Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

We have a mandate. I've just seen Senator Sheldon come into the Senate. He spent a lifetime trying to resolve some of these issues, because he saw firsthand how unfair it is in a workplace where one group of workers, no doubt having the benefit of a union-negotiated agreement, which the fantastic Transport Workers Union would have negotiated for them, and then a whole lot of other workers come in on a lower rate of pay. We're going to do something about this. As I mentioned, Minister Burke is on the job. He's been doing nothing else since he came into this job six months ago but trying to fix the problem and create a fairer workplace.

Currently, under the Fair Work Act—and some people could describe it currently as the 'Unfair Work Act'—a labour hire employee and a directly employed employee may be engaged under different industrial instruments. As Senator Urquhart would know, that's code for a lower rate of pay for somebody coming in as a labour hire employee. I'm sure that over her wonderful career she would have dealt with these types of problems and, my guess is, successfully sorted them out. But you can't sort them out everywhere. You need industrial relations legislation to do that, and that's what the Labor Party is about. In those circumstances, we've seen workers doing the same job, undertaking the same work, on a vastly different set of wages and conditions. Not only is that unfair; it also creates tensions in the workplace. If people are doing the same job and they're on a different set of terms and conditions, naturally, those people will be dissatisfied.

The government acknowledges that there may be, from time to time, legitimate uses for labour hire, such as instances where employees use labour hire to provide surge capacity or important expertise that is not available within its own workforce. So we're not saying ban all labour hire. But the proposition is that, if you're doing the same job, you should be getting the same rate of pay.

Because of all those distractions, I've not had a chance to address some of the provisions in this bill. I want to do that in the remaining time I have. This bill is targeted at prospective contracts or arrangements entered into by the employer, namely the labour hire employer, with another person, described as the host employer, for a labour hire employee for the labour hire employer to perform work for the host employer.

The first observation the government would make about this proposed legislation is that there is a lack of clarity and practicality regarding the application of equal pay obligations. These include obligations that apply from day one and do not address situations where, for example, a labour hire employee is moving from host to host, and there is only one civil remedy provision, which is drafted in a manner that is not consistent with the way underpayments are ordinarily dealt with under the Fair Work Act. So it's introducing a whole lot of new concepts which are not consistent with the way a worker would ordinarily expect to prosecute a case if they felt they had been disadvantaged as a result of provisions in their workplace. This is likely to lead to ambiguity, and the bill could give rise to unintended consequences if legislated in this current form.

Again, I make the offer to Senator Roberts: if you are fair dinkum about trying to resolve some of these issues at the workplace, come and sit down at the minister and his staff, and let's start correcting all those issues that arose under the life of the previous government.

The bill is targeted only at labour hire in specific sectors based on award coverage, namely—the Black Coal Mining Industry Award, the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award, the Firefighting Industry Award, the Maritime Offshore Oil and Gas Award, the Seagoing Industry Award, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Enterprise Award, and there is a provision for the minister to add more via a legislative instrument. The bill does not deal with outsourcing or any other arrangements.