Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution to the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017 that's before us this evening. Before I do that, though, I want to say that I am disappointed in some of the comments that Senator Williams has made, particularly when he described Australian local workers that he says didn't want to work in the local abattoir perhaps because they were drunk or on drugs. That is an absolute slur on the character of Australian workers. In fact, the visa inquiry which I chaired—and Senator McKenzie was the deputy chair—found quite the contrary in Queensland. I am very disappointed that Senator Williams, who normally does stick up for workers in this place, would make those slurs to suggest that these local workers were too drunk or high on drugs and not wanting to work in an abattoir. That is a slur against Australian local workers. I would ask that at some point he withdraw that.

I also want to draw Senator Williams's attention to the visa inquiry that Senator McKenzie and I did. There's no need to look at a joint inquiry. We did a Senate inquiry some two years ago that was set up under a reference that Labor put forward where we saw truly shocking exploitation of workers. I have to say that, as a longstanding trade union official before I came to the Senate, I made this remark during committee processes: I thought I had seen all the exploitation there was to see. I can certainly tell the Senate and those listening that the evidence I heard truly shocked me—Baiada, D'VineRipe, the abattoirs—it went on and on and on. And it wasn't just visa workers. We saw Australian or local workers displaced and visa workers put in their place, because they represented a cheap form of labour. It is absolutely unacceptable to what we in Australia stand for, and that is a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.

I'm pleased that this bill is with us, but it's taken way too long and it does not go far enough. Certainly, I'm sure, that is the view of all of my Labor colleagues; it simply doesn't go far enough. We found in the Senate inquiry that I chaired that it isn't just visa workers working in a particular segment of our labour market who are exploited. I'd suggest we don't need to scratch the surface very far at all to see that there's exploitation of workers in this country across nearly all industries. Unless they are well-regulated or well-unionised, exploitation is rife. That is a sad fact for a country that at Federation set some truly groundbreaking laws and initiatives when it comes to protecting vulnerable workers or all workers. We were one of the first countries to put in place the eight-hour day. Those are traditions we ought be proud of. Certainly, in terms of protecting workers, we should continue to do that, and this bill doesn't go far enough.

In the inquiry that we led in the Senate, we did focus particularly on visa categories which gave workers work rights. I'm not going to canvas the range of visas that do that, but all of those visas need proper regulations where the work is an incidental part of the visa, which it is for students coming here to work, or where it is someone on a 457 visa who is specifically here to work. What we heard in the committee was that the exploitation of foreign workers, and, indeed, local workers, meant that other programs we had where we particularly involved our neighbours in Timor-Leste—where those seasonal workers were invited over in a very targeted, well-protected program—tended to tail off, because foreign workers were being completely exploited. This means that employers now don't go to the trouble of setting up the seasonal worker programs that are primarily set up to enable workers from countries like Timor-Leste to come here and get that experience, to get some money to send back to their families. They were a reliable pool of workers, but those sorts of well-regulated programs are now under threat because of this open exploitation of foreign workers.

We also know that it's not just exploitation and the loss of significant wages. The underpayments at 7-Eleven are shameful, and I don't think anyone in this parliament disputes that. Millions of dollars were ripped off young workers. Imagine workers being forced to pay money back in this day and age! Employers were falsifying the wage record, and if you earned $100 for the day—although you'd have to be a very lucky 7-Eleven worker to get that much—your employer then clawed back at least half of that, and often more than that. Those workers were caught in a situation where they had to work more hours because they simply weren't earning enough, because the employer was ripping them off or was not paying them at all or was putting them on training shifts that didn't attract money. On and on and on it went.

In Queensland, the meat workers' union gave really strong evidence. There was a myth that local workers didn't want abattoir jobs, that they were simply hard to get; however, the meat workers' union went to towns, held town hall meetings, got young people to come along, got the employers from the abattoirs to come along, and they saw firsthand that in fact there was a pool of young workers. And not just young workers, but a pool of workers of all ages who really were prepared to work in an abattoir. They required some skilling and they required the vaccinations, as do foreign workers, but the employers simply didn't pick them up.

The meat workers' union didn't just leave it at this initial run-through in Queensland with employers to show that in country towns there actually were workers who wanted to do abattoir work. The union got commitments from the employers that they would take on these workers who had expressed an interest, and they went back some months later to find that only a very small proportion of those workers had been taken on. It was obvious to me, certainly, because of my former experience as a trade union official, that the competitive part of the meat industry, the abattoir industry, which is the boning room, was absolutely full of visa workers. Why? Because that is where competition is tough; that is where wages are contributing to profit levels. The more you ripped off foreign workers by paying them piece rates, which simply did not exist in the awards, or just ripped them off, then the bigger the profit margin was.

The employers tried to run this ridiculous argument that didn't hold water at all, saying how this was a particular skill area and required a certain amount of training. If that was the case, they had a supply of local workers who were ready and willing to be skilled up. But really, when it came down to it, when you took all the fluff and nonsense away from what the employers were saying, this was the area where you could really exploit foreign workers. You could pay them the award and not the enterprise agreement, because you were using a labour hire company. You could completely undercut the rates of pay and, therefore, enhance your profit. And what we know, through the meat industry, is that those workers weren't even getting the award rates of pay. You had the situation where the meat industry had negotiated enterprise agreements in consultation with the employer, the employer had agreed to pay X amount of dollars—particular rates for boners; particular rates across the rest of the abattoir—and yet in almost 100 per cent of cases we saw that the boning room in particular was the room where abattoir after abattoir—