Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate for its indulgence. We've heard about closing loopholes today, with questions about closing loopholes. Isn't it just amazing that we've seen that the opposition—the Nationals and the Liberal Party—who we know are for low wages, are also for no wages? I'm going to explain that: they're for low wages to make sure that aviation workers and miners don't get an increase in pay, and they're for no wages because they want to make sure that gig workers don't get a decent go. What we've seen is that they've voted to delay minimum standards that will save the lives of gig workers; they've voted to trap permanent casuals in insecure work for longer; they've voted to delay the criminalisation of wage theft; and they've voted to delay the introduction, ultimately, of a road haulage proposition. These sorts of delays are going to affect some of the most disadvantaged people in our community, including people who are literally dying on our roads.

Solutions and propositions have been put by Peter Anderson, the National Secretary of the Australian Road Transport Industrial Organisation. You would have thought they'd back him. He says: 'Our unity shows how critical it is for the federal parliament to pass reform into law to give all industry participants a fighting chance.' Warren Clark, the CEO of the National Road Transport Association, says: 'We need change that bolsters our viability, builds productivity and enhances safety for everyone.' Rod Hannifey, from the National Road Freighters Association, said: 'We need to make sure drivers can come home safely at the end of every trip.' That's why we need all the Senate recommendations enacted without delay, going to the issues and the recommendations that have come into legislation for the future here.

What's clear is that we've got people dying on our roads, we've got people dying on our streets and we've got food delivery workers losing their lives. We've got people not receiving at least some minimum standards where they have the capacity to get a reasonable income and a flexible income—because that's what the propositions are for: people on employee-like arrangements.

Unlike those opposite, I have actually worked, and I'm very proud to say I've worked, for the largest small-business organisation in the country. They won't like hearing this, but it's actually the Transport Workers Union of Australia. I've represented tens of thousands of owner-drivers—single operators. In fact, if I brought all the small-business organisations together, the businesses they represent, which usually aren't that small, wouldn't come up to the number of small businesses that I've had the privilege of representing in the years of my previous life as a union official.

What they're saying, and what the industry's saying, is that they want to make sure that there are standards for people who are out on our roads, that there's fairness and that there's not a B team, an A team, a D team or a Z team. They're saying there should be standards for everybody; that everybody not meeting those standards is culpable; and that good employers should be able to operate in a competitive market which means you don't have to kill people or see people losing their lives because of the systems that are put in place by powerful organisations above them or because of the pressure of markets where there is no regulation. To come here and yet again delay the opportunity for us to make sure that we can rectify the horrific consequences that are happening in that industry is absently appalling.

Then we go to the delay in criminalising wage theft. There's not a loophole that those people opposite don't want to keep open. They want gig workers to get nothing. They want road haulage to be in an industry position just like the position for gig workers. Companies have come together and said that gig workers should have a fair say. Even gig companies are signing up. But those across the way can't. The opposition—the Nats and the Libs—just can't sign up to it, because they are fundamentally ideologically opposed to any concept that good people can come together, whether they be businesses, unions, workers or owner-drivers—who are small businesses—and say there is a solution for working people. When you get a solution for working people, you get productivity boosts, you get fair competition and it means you don't have to rip your own employees off or make a decision to leave the industry. The decisions that have been made here and these delays will have direct and fundamental impacts on people's lives.