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

The shoppies started trading away penalty rates well before Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull thought it was fashionable, and they did so just to get the numbers. The shoppies, according to no less of an authority than the full bench of the Fair Work Commission, signed off on a workplace agreement that resulted in more than half of Coles workers being paid less than the minimum rate. That's right. Let's be clear about what happened there. The shoppies got its members a worse deal than what they would have gotten had there been no deal at all, just to get the numbers—numbers in preselection, numbers in this parliament and numbers on the floor at the national conference of the ALP, all so they can push their retrograde social agenda.

The shoppies are a relic of a bygone era in this country. They're a relic of the old Catholic right that kept the Labor Party so divided for the better part of 20 years. The shoppies carry the ghost of Bob Santamaria, and that ghost stalks the halls of this building to this very day as a result of the way the shoppies conduct themselves. They are an anchor on the ALP and a handbrake on progressive politics in this country. Every time Labor tries to go forward, there are the shoppies holding them back. We could have had marriage equality five years ago in this country if it weren't for the shoppies. We could have had truly needs-based education funding in this country—the original Gonski—if it weren't for the shoppies. In all likelihood, we would have an effects test years ago if it weren't for the shoppies. When something like the effects test comes up, the shoppies' allegiances are not with their members and not with the broader public; they are with the companies that their business model is built upon, because what's bad for Coles and Woollies is bad for the shoppies.

So it is that Labor stands alone in this chamber today. I have got no doubt this sticks in the craw of a good number of Labor senators who see this legislation for what it is: good law and a necessary legislative change. Bound as they are by factional pacts, those Labor senators will vote against it today.

Those who defend the shoppies by saying that its members should organise to change their union if they have issues fall for the same faulty logic as those who support individual agreements. There is a power imbalance. How on earth is a 16- or 17-year-old who is pushing trolleys, stacking shelves or flipping burgers meant to overhaul the political-industrial complex that is the shoppies in this country? I have a short answer for you: they can't. That's why some have set up an alternative union—a real union that's got its members' interests at heart rather than being obsessed with what people get up to in their bedrooms.

The Retail and Fast Food Workers Union are taking on the shoppies, and strength to their arm and good luck to them. I hope they break the shoppies wide open and end this rotten situation in our country and within the Australian Labor Party that is doing no-one any good. Strong unions are good for this country. Strong unions have delivered the weekend to Australia. They've brought us health and safety protections and minimum wage laws. But, when a union uses its strength to cosy up to big companies like Coles, Woolies, KFC, Macca's and Hungry Jack's and screw over its workers, someone needs to call it out. That's what I'm doing here in the Senate today.

The SDA is a shocking advertisement for unionism to the hundreds of thousands of young workers who start their first job in retail or fast food only to find out their union is the reason they're getting screwed and paid below the award. The SDA gives unions a bad name. It will put off some young Australians from being union members for life.

This is a good law. It's law that the Australian Greens have led the campaign for over many years in this place. We've advanced the arguments, we've worked closely with a range of small-business stakeholders and we stand here today and will vote accordingly and proudly for an effects test. We stand here today proudly opposed to the unholy alliance of big corporations, the shoppies and the Labor Party in this place. I say again to the good senators of the Labor Party—and there are many of those good senators in the ALP—have a think about your position on this. Stop allowing yourselves to be manipulated by the SDA. Stop allowing yourselves to be directed by one of the great forces of conservativism in this country—the SDA.