Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Sport and Recreation) Share this | Hansard source

I thought the answer given by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage was extraordinary because the minister did not know the answer to the question so he sought to waffle for approximately five minutes of his response time. But I would like to enlighten the minister as to what is going on in Defence facilities. An email has been circulated, titled ‘Opportunity for paid overtime’, that articulates how personnel are being sought to be security escorts for cleaners at Defence sites after hours and being paid for the overtime. The email states: ‘The security escorts will be required for possibly the next three weeks, Monday to Friday, from 1700 to approximately 2200 hours, with the possibility of some weekend security escorting from 10 o’clock through to six o’clock. Please advise your staff accordingly.’ And it goes on.

But this absolutely ludicrous situation—where Defence Force personnel are being paid overtime, and presumably penalty rates, to escort cleaners—has arisen because the new contractor, Serco Sodexho, has insisted on employing their workforce, as they take over that contract, on AWAs. That has resulted in a number of those cleaners saying, ‘No, we don’t want AWAs; we want an ongoing collective agreement as we have had in the past.’ The contractor has been insistent that AWAs be applied, so of course those qualified cleaners with their security clearances have either not applied for or not been offered a job with the new contractor.

I do not know whether the new contractor did not anticipate the issue of the requirement for security clearances, but I have to say I would commend Defence for that requirement, because they are obviously very conscious of the security requirements. I also have to say I commend the cleaners involved, because they obviously have to take very seriously those security clearances that are provided to them. But it is easy to reflect on the Department of Defence providing this, because it raises the question: why is the Department of Defence willing to pay overtime to Defence personnel, to escort these cleaners, on the back of this issue of whether the contractor pay an AWA or pay a collective agreement? And it leaves me with very little choice but to make the assumption that there is some pressure on that contractor—and, indeed, on Defence—to stick with their line on the AWAs, because it makes no sense at all that there be an imposition on the taxpayer as a result of the additional cost to Defence by virtue of the overtime payments necessary to get these cleaners on-site.

What is going on here is the tail end, or perhaps the ongoing saga, of a dispute that relates to how these workers were transferred over. As the minister said, there is no doubt that Serco Sodexho have come in and won this contract from previous cleaning contractors. In the transfer of the workforce to the new contractors, they have hit a problem with negotiations. A union is involved, the LHMU, which has sought to represent the cleaners and initially had to argue, I think successfully, that the award rate of pay be reflected in the AWA that was being offered. But since that time the workers themselves have wanted to pursue specifically a collective agreement, and it was at that point when negotiations fell apart.

I know that Serco Sodexho do have collective agreements in other places, with other employees. Again, this is further evidence that there must be some pressure by this government to be using these contracts to perpetuate its ideological commitment to AWAs; whereas clearly this problem could be solved if the contractor were willing to negotiate a collective agreement with their workforce and with the union involved. This is prima facie evidence of how ideological this government is in pursuing AWAs. It is not only at the expense of the quality of life and the work experience of qualified and proud cleaners who have done this job for 10 years but at the expense of good management and, I would suggest, of the morale of Defence personnel. (Time expired)