Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025. Australians know the value of penalty rates. They know what it means to give up time with family, to work through the night or to spend Christmas Day or Easter Sunday or New Year's Eve at work while the rest of the country celebrates. They know what it means to work long hours to get the job done. Penalty rates recognise this sacrifice. This additional pay is an acknowledgement that time away from family, friends, and community comes with sacrifice and should be compensated.

Yet, too often, employers and conservative governments have chipped away at penalty rates, sometimes through industrial tribunals and sometimes through legislation, but usually because big employers and their peak bodies want to flesh out their bottom lines with wage cuts. The workers who bear the consequences of these attacks are concentrated in low-wage, low-security jobs, including in retail, hospitality, the care sector and the health industry. They are women with caring responsibilities and young people trying to survive while studying. They are people with disability and older workers, all of whom face discrimination in the labour market.

Ensuring that employers cannot rob their workers of penalty and overtime rates is very important. The Greens have consistently defended penalty rates because we know they are not just about fairness; they are about survival. For many low-paid workers, penalty rates make the difference between paying the rent and going without. They make the difference between putting food on the table and missing meals. The Australian Greens support this bill because we know the importance of protecting workers' wages and conditions. But let's be clear: this bill is a defensive measure by Labor aimed at protecting existing arrangements from employer tax rather than advancing new rights for workers fit for a 21st-century labour market and modern life. This is a minimum protective step, not the leap forward that we need for our changing workplaces and workforce.

At a time when insecure work is widespread, the real value of wages is under pressure, and nothing is in the way of employers pocketing the vast productivity benefits of artificial intelligence, returning little if nothing to workers. It's not enough to merely hold the line in this changing circumstance. Workers deserve stronger and expanded protections in a changing labour market and economy. The Labor government has the opportunity this parliament to work with the Greens to deliver real benefits to workers—to move forward. And they could start by working with the Greens to introduce a reasonable right to work from home two days a week for Australian workers.

To this end, I foreshadow second reading amendment on sheet 3411, circulated in my name. It calls on the government to legislate a right to work from home for up to two days a week where it's reasonable to do so. Under this new right, employers would be required to positively consider such requests and may only refuse a request if it would make the performance of the worker's role seriously impractical or impossible. We're calling on the government to work with us to deliver this new right for workers. We have the numbers to deliver this improvement for all workers in Australia. All that is standing in the way is Labor's ambition.

Work-from-home rights in Australia are long overdue. There is wide public support and very strong demand for this change. Its benefits stack up for employers and for employees. Australian workers are doing it tough at the moment. They are on average contributing six weeks unpaid overtime a year to their workplace. They are bringing up kids and battling the cost of living and have adopted all kinds of productivity enhancing technology over the last 20 years. For many Australian workers, talking about productivity sounds like yet another push to work faster and harder by their bosses. In fact, in the last 10 years we've seen the rate of profit increase at twice the rate of wages, despite all the adaptation that Australian workers and their families have done.

The pandemic showed us new ways of working are possible. Up to 40 per cent of Australian workers transferred to working from home during COVID. We saw that many of us can do our jobs from home, saving money and time and getting the flexibility which, in the words of the Productivity Commission, has been fundamentally positive in unlocking value to be shared between workers and their firms. The work-from-home trend has outlived the pandemic. The old rhythms of eight-to-four or nine-to-five in a central workplace are no longer the reality for millions of Australians.

Public opinion polls and extensive research on work from home show us there is strong support and positive benefits to come from it. Most workers know they are at least as productive at home as they are in the workplace, and many of their employers agree. Most workers want a hybrid model, where they work some days at home. The evidence tells us that the average cut in their commuting time is more than an hour a day, and there's research that tells us that workers split this saving with their employer—half to the employer, and half to themselves—and they increase their working time and add to their personal rest and recreation. Working from home is one way in which we can share the benefits of work between workers and their employers more fairly. Lots of people are already doing it and many more want to.

