Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Canavan, today more than 35 per cent of all workers are in casual jobs. That is one-third, and it is growing trend. Casualisation certainly is a global phenomenon, but we lead the world on this front, and there are social and economic consequences that, unfortunately, we do not spend enough time in this place talking about. In the OECD, only Spain, with a higher proportion of seasonal work in agriculture, outranks Australia when it comes to casual employment. In hospitality—a growing sector—two-thirds of our employees are casual. Forty per cent of all employees in the retail industry are casuals. More than four million employees are engaged as casuals on short-term contracts in labour hire or on independent contracts.

In the past, casual work was always considered a stepping stone to permanent employment. It was seen as something you did for a period of time while you nailed down some form of permanent employment. It was quite often seen as a phase that young people, students, those first entering the workplace and young workers would pass through on their way to some kind of a more secure, permanent job with rights and protections that many of us take for granted. But we are moving beyond that now. We are moving to a space where there are entire industries that are casualised—like food processing, hospitality, retail and tourism. Unless we stand up in this place and in workplaces across the country, we will not start winning back the jobs that you can count on.

Employees across Australia know this. Employees in companies such as Smith's Snackfood Company in Queensland know this. Just today, staff at the company's Brisbane warehouse lodged a claim for protected industrial action. They are holding a sit-in to support the rights of the many casual workers whom they work alongside. These workers, who are peacefully occupying the lunch room today, want nothing more than fairness and equality for all the workers on site. The entire idea that there are somehow going to be two classes of workers—those who are permanent and those who are casual—working side-by-side in the same workplace, producing the same work for different pay and different conditions is simply something that they felt was unfair. At Smith's Snackfood Company, as at workplaces right across this country, permanent employees want to make sure that casual workers have the same conditions that they have.

And why wouldn't Australian employers also want workers enjoying more secure jobs? Nobody earns their salary or their pay in a vacuum. In fact, many of the people in casual jobs spend much of their income in our local communities, in our local environments. We need to remember the best lessons of history in this space. Economic growth is strongest when powered by the income gains of low- and middle-income earners. One case study is the United States. Since an aggressive effort to bust unions began in earnest in the 1980s, household wages there have stagnated and have now slumped. In the US in recent decades the real average income of households has been declining. Losing workplace conditions means losing household spending. The heavy debt taken on by many households in response leaves the entire economy vulnerable to crises such as the banking collapses that have wreaked havoc on the Western world. The best evidence for this is the global financial crisis.

In the Labor Party, and also for our friends in the trade union movement, protecting workers is who we are. It is in our DNA. We will always protect the achievements of Australian workers by fighting against their rights being ripped away either directly or by stealth. Fundamentally, there is a belief—which I hope is shared across the chamber—in the dignity of work. Whom are we protecting? The large number of casual jobs that we are talking about today are held by women; by our youngest workers and by Australia's newest arrivals—migrant men and women who have come here to Australia, trying to make it a better place. They are often the most vulnerable in our society. We in this chamber remain incredibly privileged. We have an incredible opportunity to be a voice for those who are voiceless. When it comes to the growing trend of the casualisation of the workplace, we in this chamber have a responsibility to stand up and say, 'Enough is enough.'