted against.
If you do the maths, the analysis of the cost of nuclear power shows that Australians would be lumped with a $387 billion cost burden if nuclear power were to replace the retiring coal-fired power station fleet. This represents a whopping $25,000 cost impost on each Australian taxpayer. Peter Dutton and the opposition need to explain why Australians will be slugged with a $387 billion cost burden for a nuclear energy plan that flies in the face of economics and reason. After nine years of no energy policy and absolute chaos, and rather than finally embracing a clean, cheap, safe and secure transition to a renewable energy future, all the coalition can promise is a multibillion dollar nuclear flavoured energy policy. It's the one thing that unites them. They're thinking: 'It must be a good idea because it unites us! We can slow up clean energy investment. We can slow up a strategy that actually reduces prices. We can keep fooling ourselves we're a party that has policies.'
In fact, they have had policies. They had the first one, the second one, the third one, the fourth one, the fifth one, the sixth one—I'm going to run out of fingers and toes trying to count them all up. In 10 years they kept on adopting and rejecting their own policies because they couldn't get them right. But they decided, because nuclear is not viable in this country, 'We can all agree, because we're not actually going to do it.' That's because who in their right mind would say they were going to spend $387 billion and put a $25,000 cost impost on each Australian taxpayer unless either they had no intention of really doing it or someone else was going to have to bear the price and responsibility down the track?
I did see with a great deal of enjoyment that Barnaby Joyce said he'd be happy to have one in his backyard. He said, 'I would absolutely welcome a nuclear facility, whether it be in my electorate or any electorate around the country.' Well, Deputy President, start asking people in your electorate and every electorate around the country, because they have a very different view about nuclear power. That's not just because of the intrinsic concerns about nuclear power that people have but because it's a waste of money. It's a burden on taxpayers. It's a dead-end policy. Rather than going with clean energy and transitioning to that proposal, those opposite want to do something that is farcical, inappropriate and unable to be achieved.
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