The latest surveys tell us that two-thirds of Australian workers want work that is hybrid in its organisation. Workers say that 60 per cent of their bosses permit hybrid working arrangements. With most workers covered by the national Fair Work Act, the Greens want to see a sensible national approach. One state can't do this and reach workers outside state and local government. Our workplaces are mostly regulated at that national level through the Fair Work Act, which means a national law, a national approach, on working from home makes sense.

We propose that Australians have a legal right to work from home where it's practical and reasonable to do so. This new right to work from home fits well alongside the existing right to request flexibility, but it gives a stronger right to ask to work from home. It's only if a job is really quite difficult to do in that arrangement that workers would be knocked back. At present, only workers who are pregnant, are parents of school-aged kids, are carers, have a disability, are over 55 or are experiencing domestic violence can request flexibility like the right to work from home. We think this right should be available to everyone who can do their work reasonably from home.

Numerous research studies have confirmed what workers already know: flexible work, including working from home, is here to stay and can deliver benefits for productivity, our families and our society. The savings on commuting time and transport costs are real. Recent research reports an overall decline in commuting times of between 17 and 25 per cent for those who do any work from home. This means more time for other activities such as more work, care, exercise, housework and family time, as well as dollar savings. That means positive impacts on health, wellbeing and family life. Work from home can improve gender equity through the encouragement of more men to more evenly pick up domestic work and share it more equally with their partners at home.

The benefits are vast, and not just for workers; they can be very considerable for employers, too. According to the Productivity Commission, work from home can increase productivity because employees have a better ability to manage their time and to concentrate and because they are better rested due to less time commuting. Work from home can also boost participation in the labour market, especially for women and carers. It can help to grow the recruitment pool and retain staff, and it's been shown to lower labour turnover.

Work from home also has benefits for the climate. Transport is one of Australia's fastest-growing sources of emissions. Giving workers the right to work from home two days a week would significantly cut commuting emissions, ease congestion in our cities, reduce demand for road expansion and lower the cost of living by cutting fuel and transport costs.

Working from home, of course, won't work in all jobs, no more than many other conditions in different industries and occupations, which vary according to the characteristics of the job. Our proposal recognises that not all jobs can be done remotely—jobs like nursing, cleaning, construction or being a pilot. You can't do any of those jobs from home. Differences in working conditions for different jobs are already common. For example, firefighters are provided with PPE but can't work from home, while clerical workers don't get PPE but might be able to work from home some of the time. Their awards and agreements reflect and deal with their different realities. But, where a job can be done from home, workers should have the right to request it and to have that request granted unless there's a genuine, demonstrable reason that it can't be done that way.

Our proposal is for a minimum of two days at home, and some employers will go further. They're already going further, where it suits them. A minimum of two days reflects the reality of what many workplaces are already doing. It's about making sure those rights are protected in law. If employers want to arrange more flexible working arrangements, we would welcome that, and many employees already have arrangements to work from home and are reaping the benefits, along with their bosses and their communities. This right may not affect some workers, but it will give them the confidence that their right to work from home cannot be arbitrarily removed. Most importantly, this right gives workers who don't currently have the chance to work from home some backing to ask for it where it's reasonable in their role and some backup if their employer refuses to consider their request, along with some confidence that it won't be arbitrarily removed.

In conclusion, recent surveys tell us that 64 per cent of all Australians back a right to work from home and only 17 per cent oppose it. This includes three-quarters of Labor voters and more than a majority of coalition voters, 51 per cent of those in Australia at present. Nearly a third of Australian workers already work from home, typically, sometime in an average week. It's time to create a generalised right to work from home for all Australian workers who are able to do it in a practical and reasonable way, where their jobs do not inherently restrict the possibility.

So the Greens support this bill, but we do so with open eyes. We know this is not a bold reform, but it's an essential defensive step to protect workers, some of them our lowest paid and many of them women, from going backwards—but it doesn't help them go forwards. Australians deserve better. They deserve workplace laws that reflect and deal with the realities of people's lives now. They deserve the right to work from home where it's reasonable, and we need a sensible national approach. It's time that Labor did it, and the first step is to support our second reading amendment. The Greens are ready to work with Labor to implement this right, which so many Australians are seeking immediately and will benefit from, as will their employers. We could do this, this week.