Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to stand very proudly with the Oaky North coalminers, a group of people who have been locked out from their workplace for far too long. I'm very pleased that today we're joined in the gallery by a delegation of these miners from Central Queensland who have been locked out of their workforce by Glencore, a Swiss based multinational, for 210 days. I think that is we're up to now—well over six months.

There are a lot of people out there who don't necessarily understand what a lockout is. There is a misconception that these workers have actually gone out on strike and that it's their own choice that they're outside the gates at the moment, unable to work and not being paid by their employer. In fact, a lockout is when an employer, like this multinational company, refuses to negotiate with its workforce and instead says, 'You're not turning up to work today. We're not going to pay you; we're literally going to starve you out of the workplace until you give in to our unreasonable demands.' That is what is happening in Central Queensland right now and that is what is happening in far too many workplaces right around this country, under the noses of the Turnbull government.

As I said, this dispute involves Glencore, a Swiss based mining giant which pays not a single dollar in tax to the Australian people. They get to mine Australian resources—and, sure, they might play royalties on those. Those are the payments to the Australian people for digging up our resources. But they do not pay a single dollar in tax to the Australian taxpayer out of all of the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that they make in profit. That's the kind of corporate citizen we're talking about here.

So it's no surprise that, when it came to sitting down and negotiating with these mining workers and their unions over 210 days ago, they refused to do so. This has been their practice, and increasingly it is the practice of other mining giants in Central Queensland: to refuse to negotiate properly, to insist on unreasonable demands, to exclude unions from the workplace and to stop the workers and their unions from negotiating with the employer about major workplace changes, like redundancies and changes to rosters, which impact on people's earnings—all sorts of major changes that have a massive impact on people's working lives and their incomes. Glencore has consistently refused to do that and instead has forced these workers out and is refusing to pay them—and while they are bringing in labour hire to backfill those jobs.

Unlike, I think, any member of the government, whether they be ministers, local members or local senators, unlike those members on the other side of this chamber, I have actually been out to the picket line near Tieri in Central Queensland to meet with these workers, and I met with them again as recently as last week in Rockhampton. We've had a number of shadow ministers on the Labor side who have been willing to go out and actually meet with these workers, despite the fact that in some cases our people live interstate. But these workers, who have been locked out for so long, are still waiting for a single representative of the Queensland LNP to turn up and come to talk to them. That's how interested they are in what is going on out there.

But, if they had visited the picket line and met with these workers, they would know that this dispute has never been about money. It has never been about these workers asking for a pay rise. They have made it very clear from the very beginning that this is not about more pay. Their main concern is about the security of their employment. What this dispute has come to after 210 days of these workers being locked out of the workplace is the company insisting on a measure that will make it even easier to casualise their workforce—to get rid of permanent workers, like the people who are locked out, and to bring in casuals, contractors and labour hire.

Senator Cash, it's unfortunate that you have to leave here now, because I know you've been very vocal on this dispute. You've said outrageous slurs about these mining workers but you've never gone and met with these people, and you're not even prepared to stay in here for another five minutes and listen to what I have to say now. That is the cowardice and the disrespect that we're seeing over and again from Senator Cash and other members of this government.

If Senator Cash had bothered to go out and listen to these workers she'd also know about the immense hurt that has been inflicted by both the company and the government in this dispute. I have met with families who are literally on the brink of breaking up because of the financial pressure they are under. It is turning families against families, because some families have had to make the choice that they can't afford to stay out any longer, while others are still staying out. But, of course, Senator Cash and no-one else from this government are interested in that. The reason we know they're not interested is that not only are they stepping in and forcing Glencore to come to the negotiating table but they're out there feeding lies and misinformation about these workers to their friends in the media.

I was disgusted last year to see Senator Cash out there in the media feeding lines about what these workers were allegedly saying, and calling them child rapists—she came in here and accused these workers of being child rapists and accused people like me of defending child rapists. We are yet to see a single piece of evidence that backs up the claims that these mining workers are doing what Senator Cash said they have been doing.

The government won't step in and force Glencore to the negotiating table. Instead, what they will do is line up with Glencore—back them in—and come in here and cast outrageous aspersions on these mining workers, who are doing nothing more than stand up for their right to hang on to a permanent job. I would have thought that's something that every Australian government supports, but apparently not this government.

This is a pattern of behaviour, both from big mining companies in Central Queensland and from this government. If you go to Central Queensland, you will see that the use of labour hire, casualisation and contract work is absolutely rampant right across the region. It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to hold down the permanent jobs that allow them to feed their families, to get home loans and to build financial security. This government continue to turn a blind eye. They do absolutely nothing about it and they actually cheer on the companies who are doing the wrong thing.

I think that's a really good example of the fact that the LNP is consistently failing regional Queensland when it comes to jobs. This week, as usual, we've seen Senator Canavan and some of his colleagues out there trying to talk up Adani and saying that Labor is against jobs in Central Queensland. What absolute rot. If they want to have a look in the mirror and see what they're doing or not doing about jobs in Central Queensland, that would tell them the real story. They continue to turn a blind eye to labour hire exploitation, they continue to turn a blind eye to casualisation and contract labour, and they continue to do absolutely nothing about creating new jobs for the people who are unemployed in Central Queensland.

I have almost lost count of the number of different million-dollar and billion-dollar programs that this government has concocted to try and buy votes in Central Queensland and keep their LNP members afloat, but none of these funds have actually spent any money or created one single job. Here are just a small handful. We have the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, which I and others have started call the 'no actual infrastructure fund'. Nearly three years on, with a $5 billion fund that was supposed to create jobs in North Queensland and northern Australia, and not a single job has been created in Queensland and not a single project has been funded. We have the Regional Jobs and Investment Package. It was announced over 18 months ago, and still not a single cent nor a single job has been delivered to regional Queensland. We have the $272 million Regional Growth Fund announced in May last year. Nine months on, and the coalition have not even released their guidelines for funding, let alone actually funded a project. Perhaps the most galling of all was the revelation on the weekend that a fund that had been set up to provide support for disadvantaged regional communities and start job projects is being funnelled off to support Liberal Party members and Liberal Party electorates in some of the wealthiest parts of this country. That is the level of disrespect and disregard that this government and their Queensland LNP members have for regional Queensland. They like to get out there and talk tough and pick a mining project and get behind it—or pretend to get behind it—but, when it actually comes to the crunch, they stand idly by while these big mining companies are casualising their workforces and bringing in labour hire, and the government can't spend a single dollar out of funds they've actually established to create jobs in regional Queensland.

In conclusion, I think that this dispute at Glencore and at Oaky North is a very, very good example of the fundamental difference that exists between the LNP in Queensland and the Labor Party. On the one hand, you've got the LNP in regional Queensland led by Senator Canavan, backed in by the member for Capricornia and the member for Flynn, doing absolutely nothing. They want to give a another tax cut to multinationals like Glencore, who already don't pay any tax, and in the meantime they are standing by, cheering them on as these companies casualise the jobs that actually are there. They cast slurs on working people with absolutely no evidence to back it up and they are incapable of creating a single new job from any of funds that they have created.

On the other hand, you've got Labor. We have consistently stood with these workers who have come to visit us here today. We've brought in commitments already about cracking down on labour hire, casualisation and the termination of enterprise agreements. We have committed to funds for tourism infrastructure and a range of new jobs. There is a very big difference. (Time expired)