Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Misuse of Market Power) Bill 2017. The effects test is a very necessary change to competition law that will basically make it easier for the ACCC to crack down on anticompetitive behaviour. For too long in this country we have sat back as a parliament while major corporations have been able to abuse and misuse their market power to the detriment of smaller players, to the detriment of primary producers and to the detriment of the Australian people. I commend all of those people and organisations who have worked so hard for so long to bring about this important reform.

I also want to acknowledge the work of my friend and colleague Senator Whish-Wilson, who for a long time has carried the torch on this issue for the Australian Greens. He has advanced this debate and the campaign through his work in this place. As a result of the work he has done, I have no doubt that he contributed significantly to the outcome that I believe we're about to see when this legislation passes through this place.

As I said, there is a range of people, organisations and political parties who support an effects test. It is odd, very odd indeed, given all the people, all the organisations and all the political parties that are lined up in support of an effects test in Australia, that it is the Labor Party who stands alone alongside the Business Council of Australia as a voice against an effects test in this place. How odd. How very odd! The Labor Party voting against a law that is supported by progressive people—a law that actually is progressive, a law that looks after the little guys in their endless fight against big corporations, a law that takes on big business and a law that's good for competition, good for consumers and good for the economy.

How could this be? How could it be that the Labor Party is the sole voice against this legislation? I will tell you how it could be. I have got three letters for you: SDA. The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association—the 'shoppies', as they would be better known to the HR departments of Coles and Woolworths. The shoppies have a good thing going with Coles and Woolworths. They've got a good thing going with Maccas, KFC, Hungry Jack's and a host of others in the retail and fast food industry in this country. This is the good thing they've got going: every time a 16-year-old or 17-year-old signs up for eight hours a week pushing trolleys, stacking shelves or flipping burgers, their employer slips them a membership form for the SDA. It's a regular part of the paperwork: 'Sign here, here and here and you are good to go.' That's right. Those employers unionise these kids the day they get a job.

Mr Acting Deputy President, you might be thinking, 'That's amazing.' You might be thinking that means we live in a workers' paradise. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth, because these kids are just numbers to the shoppies. The shoppies have cynically exploited these kids and others who are part of one of the lowest-paid and most casualised workforces in this country for decades just to get the numbers. The shoppies started trading away penalty rates well before Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull thought it was fashionable—